Apple laptop is working; able to do real, actual work when I claim to work from home now. Unfortunately getting to this point cost me 2 solid days of coding.
Last night, stayed up way too late discovering why you can't actually watch Mad Men and get real work at the same time.
This morning woke up and ate the beef brisket I made in the crock pot. It was delicious. Ate roughly 3 days worth or servings. Its been hours. Experiencing strange combination of being concurrently sick, full, and hungry.
Ordered what should be the last few bricks for the PA Lego mosaic. Unless I miscounted.
Need haircut badly.
Dumbass subaru dealer hasn't gotten back to me to schedule appointment for the STI. Need some gay ass inspection to renew my tabs this time. And the trunk is still broken.
Made the mistake of running uphill for 31 minutes during my last visit to the gym. Its been four days. Calves are still sore.
Time is going by too fast. I wanted to be about 3 times as productive in February. Have not done nearly enough skiing; all trips got postponed. Trying to convince myself to let my personal assistant drive the STI. I'm pretty sure she'll get in an accident the first time the turbo kicks in while the wheel is turned.
Behind at work. Need to get project done. Sprint planning in a few days. This is the last month of my sentence as Scrum Master. After March, I am free.
There is no soda machine in my apartment.
I need caffeine.
[Edit]
Homeland Security (DHS) Coast Guard (USCG) Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). National Guard. Secret Service (USSS) . Agent. Air marshal. Red Cross (???). United Nations. Botnet Malware Trojan Rootkit Phishing Cyber attack China (seriously? China??? like billions of people live there you fuckheads!) Worm DDOS 2600 Airport Metro Airplane jet cessna turboprop puddle jumper black out brown out delays cancelled bridge dock port power outbreak avian flue h5n1 symptoms pandemic sick swine infection vaccine agriculture viral haemorrhagic fever.
I just wrote all those out to say Fuck You, Homeland Security.
Fun Fact: according to the comments of the news story, 2600 is an ancient phone-hacking term.
[Edit]
Oh shit. I don't know what a caucus is, but apparently I have to show up at 9:30 in the fucking moring to vote for Ron Paul. Bleh.
http://rp2012.org/wacaucusinfo/
[Edit]
TODO: http://hottubboats.com/
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
The Venusian Falcon
The third shipment of Legos for my Penny-Arcade Lego mosaic is on its way. This is not the last, however, because this time there are three types of pieces that became unavailable for purchase between the time I planned the mosaic, and now. I have to order them from the extended line. Pain in the ass. The likelihood of me turning this into a commercial venture is growing dimmer; I can't set up a website or some kind of distribution agreement if the base materials take 3 weeks to get here and I can't even be certain the parts I need will be available. So...I guess more on this subject near the end of March.
My parents continue to call every week. Most of my free time is between 10pm and 2am. So...there's that.
Some people discovered a new planet called GJ1214b that is similar to Earth and covered in water. Actually, we knew about the planet already, and the discovery was merely the water. I don't really care about those kinds of details. What I do care about is Venus. Why Venus? Because a few days ago when I was reading about GJ1214b I got sidetracked by a wikipedia binge that mostly revolved around Venus. More on that in a sec. First, though, lets talk about GJ1214b. What's interesting about it--or one thing, anyway--is that it is 40 light years away. I was telling a girl about this and she asked how far away that was, like whether or not it was in our solar system. I stared at her dumbfounded. I haven't been that dumbstruck by a question since the time Hot Lego Girl asked if brussel sprouts were a vegetable. I explained to her that light from the sun reaches pluto in 25 minutes, poor pluto that isn't even a planet, and by the way I am real mad at the dumbass astronomers who allegedly named two other planetary bodies after characters from a horrible, awful, blasphemous tv show called Xena Warrior Princess where girls run around in "armor" that shows cleavage. Let me explain something to you: armor that shows cleavage isn't armor. If I can see the tops of your boobs, I can stick a knife through them into your heart. So yeah, I told her this. This might be why I am still single. I think the war on ignorant costume armor designers is a another war that I have to give up. It will be tough though. I am deeply offended by the retarded, completely unrealistic, cleavage-showing femenine armor that always appears on tv, not because of some bullshit about sending the wrong message to girls (wearing less and playing with swords is something that I'd like all girls to learn about), but because it is so unrealistic as to be a parody, and it makes guys who like those shows pathetic chumps. Watching a girl swing a sword against multiple opponents all while her boobs are popping out of some metal sequins is akin to watching a version of Fast and the Furious where a classic, unaltered Station Wagon outraces a Ferarri and a Lotus Elise in the quater mile. Anyway.
I've known about Venus all my life--oh its that planet that is super hot because of the greenhouse effect (our coal plants are working tirelessly to bring us as close to that as is possible here on earth) and we've only managed to get probes there. I always imagined this dark, hellish place with things glowing in reds and purples and dark greens, and I imagined every thing was murky and hazy and hard to see because of these "gasses." Wrong.
The real venus, which I've only recently become aware of, is, in fact, beautiful. At least, to me. I want to go there. First of all, if you were just hanging out in space and looking at the planet, you would see a giant ball of white, because it is completely covered in clouds, everywhere, 100% of the time. And its fucking glowing. Those clouds mean that when you are on the ground, you don't see the sun: light is just coming from the entire fucking sky. This stark wasteland is more alien and alluring that every "alien" planet that I've every seen in any science fiction show. I mean, there are no surface features in the sky, at all. Its just all white and probably glowing too bright for your eyes (really the least of your problems, btw). The ground is mostly flat, like everywhere. Kind of like a desert only completely different. Based on images from the Russians, the air is clear and you can get great pictures. Unfortunately, you can't go there. That is to say, it is going to be very difficult for me to set up my evil lair.
First, the pressure on the surface is ridiculous. Actually, lets back up. First, the atmosphere is carbon dioxide. Not bad right? No, I'm pretty sure more than a few percent of C02 is lethal. Then, those clouds? Sulfur dioxide. That's an acid. Now we get to the pressure. At the surface--what we would call sea level--it is 91 times the pressure on Earth at sea level. That is equivalent to the crushing depths we experience at a kilo underwater, only you are not being crushed by cold water, you are being crushed by hot, poisonous, acidic air. And I mean hot. The atmo of Venus is hot enough to mealt lead. Lead! Lead is something I might expect to use as protective gear. So if you went to venus you would be eaten by acid, poisoned, asphyxiated, crushed, and burned. Also sunburned. I just can't quite imagine a place like that. Venus is so inhospitable that we have explored it by basically sending probes there to die. This isn't like mars where a probe lands and fucks around long after it was expected to stop working; the Venus probes transmit data in a matter of minutes before we never hear from them again, and half of them trasmitted nothing because they couldn't even get their lens caps off. Again: fuck mars. Mars is for sissies and people with wimpy robots. Venus is where the real shit goes down. Was their ever life on Venus? Maybe, but they all died when their oceans boiled. A boiling ocean--that is another awesome image. Seriously, try to imagine an ocean boiling. Probably a great plot for a sci fi novel.
Some other weird stuff: Venus would have been the perfect sister planet to discover (and start hooking up with) fellow humanoids (or at least fellow life) before we knew how much life on Venus sucked. Its like right next to us. Fuck mars. Venus is way closer. Sometime this year Venus is going to cross between us and the sun and you won't get another chance to see that shit before you're dead.
Also? A venusian day is longer than a venusian year. That is kind of hard to accept as a guy who measures years in days. But no. Venus days last a realllly long time, and it is spinning backwards anyway!
Here's the thing: we can, possibly, live there. We would just live in the atmosphere. One of the keys to all this is how incredibly heavy the Venusian atmosphere is. We can float a city high in the atmosphere, right around where the pressure is just like sea level on Earth. What strange contraption will it take to float something at that height in Venus' atmosphere? Hydrogen? Helium? No. Air. From Earth. Like the kind we need to breath anyway. Bring some air with you, and you get the boyancy you need to float about the dangerous, crushingly hot surface, for free. Oh and the winds are like hundreds of kilometers per hour, so you'll get a free tour of the planet. What's not to like?? And if James Bond types attack your secret lair there, you just throw them off and they fall to their deaths, getting crushed, melted, acid melted and poisoned before they even hit the surface. That is the coolest lair ever.
So anyway, Venus is like the coolest planet ever. In our solar system. I kind of have a crush on it.
Speaking of crushes, I like Ellen Page. I like her in Juno and Whip It. I just tried to look up movies she has done and discovered Smart People which looks really good. Guess what though. Apparently, I'm not allowed to buy it? Amazon says their licensing won't permit them to sell or rent it (instant) and netflix (instant) doesn't have it and I'm not even going to bother trying Hulu; I'm certain they don't have it. Here I am, fuckrags, trying to purchase your fucking movie. You're not letting me, so...now I am installing a bittorrent client.
So...actually thanks to Amazon and Hulu and Netflix I haven't needed to pirate anything for a really long time now. It has been so long I don't even know which trackers are good--oh look! According to this advertisement some girls that look exactly like paid models want to be my facebook friend! How fortuitous!
...aaaand we're downloading. Those pretty girls who wanted to be my facebook friend even though I'm not logged into facebook disappeared, but instead I just found out I am a possible winner of an ipod, mac, or ipad!!! I haven't been a possible winner of an ipod, mac of ipad since that time I typed netflix's url incorrectly.
This movie is going to take forever to download. Fuck you MPAA. I could have been watching a funny movie. Instead, I wrote in my blog about Venus and got back into torrenting. Oh internet gutter, how I missed thee!
Anyway, if I die and remain as a ghost like dumb people who believe in Ghost Hunters think I will, expect to find me wandering the landscape of Venus for eternity.
My parents continue to call every week. Most of my free time is between 10pm and 2am. So...there's that.
Some people discovered a new planet called GJ1214b that is similar to Earth and covered in water. Actually, we knew about the planet already, and the discovery was merely the water. I don't really care about those kinds of details. What I do care about is Venus. Why Venus? Because a few days ago when I was reading about GJ1214b I got sidetracked by a wikipedia binge that mostly revolved around Venus. More on that in a sec. First, though, lets talk about GJ1214b. What's interesting about it--or one thing, anyway--is that it is 40 light years away. I was telling a girl about this and she asked how far away that was, like whether or not it was in our solar system. I stared at her dumbfounded. I haven't been that dumbstruck by a question since the time Hot Lego Girl asked if brussel sprouts were a vegetable. I explained to her that light from the sun reaches pluto in 25 minutes, poor pluto that isn't even a planet, and by the way I am real mad at the dumbass astronomers who allegedly named two other planetary bodies after characters from a horrible, awful, blasphemous tv show called Xena Warrior Princess where girls run around in "armor" that shows cleavage. Let me explain something to you: armor that shows cleavage isn't armor. If I can see the tops of your boobs, I can stick a knife through them into your heart. So yeah, I told her this. This might be why I am still single. I think the war on ignorant costume armor designers is a another war that I have to give up. It will be tough though. I am deeply offended by the retarded, completely unrealistic, cleavage-showing femenine armor that always appears on tv, not because of some bullshit about sending the wrong message to girls (wearing less and playing with swords is something that I'd like all girls to learn about), but because it is so unrealistic as to be a parody, and it makes guys who like those shows pathetic chumps. Watching a girl swing a sword against multiple opponents all while her boobs are popping out of some metal sequins is akin to watching a version of Fast and the Furious where a classic, unaltered Station Wagon outraces a Ferarri and a Lotus Elise in the quater mile. Anyway.
I've known about Venus all my life--oh its that planet that is super hot because of the greenhouse effect (our coal plants are working tirelessly to bring us as close to that as is possible here on earth) and we've only managed to get probes there. I always imagined this dark, hellish place with things glowing in reds and purples and dark greens, and I imagined every thing was murky and hazy and hard to see because of these "gasses." Wrong.
The real venus, which I've only recently become aware of, is, in fact, beautiful. At least, to me. I want to go there. First of all, if you were just hanging out in space and looking at the planet, you would see a giant ball of white, because it is completely covered in clouds, everywhere, 100% of the time. And its fucking glowing. Those clouds mean that when you are on the ground, you don't see the sun: light is just coming from the entire fucking sky. This stark wasteland is more alien and alluring that every "alien" planet that I've every seen in any science fiction show. I mean, there are no surface features in the sky, at all. Its just all white and probably glowing too bright for your eyes (really the least of your problems, btw). The ground is mostly flat, like everywhere. Kind of like a desert only completely different. Based on images from the Russians, the air is clear and you can get great pictures. Unfortunately, you can't go there. That is to say, it is going to be very difficult for me to set up my evil lair.
First, the pressure on the surface is ridiculous. Actually, lets back up. First, the atmosphere is carbon dioxide. Not bad right? No, I'm pretty sure more than a few percent of C02 is lethal. Then, those clouds? Sulfur dioxide. That's an acid. Now we get to the pressure. At the surface--what we would call sea level--it is 91 times the pressure on Earth at sea level. That is equivalent to the crushing depths we experience at a kilo underwater, only you are not being crushed by cold water, you are being crushed by hot, poisonous, acidic air. And I mean hot. The atmo of Venus is hot enough to mealt lead. Lead! Lead is something I might expect to use as protective gear. So if you went to venus you would be eaten by acid, poisoned, asphyxiated, crushed, and burned. Also sunburned. I just can't quite imagine a place like that. Venus is so inhospitable that we have explored it by basically sending probes there to die. This isn't like mars where a probe lands and fucks around long after it was expected to stop working; the Venus probes transmit data in a matter of minutes before we never hear from them again, and half of them trasmitted nothing because they couldn't even get their lens caps off. Again: fuck mars. Mars is for sissies and people with wimpy robots. Venus is where the real shit goes down. Was their ever life on Venus? Maybe, but they all died when their oceans boiled. A boiling ocean--that is another awesome image. Seriously, try to imagine an ocean boiling. Probably a great plot for a sci fi novel.
Some other weird stuff: Venus would have been the perfect sister planet to discover (and start hooking up with) fellow humanoids (or at least fellow life) before we knew how much life on Venus sucked. Its like right next to us. Fuck mars. Venus is way closer. Sometime this year Venus is going to cross between us and the sun and you won't get another chance to see that shit before you're dead.
Also? A venusian day is longer than a venusian year. That is kind of hard to accept as a guy who measures years in days. But no. Venus days last a realllly long time, and it is spinning backwards anyway!
Here's the thing: we can, possibly, live there. We would just live in the atmosphere. One of the keys to all this is how incredibly heavy the Venusian atmosphere is. We can float a city high in the atmosphere, right around where the pressure is just like sea level on Earth. What strange contraption will it take to float something at that height in Venus' atmosphere? Hydrogen? Helium? No. Air. From Earth. Like the kind we need to breath anyway. Bring some air with you, and you get the boyancy you need to float about the dangerous, crushingly hot surface, for free. Oh and the winds are like hundreds of kilometers per hour, so you'll get a free tour of the planet. What's not to like?? And if James Bond types attack your secret lair there, you just throw them off and they fall to their deaths, getting crushed, melted, acid melted and poisoned before they even hit the surface. That is the coolest lair ever.
So anyway, Venus is like the coolest planet ever. In our solar system. I kind of have a crush on it.
Speaking of crushes, I like Ellen Page. I like her in Juno and Whip It. I just tried to look up movies she has done and discovered Smart People which looks really good. Guess what though. Apparently, I'm not allowed to buy it? Amazon says their licensing won't permit them to sell or rent it (instant) and netflix (instant) doesn't have it and I'm not even going to bother trying Hulu; I'm certain they don't have it. Here I am, fuckrags, trying to purchase your fucking movie. You're not letting me, so...now I am installing a bittorrent client.
So...actually thanks to Amazon and Hulu and Netflix I haven't needed to pirate anything for a really long time now. It has been so long I don't even know which trackers are good--oh look! According to this advertisement some girls that look exactly like paid models want to be my facebook friend! How fortuitous!
...aaaand we're downloading. Those pretty girls who wanted to be my facebook friend even though I'm not logged into facebook disappeared, but instead I just found out I am a possible winner of an ipod, mac, or ipad!!! I haven't been a possible winner of an ipod, mac of ipad since that time I typed netflix's url incorrectly.
This movie is going to take forever to download. Fuck you MPAA. I could have been watching a funny movie. Instead, I wrote in my blog about Venus and got back into torrenting. Oh internet gutter, how I missed thee!
Anyway, if I die and remain as a ghost like dumb people who believe in Ghost Hunters think I will, expect to find me wandering the landscape of Venus for eternity.
Monday, February 20, 2012
TODO
to live doesn't mean you're alive
1. Dress up as Mario Kart characters and go to K1 racing. Visually document to feed facebook-related narcissism.
2. Get L to bring her work aquaintances salsa dancing. So I guess that means...go salsa dancing again, or whatever.
3. Book hotels in New Orleans, Vancouver, Portland (book shop). Book slot in rally race school.
3b. Order that stuff for Chris' wedding.
4. Get K to show me how to do that lift correctly
5. Figure out which side of this table I am on.
6. The thing with the motorcycles.
7. End "meet people" phase and begin another project.
7b. make Lego mosaic software scan for non-lego pixels
8. Ask J what a perfect date would be like. Can I really just cheat like that?
[Edit]
Remaining bricks to complete the next mosaic:
new dark red 1x1 35
earth(dark) blue 1x2 50
bright blue 2x10 2
medium blue 1x1 6
? bright blue 1x5 1
Chris, I ordered the wedding shit. Keep your pants on.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
This is How We Do It
1. Go out for a buddies birthday
2. Dive Diner where waitress insists that the Annex is a scary, dangerous place
3. Explain what dangerous actually means to someone from philadelphia and give a verbal tour of every dangerous neighboorhood you remember,
4. Arrive an Annex, which is actually a very nice, mostly empty, dive bar, and even though you are the only white people there, you don't feel like the only white people there, because you are in seattle and not north philly
5. spend a lot of time flirting with the one girl in your group, even though you kind of know she's not interested.
6. Ask for a shot of rum 151. Receive double shot of rum 151 from ironically generous bartender. Earn respect from peers. Narrowly avoid throwing up. Decide that you need to do this every time you go out.
7. Bus ride. Another bar. Watch a girl just outside the bar stop to put heels on. Exchange smiles.
8. Come home after a really long walk in the cold that probably gave you pneumonia, feeling like crap. Think about how you came home alone while in the elevator. Pour bland vegetable broth into bowl, and then add baby carrots. Microwave for 60 seconds.
9. Write in blog, listen to some song that was on in the dive bar.
2. Dive Diner where waitress insists that the Annex is a scary, dangerous place
3. Explain what dangerous actually means to someone from philadelphia and give a verbal tour of every dangerous neighboorhood you remember,
4. Arrive an Annex, which is actually a very nice, mostly empty, dive bar, and even though you are the only white people there, you don't feel like the only white people there, because you are in seattle and not north philly
5. spend a lot of time flirting with the one girl in your group, even though you kind of know she's not interested.
6. Ask for a shot of rum 151. Receive double shot of rum 151 from ironically generous bartender. Earn respect from peers. Narrowly avoid throwing up. Decide that you need to do this every time you go out.
7. Bus ride. Another bar. Watch a girl just outside the bar stop to put heels on. Exchange smiles.
8. Come home after a really long walk in the cold that probably gave you pneumonia, feeling like crap. Think about how you came home alone while in the elevator. Pour bland vegetable broth into bowl, and then add baby carrots. Microwave for 60 seconds.
9. Write in blog, listen to some song that was on in the dive bar.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
[fiction] Lust, Hunger and Avarice - 1
I came up with this story by listening to this song about 30 times. Also relevant is the fact that I just finished reading The Dark Tower a few days ago.
1 - Snakes in a Bar
I met Marlo on the corner of Ricket street, down in the valley where the streetlights break and don't get fixed. The corner I just mentioned has no other street. It's Ricket & Ricket, if you must. But everyone knows where you are when you say "Ricket," and they know what you went there for.
Well, except for us. In our case they would be wrong.
Marlo was wearing a black trench coat. I didn't know if that was part of his thing, but we didn't match. I was wearing leather. He looked like a Matrix fan on Halloween. I nodded. He nodded. We looked at the establishment. It was a strip club called Wizards that was re-purposed out of an old office building. The outside remained nondescript, save for the blackened windows and stray fliers for hookers.
I reached for the door knob but when I touched it, I felt a snap and the entire door lit up: tight ribbons in a myriad of curves and angles flashed red on the surface of the door. It had symmetry in both directions and it looked like the design had been chalked on.
"I think everybody knows what we are now," said Marlo.
I looked at him and shrugged. "How else was I gonna open it?"
Just as the glow was fading, a young woman opened the door and smiled. "Welcome!" she said.
She led us through an anteroom too chic for a dead end strip club. The carpet was clean and unstained, the walls black, and the light came from lighted column-shaped fish tanks with jelly fish inside. One of them swam to the beat of the low base we heard thumping from the stage.
There was only one stage, bathed in blue light. A single dancer with pigtails and an exaggerated school-girl uniform performed for a single customer, who obliged her by tossing poker chips onto the stage. New county law, explained the door girl.
I saw one of the chips on the bar when we sat down with our backs to the stage. It was dirty and faded and probably covered with herpes. Marlo bought our first round.
"I heard you're still a level one," he said.
I shrugged.
"You fail the trials or just give up?"
I studied my glass with great intensity. Hoped they washed them between customers. "No interest," I said, "Not really. I'm just gonna ride this train until it-" I looked up. Marlo was being led away--some blonde bombshell was pulling him towards the curtained booths by his tie. Since when was he wearing a tie? A perfect copy of Marlo's new friend showed up at my side.
"Care for a lap dance?" she asked. Her skin, eyes, hair were all alluring. I swallowed the last of my whiskey. Time to go to work.
A warm, toasty, happy feeling started flowing up my feet when she closed the curtain on our little velvet cage. I usually don't get that feeling from one drink. The warm feeling grew as she did her one-woman show. This was probably twice the business they had gotten all night. She started spinning and shaking her hips to the music, and the warm feeling crossed my knees. It hit my thighs and my legs went dead. Her head was bobbing to the base. She smiled and looked at me in the eyes while she peeled off her flannel shirt. The warm feeling hit my stomach, then my chest. She bent over away from me to finish the job. I watched her clothes slide down her legs. All I had to do was look over every in of her body for that tattoo. Easy as pie. I felt so relaxed! Then the warm feeling reached my neck and my head and I felt even better. I leaned back against the wall with a dumb smile on my face. She knelt in front of me and put her hands on my knees. She leaned forward, grinning like she had never done this before, slowly sliding her hands toward--then I the flash in her eyes. Green. Bright green, and vicious.
I grabbed her by the neck and slammed her back against the wall. Now I was on my knees, crouching, pressing her neck into the wall, taking a good look at the fangs hanging out of her top row of teeth. She struggled, hissing at me, blowing just a tad of spittle from her fangs onto my arm. Three droplets landed on my unprotected wrist. It burned. That warm feeling turned cold.
She hissed louder and I turned my head to avoid the acid. The curtain was ripped open. A large, bald, burly ogre of a man stood there looking down. I saw on his neck their sign, a tiny tattoo of a snake, right there above his collar bone. Her handler. Or maybe her bitch. Who knew? I threw the snake girl at her ally and they fell together on the floor. In her frenzy she bit the nearest warm thing, and that happened to be her big burly bald friend. I watched her sink her teeth into his neck. When she raised her head up he was dead and bleeding. Then she looked up at me. I walked towards her. She fled.
I heard a large thump behind the second curtain. Marlo. I opened the curtain and found him down with his eyes closed, the other blond going to work on his neck. She lifted her head and looked at me. Blood streamed down her face from her fangs. She launched herself at me. I turned her momentum into a flip, sending her down onto the top of one of those tables that people sit at while they watch the stage. The table didn't budge; they were all bolted to the floor. She hissed at me again and then ran out after her twin.
I looked around the room. They were all looking at me like I was the monster. I approached the bar. Its tender backed away, raising his hands. "I'm not here to hurt you, pal," I said. I held up my guild badge for him to look at. He nodded but kept his hands raised. I closed by badge quickly--I don't like people seeing my symbol--and left.
Outside, there was no sign of them.
The nearest functioning public building was two blocks away. It was a trashy 7-11 wannabe and the only illumination it provided to the street was a dim yellow light above the door. That's where I parked my bike. Not the safest place, but I wasn't the only one willing to risk it. Another bike was parked next to mine. This newcomer was black with silver gray trim.
This motorcycle had a black rose painted on the side of the gas tank. I didn't think it meant anything back then.
1 - Snakes in a Bar
I met Marlo on the corner of Ricket street, down in the valley where the streetlights break and don't get fixed. The corner I just mentioned has no other street. It's Ricket & Ricket, if you must. But everyone knows where you are when you say "Ricket," and they know what you went there for.
Well, except for us. In our case they would be wrong.
Marlo was wearing a black trench coat. I didn't know if that was part of his thing, but we didn't match. I was wearing leather. He looked like a Matrix fan on Halloween. I nodded. He nodded. We looked at the establishment. It was a strip club called Wizards that was re-purposed out of an old office building. The outside remained nondescript, save for the blackened windows and stray fliers for hookers.
I reached for the door knob but when I touched it, I felt a snap and the entire door lit up: tight ribbons in a myriad of curves and angles flashed red on the surface of the door. It had symmetry in both directions and it looked like the design had been chalked on.
"I think everybody knows what we are now," said Marlo.
I looked at him and shrugged. "How else was I gonna open it?"
Just as the glow was fading, a young woman opened the door and smiled. "Welcome!" she said.
She led us through an anteroom too chic for a dead end strip club. The carpet was clean and unstained, the walls black, and the light came from lighted column-shaped fish tanks with jelly fish inside. One of them swam to the beat of the low base we heard thumping from the stage.
There was only one stage, bathed in blue light. A single dancer with pigtails and an exaggerated school-girl uniform performed for a single customer, who obliged her by tossing poker chips onto the stage. New county law, explained the door girl.
I saw one of the chips on the bar when we sat down with our backs to the stage. It was dirty and faded and probably covered with herpes. Marlo bought our first round.
"I heard you're still a level one," he said.
I shrugged.
"You fail the trials or just give up?"
I studied my glass with great intensity. Hoped they washed them between customers. "No interest," I said, "Not really. I'm just gonna ride this train until it-" I looked up. Marlo was being led away--some blonde bombshell was pulling him towards the curtained booths by his tie. Since when was he wearing a tie? A perfect copy of Marlo's new friend showed up at my side.
"Care for a lap dance?" she asked. Her skin, eyes, hair were all alluring. I swallowed the last of my whiskey. Time to go to work.
A warm, toasty, happy feeling started flowing up my feet when she closed the curtain on our little velvet cage. I usually don't get that feeling from one drink. The warm feeling grew as she did her one-woman show. This was probably twice the business they had gotten all night. She started spinning and shaking her hips to the music, and the warm feeling crossed my knees. It hit my thighs and my legs went dead. Her head was bobbing to the base. She smiled and looked at me in the eyes while she peeled off her flannel shirt. The warm feeling hit my stomach, then my chest. She bent over away from me to finish the job. I watched her clothes slide down her legs. All I had to do was look over every in of her body for that tattoo. Easy as pie. I felt so relaxed! Then the warm feeling reached my neck and my head and I felt even better. I leaned back against the wall with a dumb smile on my face. She knelt in front of me and put her hands on my knees. She leaned forward, grinning like she had never done this before, slowly sliding her hands toward--then I the flash in her eyes. Green. Bright green, and vicious.
I grabbed her by the neck and slammed her back against the wall. Now I was on my knees, crouching, pressing her neck into the wall, taking a good look at the fangs hanging out of her top row of teeth. She struggled, hissing at me, blowing just a tad of spittle from her fangs onto my arm. Three droplets landed on my unprotected wrist. It burned. That warm feeling turned cold.
She hissed louder and I turned my head to avoid the acid. The curtain was ripped open. A large, bald, burly ogre of a man stood there looking down. I saw on his neck their sign, a tiny tattoo of a snake, right there above his collar bone. Her handler. Or maybe her bitch. Who knew? I threw the snake girl at her ally and they fell together on the floor. In her frenzy she bit the nearest warm thing, and that happened to be her big burly bald friend. I watched her sink her teeth into his neck. When she raised her head up he was dead and bleeding. Then she looked up at me. I walked towards her. She fled.
I heard a large thump behind the second curtain. Marlo. I opened the curtain and found him down with his eyes closed, the other blond going to work on his neck. She lifted her head and looked at me. Blood streamed down her face from her fangs. She launched herself at me. I turned her momentum into a flip, sending her down onto the top of one of those tables that people sit at while they watch the stage. The table didn't budge; they were all bolted to the floor. She hissed at me again and then ran out after her twin.
I looked around the room. They were all looking at me like I was the monster. I approached the bar. Its tender backed away, raising his hands. "I'm not here to hurt you, pal," I said. I held up my guild badge for him to look at. He nodded but kept his hands raised. I closed by badge quickly--I don't like people seeing my symbol--and left.
Outside, there was no sign of them.
The nearest functioning public building was two blocks away. It was a trashy 7-11 wannabe and the only illumination it provided to the street was a dim yellow light above the door. That's where I parked my bike. Not the safest place, but I wasn't the only one willing to risk it. Another bike was parked next to mine. This newcomer was black with silver gray trim.
This motorcycle had a black rose painted on the side of the gas tank. I didn't think it meant anything back then.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
[fiction] The Unicorn Man
heaven is a place on Earth with you
tell me all the things you wanna do
Jonny did not like his new home. Mommy and Daddy lost their jobs to the poor Chinese people packed into the factories, the poor Chinese people that went to jail if they didn't work hard enough. Then the bank people came and took the home away.
They moved from Springfield to a new village called Occupy and they lived in a tent. Occupy was smelly, and there were no houses or lawns; only concrete and tents and people that smelled funny and talked like the bum near the drugstore in Springfield. Mommy and Daddy spent a lot of time talking to people about how the world should be.
Jonny met a girl named Callista. Callista's older brother sometimes bought them lunch, which was good because Jonny was hungry a lot. It was also not good, because Callista's brother couldn't talk about anything else except why the president was bad and how he had worked so hard to get his job and the poor people should just shut up and work hard. After all, he had worked hard for his good job. And then something about welfare.
Jonny told his parents what Callista's brother said. They taught him to say "structural unemployment" and "inflation" like he was some kind of parrot. Jonny didn't know what they meant but those words made Callista's brother real mad. He asked who Jonny's parents were voting for, and he said "Paul."
"Paul? You mean Ron Paul? Get out of here!"
Callista's older brother stopped buying him lunch. That was okay, though, because someone more interesting moved into town--next door in fact: the unicorn man. The unicorn man was not like the others. He didn't talk much and he didn't care if anyone liked him, and he never told people how the world should be.
Jonny called him the unicorn man because he had a funny looking mask, which he wore flipped up on his head like a hat. The way it stuck out made him look like a unicorn. The man had appeared in camp with that mask, a large shield with the word "POLICE" written on it, and a tank in his hand. Jonny's parents said he was not the police, though. Jonny's parents told him to stay away from the unicorn man. Jonny waited until they weren't looking and and ran up to him.
"Hi! I'm Jonny."
The unicorn man looked up from the book he was reading. "'Sup kid." He smiled briefly and nodded, then went back to his book.
"What's in your tank?"
The man glanced at him, trying to decide whether indulging or ingoring would be the least annoying, and settled on indulging. No one else wanted to talk to him anyway. "Fire," he said.
Jonny's eyes went wide. "Are you serious?"
" 'Called a flamethrower."
"Are you going to set people on fire?"
"No. What? No. I use it to make people keep their distance. No one gets hurt unless they get too close."
"My mommy says you're not a real cop." Upon hearing her name, his real mommy rushed over to pull Jonny away from the unicorn man.
Jonny played just outside the tent but always tried to keep the Unicorn man in view.
A day or two later, Monny and Daddy were very nervous. Something bad was coming. They told him there was nothing to worry about, but they were lying.
It started with screams. No, actually it started when Mommy and Daddy didn't come back from talking to the people in the suits. They were trying to explain to them how the world should work. They took a lot longer that day, because the sun went down and still they never came back. Then the screams started.
The walkie-talkie next to the unicorn man suddenly started shouting directions, like "Fire team three to bridge street! Fire team one to north side!"
Jonny ran to the unicorn man. "Who's Fire Team?" he asked.
The unicorn man smiled. "I am." He pulled the mask down over his face and stood up. Every move was steady and deliberate, like a cowboy from the movie. The mask made him look like a bug, a big bug man with giant circles near his mouth. Next, the unicorn man took the shield and fixed it on his arm, and then started attaching things to the tank he had.
There was a lot of commotion near the edge of Jonny's new home town. Jonny ran to the edge of the tents but no farther, because he wasn't allowed to step off the side walk. There were lots of people moving, but most of them were standing and staring. There was shouting. People dressed in black with white letters were shouting at them with bullhorns, and the people dressed in normal clothes were shouting back. Then suddenly he smelled something awful and his eyes teared up. He doubled over, feeling sick.
Someone grabbed his arm and lifted him up, dragging him away from the smell. Jonny looked up. It was the unicorn man. He had a shield on his arm and a tank on his back.
"Stay clear of the fight, kid," was all the man said. Then he walked away, towards the men in black with white letters. People were screaming and running and the men in black were advancing with clubs raised. Then a bright flicker of orange shot out from the unicorn man and they paused. The orange appeared again, but this time in a long, bright arc that waved back and forth, licking their shields like a giant tongue. The men in black backed and ran; their lines broke.
More unicorns with flames joined the Unicorn Man, and there were more arcs of flame licking the men in black.
The men in black were beating someone with clubs. The unicorns scared them off with their flames and dragged the man to safety. The man was Jonny's Dad!
Jonny ran to him, ignoring the stinging. His tears were washing it all away anyway. Jonny gripped his fathers shirt, and vomited. The bad smell was bad. His Dad grabbed Jonny and held him close.
The unicorns didn't attack the men in black, even though they could have; they just held the line. Occasionally groups of the men in black rushed the unicorns, but every time they were beaten back with fire. Then, suddenly, a whole horde of them rushed in from all angles. All of the unicorns when down on one knee and suddenly the little arcs of flame became a giant torrent of fire so large you couldn't even see the men inside. The men in black scampered back, rolling and trying to pat out the flames on their pants.
The siege continued for what seemed like the longest time to Jonny. The men in black brought fire trucks and tried to drown the unicorns, but the unicorns hid behind their police shields, and somewhere else people with bandanas on their faces like cowboys opened up the hydrants to let all the water out.
Then the unicorns started running out of fire. One of them retreated to grab another tank, but the bad men started rushing his friends and he came back before it was ready and they got him; they bashed him in the head with their sticks and dragged him on the ground. His head left a trail of red as they went.
Then Callista appeared from the other direction. She brought her older brother, who pulled Jonny's Dad's arm around his shoulder and helped the man limp.
"Your mommy's in the hospital!" said Callista, "I saw them putter inna ambulance on the tv."
Jonny followed them to safety, but he turned around for one last look at the Unicorn Man. The man was easy to pick out; he was younger and thinner than the others, and he stood his ground, thrashing through fire and water and screaming back at the bad men.
Callista and her brother led them to the other end of the village, where unicorns were protecting the subway level. The flames must have been extra powerful down in the tunnels, because none of the men in black were there.
"I can't believe it! I just can't believe it," said Callista's brother as they walked, "they shouldn't be using that kind of tear gas! That shit can kill children! What the fuck were they thinking?"
Jonny looked up at the older boy, saw him shaking his head under the flickering flourescent lights.
"Just awful," the boy continued. "This is Obama's fault!"
Twenty years later:
John B looked down at his camera, tracing the cracked flame stickers on the plastic. All of his friends said the flame stickers looked gay but he didn't care. The small plane he was in hit a pocket of misbehaving air and lurched, jarring John out of his thoughts. He looked up at his girlfriend.
Callista was lounging behind the wheel in a headset and a pair of aviators, taking just a moment to glance down at her map. John thought she looked a lot like the girl pilot in Aliens. Suddenly the radio squawked:
"Piper 3-3-1-2-alpha turn immediately to heading two, four, zero. You are entering a no fly zone. Turn immediately-"
The radio cut off when Callista flipped a switch. "Everybody's in on it," she sighed.
John looked down at the ocean. They were low enough to see the oil in the water and on the beach, and the checkpoints where the national guard were stationed to keep people away from the spill--to keep cameras away from the spill. Everybody with money knew what kind of damage the right picture could do, so everybody with money was making sure no one with a camera got close to the spill. The soldiers kept cameras off the beach, the coast guard kept them out of the water, and the FAA was keeping them out of the air. But the FAA wasn't prepared for the flaming cameraman and his suicidal pilot girlfriend, just like the "men in black" had been unprepared for the Unicorn Man.
"You ready Jonny-boy? The jets are comin. We're only gonna get one pass at this."
John nodded, popping the cover off of the lense. He tried to keep his smile to himself--this was heaven for him.
Suddenly Callista grabbed his shirt and pulled him close and kissed him, then shoved him back in his seat. Then, in an action that was far more violent, she pushed the stick forward and put the small plane into a dive. "We got clear air so Imma push it to 128 and then do a hard right..." she was going off with that pilot jabber again, but John was too busy white-knuckling the dashboard to listen. "...so have that camera ready over the right wing," she finished. The black-and-blue sea filled the entire windshield.
Then the plane spun, and his stomach sank, Callista jammed the throttle in and then another roll and more sinking stomach and all of a sudden, out of his window, he saw a seal choking on oil. He raised the camera and started clicking.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Faith, Justice and Power
Mardis Gras is in like two weeks! This is roughtly the third year that I've wanted to go. I think...ok, yeah. I was making some progress in the meeting people arena. That is to say, I was starting to drag myself out to begin doing things that might involve meeting girls eventually, if there are, in fact, any girls in this city.
New Orleans, though, is a different story. We may have to shift gears. Seattle people aren't going anywhere. Though I need all of my available vacation days for Chris' mexico wedding...if I start working 12 hour days or something, I can just cash in some of the stock I'm getting on the 15th and fund a quick trip down to New Orleans. What am I going to do on my own in a strange city? I don't know. Maybe it will be a bust. But I am going to buy some beads and drink some rum and see if I can't make a few friends while I'm there.
Oh shit. You're supposed to get a hotel eight months in advance. Dammit. This is why I can't do fun things. Maybe next year is going to be my year....
This FAQ says the police are cracking down on girls flashing for beads. I don't get it. I thought that was the entire point of the holiday. Why else would everyone be so happy? Seriously my knowledge of Mardis Gras consists of advertisements for Girls Gone Wild that I saw a year ago when I first moved here, and one Bond movie. If there is some aspect of this holiday unrelated to girls being friendly and indiscreet I want no part of it.
This guide does indicate that all the cool shit happens in the French Quarter. That must be where all the fun people hang out. There is also a lot of shit about pickpockets. Wonder if I should leave my fancy ass phone behind? I'm not sure how to navigate anything without google maps though. This guide I am reading is awful. It has all the wrong information. It keeps talking about a lack of bathrooms--I'm pretty sure bars are legally required to have them.
The whole point of going is to meet people at night after the parades (and to do shots of 151)...but I don't want to sleep outside in the middle of winter. Maybe getting a rental car and sleeping in it would be an acceptable plan.
Maybe I should just do what it takes to show up. Maybe I will nearly die of hypothermia, or get tasered and die*, or I will find out that Mardis Gras is actually boring, or I'll accidentally get stuck with people from Seattle (i.e. all dudes), or I won't meet anyone, or worse, the girls in New Orleans will be as bitchy and unfriendly as the ones in Seattle...I don't know. What I do know is this: it is far better to sit in a bar telling people what an awful New Orleans trip you had than it is to sit in a bar telling people about that one time you didn't go anywhere.
If I still really want to go in a day or two, I'll suck it up and buy plane and hotel tickets. If not, this was just another whimsical post about something I should have done.
[Edit]
Based on that story that girl's friend told a year ago...I need to get some beads with flashing lights in them.
*undiagnosed heart condition: a taser would probably kill me. This is why I don't talk back to cops. Not that it matters. Seriously. And again.
New Orleans, though, is a different story. We may have to shift gears. Seattle people aren't going anywhere. Though I need all of my available vacation days for Chris' mexico wedding...if I start working 12 hour days or something, I can just cash in some of the stock I'm getting on the 15th and fund a quick trip down to New Orleans. What am I going to do on my own in a strange city? I don't know. Maybe it will be a bust. But I am going to buy some beads and drink some rum and see if I can't make a few friends while I'm there.
Oh shit. You're supposed to get a hotel eight months in advance. Dammit. This is why I can't do fun things. Maybe next year is going to be my year....
This FAQ says the police are cracking down on girls flashing for beads. I don't get it. I thought that was the entire point of the holiday. Why else would everyone be so happy? Seriously my knowledge of Mardis Gras consists of advertisements for Girls Gone Wild that I saw a year ago when I first moved here, and one Bond movie. If there is some aspect of this holiday unrelated to girls being friendly and indiscreet I want no part of it.
This guide does indicate that all the cool shit happens in the French Quarter. That must be where all the fun people hang out. There is also a lot of shit about pickpockets. Wonder if I should leave my fancy ass phone behind? I'm not sure how to navigate anything without google maps though. This guide I am reading is awful. It has all the wrong information. It keeps talking about a lack of bathrooms--I'm pretty sure bars are legally required to have them.
The whole point of going is to meet people at night after the parades (and to do shots of 151)...but I don't want to sleep outside in the middle of winter. Maybe getting a rental car and sleeping in it would be an acceptable plan.
Maybe I should just do what it takes to show up. Maybe I will nearly die of hypothermia, or get tasered and die*, or I will find out that Mardis Gras is actually boring, or I'll accidentally get stuck with people from Seattle (i.e. all dudes), or I won't meet anyone, or worse, the girls in New Orleans will be as bitchy and unfriendly as the ones in Seattle...I don't know. What I do know is this: it is far better to sit in a bar telling people what an awful New Orleans trip you had than it is to sit in a bar telling people about that one time you didn't go anywhere.
If I still really want to go in a day or two, I'll suck it up and buy plane and hotel tickets. If not, this was just another whimsical post about something I should have done.
[Edit]
Based on that story that girl's friend told a year ago...I need to get some beads with flashing lights in them.
*undiagnosed heart condition: a taser would probably kill me. This is why I don't talk back to cops. Not that it matters. Seriously. And again.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
[fiction] Steam Girl
This is actually just an outline inspired by one scene in a play I just saw.
Prologue:
On board the airship Concord, a terrorist group detonates a bomb and sends the ship into a death spiral.
A flying ace named Felix breaks formation when he heards the Concord's mayday. Felix follows the Concord down, observing thick black smoke from the rear of the ship but is otherwise unable to help. Someone tries to jump onto Felix's place from the airship. They collide with the wing briefly but are unable to hold on and fall to their death. Felix opens the canopy. A toddler is thrown into the plane. Felix is forced to break off shortly.
The airship crashes, killing all souls aboard. Felix lands his damaged plane nearby with the only survivor: a baby girl.
There was no record of a baby girl passenger on the airship, but Felix's heroic actions were witnessed by his entire squadron.
Some Chapter:
The baby girl has grown into a young woman named Callista, who secretly operates the only functioning rocket pack in the world.
As a young girl, Callista meets Male Protagonist. Male Protagonist at first remembers her as the girl with the thumbhole sleeves.
Felix has adopted Callista. She sees a steampunk-ish victorian society with a large wealth gap through the eyes of a pilot, that is, someone who can exist in both high society and among the poor. Felix teaches her that people like pilots are only kept around at the whims of the rich, so get rich or play nice.
Felix dies. A wealthy couple appear at his funeral and dubiously claim to be Callista's true relatives. They try to call her Alice. Callista moves in with them. They force her to dress like high society and to abandon the study of everything she loved, including flying and things made of gears. Her new "mother" tries to throw away her rocket pack. Callista gets in a fight with her, but backs down when she remembers Felix's words about playing nice. Callista steals her rocket pack in secret.
Callista routinely uses the rocket pack to escape the stuffy mansion where she lives, often rendezvousing with the young boy--Male Protagonist.
Another Chapter:
A bunch of shit happens. Establish the story of the famous zorro-like character, Ace of Spades, who famously assassinated the leader of a famous terroist organization by spending years developing a resistance to poison, and then poisoning the both of them.
Also introduce two main villain henchmen--one is a hot woman who wears a lot of purple and seduces Male Protagonist in a detailed and steamy scene involving [actual] steam, chains, and possibly large gears.
Callista and Male Protagonist have a subtle romance going on that ends when Callista falls for some dumbass soldier guy. Male Protagonist loses interest, and there is later a flurry of news articles about the famous spy Ace of Spades.
Famous spy Ace of Spades tells someone about his dreams that he will die on the bridge of an airship, as the viewing glass surrounding him is shredded bullets and he his knocked off his feet from behind, falling into the abyss.
Near the End:
The hunt is on for Ace of Spades, as every enemy of the free world is mobilizing their armed forces and moles are found all throughout the government, all seeking the identity of the spy. His allies and friends are cut down one by one until the secret of his identity hangs by shreds.
Male protagonist, now working as an expert airship mechanic, happens to be on an airship ferrying the entire court.
In the dining room of the airship one evening, every passenger is seated and drinks a toast at the same time and every one of them falls dead to the same poison that killed the terrorist leader. Everyone except for one person--lowly, lowly, male protagonist, all the way at the side table, because he is immune to that poison, because he is, in fact, Ace of Spades.
The male villain reveals via dialog that everyone was poisoned specifically to expose the ace.
The male villain radios to someone the identity of the Ace of Spades, and reveals the location of the airship.
There is a firefight with the villains henchmen which damages the ship in a similar way to Concord.
The airship begins a death spiral. Enemy planes that have been scrambled specifically to shoot down the airship carrying the Ace of Spades begin shooting. The glass windows on the bridge are shot to pieces.
Suddenly the Ace is knocked from behind. It is Steam Girl--Callista--who his carrying him out the front window on her jet pack.
The airship falls and crashes, killing all aboard.
On the ground, Male Protagonist starts talking and Callista silences him with a kiss.
Prologue:
On board the airship Concord, a terrorist group detonates a bomb and sends the ship into a death spiral.
A flying ace named Felix breaks formation when he heards the Concord's mayday. Felix follows the Concord down, observing thick black smoke from the rear of the ship but is otherwise unable to help. Someone tries to jump onto Felix's place from the airship. They collide with the wing briefly but are unable to hold on and fall to their death. Felix opens the canopy. A toddler is thrown into the plane. Felix is forced to break off shortly.
The airship crashes, killing all souls aboard. Felix lands his damaged plane nearby with the only survivor: a baby girl.
There was no record of a baby girl passenger on the airship, but Felix's heroic actions were witnessed by his entire squadron.
Some Chapter:
The baby girl has grown into a young woman named Callista, who secretly operates the only functioning rocket pack in the world.
As a young girl, Callista meets Male Protagonist. Male Protagonist at first remembers her as the girl with the thumbhole sleeves.
Felix has adopted Callista. She sees a steampunk-ish victorian society with a large wealth gap through the eyes of a pilot, that is, someone who can exist in both high society and among the poor. Felix teaches her that people like pilots are only kept around at the whims of the rich, so get rich or play nice.
Felix dies. A wealthy couple appear at his funeral and dubiously claim to be Callista's true relatives. They try to call her Alice. Callista moves in with them. They force her to dress like high society and to abandon the study of everything she loved, including flying and things made of gears. Her new "mother" tries to throw away her rocket pack. Callista gets in a fight with her, but backs down when she remembers Felix's words about playing nice. Callista steals her rocket pack in secret.
Callista routinely uses the rocket pack to escape the stuffy mansion where she lives, often rendezvousing with the young boy--Male Protagonist.
Another Chapter:
A bunch of shit happens. Establish the story of the famous zorro-like character, Ace of Spades, who famously assassinated the leader of a famous terroist organization by spending years developing a resistance to poison, and then poisoning the both of them.
Also introduce two main villain henchmen--one is a hot woman who wears a lot of purple and seduces Male Protagonist in a detailed and steamy scene involving [actual] steam, chains, and possibly large gears.
Callista and Male Protagonist have a subtle romance going on that ends when Callista falls for some dumbass soldier guy. Male Protagonist loses interest, and there is later a flurry of news articles about the famous spy Ace of Spades.
Famous spy Ace of Spades tells someone about his dreams that he will die on the bridge of an airship, as the viewing glass surrounding him is shredded bullets and he his knocked off his feet from behind, falling into the abyss.
Near the End:
The hunt is on for Ace of Spades, as every enemy of the free world is mobilizing their armed forces and moles are found all throughout the government, all seeking the identity of the spy. His allies and friends are cut down one by one until the secret of his identity hangs by shreds.
Male protagonist, now working as an expert airship mechanic, happens to be on an airship ferrying the entire court.
In the dining room of the airship one evening, every passenger is seated and drinks a toast at the same time and every one of them falls dead to the same poison that killed the terrorist leader. Everyone except for one person--lowly, lowly, male protagonist, all the way at the side table, because he is immune to that poison, because he is, in fact, Ace of Spades.
The male villain reveals via dialog that everyone was poisoned specifically to expose the ace.
The male villain radios to someone the identity of the Ace of Spades, and reveals the location of the airship.
There is a firefight with the villains henchmen which damages the ship in a similar way to Concord.
The airship begins a death spiral. Enemy planes that have been scrambled specifically to shoot down the airship carrying the Ace of Spades begin shooting. The glass windows on the bridge are shot to pieces.
Suddenly the Ace is knocked from behind. It is Steam Girl--Callista--who his carrying him out the front window on her jet pack.
The airship falls and crashes, killing all aboard.
On the ground, Male Protagonist starts talking and Callista silences him with a kiss.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
That Was Easy
Breaking into his mind. It's like hacking into a computer - all it takes is time.
--Tank
--Tank
Meeting People. Being friendly, eye contact, saying high, looking good, blah blah blah. Turns out, its actually not that difficult. It is like hacking; all it takes is time. Unfortunately time is a luxury, but we'll get to that later.
Turns out, it really takes almost no effort to sort of engage people you see every day. Like the poor security guards at the little gates we walk through who are bored to tears, or the receptionist that keeps saying high to me, or the people in the mail room, or the guy at the gym, or wherever you get lunch. All you really have to do is say one thing beyond the boring-ass greetings everybody does, and you have a conversation.
Looking good requires going to a gym. I have always known that if you need to change something about your weight or muscle mass, you can't just do a one time thing or a diet; you have to change your lifestyle. I just never realized how fucking easy it is to start going to a gym. I mean...its like right there, down the street. And the weight machines have instructions on them. I actually just walked up to one and used it. Didn't need to take a class or hire a personal trainer or read a book or take a test or anything. Lifting weights is about a million times easier than getting a pilots license. I can't believe I haven't done this sooner. I am starting to suspect that whatever happened to me in the air last year may be related to the fact that I drink too much soda and am, despite the skiing, in very poor shape. So lets see what happens.
Looking good also requires not dressing like an undergrad computer science student. I made an attempt a while ago to completely overhaul my wardrobe. I hired these two girls, spent nearly two grand on designer shit, and got an earful from my geek friends who were appalled at the very idea of dressing a certain way to impress girls. I have yet to think of a way to explain to these guys how little I care about their opinions. Though the shopping spree was a valuable experience, most of the clothes didn't take. For one thing, the girls failed to understand how lazy I was...that if a pair of shoes didn't come with laces (who sells shoes without laces??) that I might never actually get around to buying new laces for them. So I need more work in this department. I have learned to start caring about shoes; it seems like girls care more about how shoes look than any other article of clothing. I think this is dumb, but since I can't change how every girl feels it is time to get with the program. The fake cowboy boots these girls got me to buy were a good step up from the ugly brown shoes that I bought when my friends told me I had to stop wearing sneakers to bars. Next up, I think, some kind of motorcycle boot. Then I need to do something about these shirts; they are bland, and I just found out that American Apparel supported SOPA. American Apparel was the only store that make shirts that fit me, but I can't imagine what kind of asshole in charge of a clothing company would support legislation designed to threaten the entire tech sector of the economy. I just know that I hope he gets bit by a poisonous rat and dies by puking hit guts out. And I'm not buying American Apparel anymore. And I plan to bulk up and not need their shirts anyway.
Meeting people also requires...being somewhere where there are people to meet. Century Ballroom still fails at this; I was there last night and there were as usual, an extra 35 guys. I went up to some girls at a table and asked if they wanted to dance. One pointed at her water as an excuse for not dancing. I did my best to feign politeness as I walked away. Then I dance with the three girls I knew and left. Salsa needs some work...but new clubs, and friends of friends are probably a good enough recipe for success.
Meeting people also requires money. My biggest waste of money is food. Given my lackluster performance with the attempt to cook pork chops, I am going to try a different approach. My personal assistant is coming over tomorrow with something called a crockpot to show me how to not suck at life. If this scheme works I could save hundreds of dollars every month.
Yeah, that's the theme; all this shit really requires is time. Time is the one thing I don't have enough of. If I barely have enough time to hold down a job where you are expected to work more than 40 hours a week and go out and have a social life, there is no way I can hold such a job, and have a social life, and develop some income on the side. I want to try though. One thing is to become more efficient at work.
Being more efficient at work will be difficult. This guy at work came back from a few months of leave. He got added to my project, and got stuck with the documentation. Then he rewrote the documentation I wrote, but added a lot of story stuff and removed all of the developer-oriented things I was trying to collect. The intended audience of the documentation is developers. Then, today, we got in an argument about the best way to create a shared library (code that other programmers can use instead of writing their own) for some code. He had previously attempted to create such a library, but had made it too elaborate and it was shot down by management. I insisted on taking my own crack at the library the minute I realized that developers were starting to copy and paste code. We started arguing. His position was that the library could only be done a certain way. My position was that I wanted to look at the code before discussing it. After ten minutes I convinced him to stop arguing with me and let me look at the code. I started looking at the code. He started asking me questions every five or ten minutes about something else. I'm not sure if you've ever tried to concentrate on a difficult task (like reading someone else's undocumented code and coming up with design that is reusable by 10 teams) while someone is asking you a question every five minutes, but it was one of the most annoying experiences in my life. Being a good employee (see my post called "Mr. Responsible Guy") requires not cursing people out, so I left the building, walked two miles to a furniture store, bought a couch, and then ate two slices of pizza on my way back. When I got back to work, I found out my co-worker from earlier in the paragraph was now writing that library that I wanted to design in order to avoid having other teams copy and paste code. I was visibly unhappy. I've seen this guy's code. This is the guy who, when he saw a situation that required a mapping from thing A to thing B, created a HashMap from thing B to thing A. I am not kidding! He used a hash map backwards in his code. You can't even call it an "anti-pattern" because no one does that. I confronted him about the backwards hash map and all I got was a confusing five minute explanation about how it was easier to read. All I had to do was turn the hash map around and I eliminated a page of code and got a nice verbal pat on the back from our resident super programmer. We discussed it and I told myself this is just a natural part of working with people, and that disagreements will always be necessary because the only alternative is to surround yourself with useless yes-men, and so I put my earphones on to drown out the world and try and get some work done. Five minutes later he asked me a question.
And he's not even the annoying one.
For me to be effective at work I am going to have to start working from home, at least on those days that are not lost to meetings already. I try to avoid working from home as best I can; ssh on windows is already uncomfortable; add to that the awkward laptop keyboard and the fact that no one will know if I just stop working and play video games, and you have a situation where I get no work done. That needs to change. I have noticed that all of the senior developers actually disappear and work from home when they really need to get work done without distractions (this is what happens when you don't give people offices and stick them all together in what was supposed to be a conference room). Also, working from home lets me do creative things like work 16 hours in one day (to take another day off) without starving on snack machine food. So I'm going to start doing it. The security policies create a bizarre and lame situation that I can't describe except to say that the only useful computer I can use to work from home is an Apple laptop. For this reason, I bought an Apple laptop, and I don't care if I have to buy a new desk or what; I'm going to get it all set up with a full keyboard and start working from home and getting some real, actual work done.
Next...I don't know. I am addicted to working on stuff. Maybe it is a hold over from college when I was under a lot of pressure and didn't know how to get everything done. Maybe I just like doing projects too much. I don't know. There has to be a more efficient way to make use of my time; I just have to find it. For now, I am continuing to not let myself work on any projects until I 1) attend a drop-in game of volleyball and 2) go salsa dancing in Vancouver. Maybe one of the two, idk. Oh and I should start blues dancing again...that was great for meeting people.
Last night I was pulled over. I thought I had diligently checked every car I was passing, and my sightlines looked clear in front, but Chilli Peppers came on the radio and I guess I just let my guard down. All of a sudden, flashy lights. Once again I was not nervous. This not-afraid-of-cops thing is for real. I had two drinks in two hours, roughly the exact amount of alcohol that leaves you sober but a target of alphabet recitals. I pulled over pretty damn fast, though, and positioned myself perfectly in the lee of an exit ramp, which must have been enough to prove my sobriety because he didn't ask where I was coming from. He accused me of doing 81. And then we had yet another awkward silence when he waited for me to verbally react. I didn't. I do need to know where he came from. I think I want to buy that rear-facing camera I've been dreaming about ever since the duck boat ran over my car. If I did that, I could go home and watch the tape backwards and see where he came from.
Friday, February 3, 2012
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