tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39142155583358032772024-02-19T23:24:53.769+08:00The August AuthorA blog. I think words show up here sometime. I cannot be sure, but I believe they occasionally carry meaning and humour. theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-57166080377101844182019-08-17T11:43:00.002+08:002019-08-22T10:02:08.766+08:00Hiatus Undone With Eggplant Parm? Boy oh boy time flies when you're getting your residency! I may or may have not misplaced a few years. To get us started on the right foot, here's a recipe for Eggplant Parmesan with one of those stories people always tell. I work at the West End Farmer's Market in Vancouver, and one of the organizers asked me if I had a good recipe. I did, of course -- my mom's, but I didn't have it written down, because neither does she, and it's different every time. I took to task to write this all down, but I'm afraid it took me a bit. So, sorry Jordan! Hope this post finds you well.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/FlnKcRKxtXg-t3ZLi-50-DgQvfsdnEGYRI3YYiV4_J2qfYTvgb3V6a00YUPetkrXEf0FKu8Pxlc=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/FlnKcRKxtXg-t3ZLi-50-DgQvfsdnEGYRI3YYiV4_J2qfYTvgb3V6a00YUPetkrXEf0FKu8Pxlc=s400" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Here's the recipe in a few sentences: Slice eggplant. Batter eggplant. Fry or bake the "cutlets" until crispy. Smother with red pasta sauce and a thick slice of fresh mozzarella. Stack and repeat if desired, until you have a castle of Eggplant Parm. Broil until the cheese is golden-brown.<br />
<br />
To skip me talking about my mom, scroll down or CTRL+F for "INSTRUCTIONS."<br />
<br />
Eggplant Parmesan is one of those recipes people have all heard about. When you bring up eggplant parm, there are three reactions: "Gross!" "MM!" and "Oh, I've never had it." As with almost everything that's either reviled or loved in apparently equal quantities, the proof is in the production. How you cook your meal makes all the difference. We can call a chicken nugget in orange juice poulet a l'orange but that doesn't make it so. Therefore, there's two recipes to this recipe. Options, I should say -- but one tastes better.<br />
<br />
BAKE OR FRY?<br />
<br />
This is an age old question and one that people are increasingly attempting to bypass with concoctions like "air fryers" which are small overpriced electric ovens. You are still baking with an air fryer. It is an oven. Do not buy them unless you are wealthy enough not to care.<br />
<br />
For the rest of us, Bake or Fry is a valid question that has easy answers. Here are the questions I ask to help me decide:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Do I have all the right tools to fry?</li>
<li>How much energy do I have?</li>
<li>Does it matter if it's perfect?</li>
</ol>
<div>
Are you tired? Is it Wednesday? Is no one coming over and you just want to sleep? Bake is the answer. If you have time, if it's a special occasion, Fry! Frying always tastes better. The texture is better. Baking produces some wonderful foods, but anything that you CAN fry is better fried, and not just because it adds more fat.</div>
<br />
My mom used to fry the eggplant parm. Two pieces at a time in a little red cast iron skillet, because that was our only good frying dish. We were a family of five, and we always wanted leftovers, so it often took her hours to get the frying ready before the baking section. Over time she switched to baking -- everything gets prepared and made at the same time, so there's no sitting around for fresher batches.<br />
<br />
Unless you have a large skillet or are only doing small batches, it's probably a good idea to bake for freshness' sake. Rolling batches also works when you're frying, and adds a good social atmosphere to eating. I always like seeing people's faces light up when you bring a round of seconds or a new course, and I always loved seeing these huge plates of food piling up on the table only to be rapidly removed by ravenous hordes of teenage boys. We ate well.<br />
<br />
WHAT KIND OF BREADCRUMBS?<br />
<br />
This is a jump but there's not much else to discuss -- the rest of the ingredients are straightforward. Breadcrumbs though, are a problematic matter. Especially in the US, almost every major brand puts High Fructose Corn Syrup (often referred to as "liquid sugar") in their breadcrumbs, and fake cheese product. Making your own is awesome and cool, but if you don't have a food processor like me, it's difficult to get the granules to a fine enough texture for frying. I buy Aurora brand usually, which is made in the US but doesn't suck. It has a lot of cheese in it that makes a beautiful crust that stays together and has that chewy breaking action you want. It's available at most of the Canadian grocery stores I frequent.<br />
<br />
HOW DO I KNOW I DID IT RIGHT?<br />
<br />
You'll know you did this right if there's little water leakage at the end. That is to say, each slice of eggplant is contained in a gooey shell of cheese and crust, ready to burst at the first bite. This is easier if you fry. Eggplant parm can be "gooey" if you undercook/overcook it. Almost everyone does the former rather than the latter -- the latter is the good kind of gooey! Most recipes call for 375 or even 350 for baking eggplant parm -- 400 or even 425 is closer to the "fake fry" that we want. Eggplant has a lot of moisture. Don't underestimate its strength; you have to cool these cutlets like they're meat. All those lost juices will find their way into the pasta sauce, providing a deep flavour. Crusty bread makes a great accompaniment/dipping utensil.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/kvesACGmRvwIov2DcKlzV4oa93-THDsR-A-tk2NKR3PzzqeBlV8xuKvX0VP6R36ubfTpRzCaWmo=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/kvesACGmRvwIov2DcKlzV4oa93-THDsR-A-tk2NKR3PzzqeBlV8xuKvX0VP6R36ubfTpRzCaWmo=s400" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Those long clumpy things are hush puppies! When you've run out of eggplant, mix your remaining breadcrumbs and egg together and form them into patties, then fry or bake them alongside!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
EGGPLANT PARM:<br />
<br />
Total Time: 2 hour (1 hour cooking/prep, 1 hour wait time while it sets)<br />
Difficulty: Moderate/Easy (Fry/Bake)<br />
Serving Size: 2-4 people, depending on appetites<br />
<br />
INGREDIENTS:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>2 medium size eggplant or one large one (around 1.5lbs) sliced about 1/2 inch thick in rounds. If they're really small, cut them lengthwise (don't use chinese eggplant for this -- they're very different plants and don't react the same!)</li>
<li>Italian Breadcrumbs (about 2 cups) If unseasoned, parsley, rosemary, sage and oregano with a little pepper and salt are a good replacement. Add them to the breadcrumbs and stir. Add some romano cheese if you have it, or an extra 1/4 cup of grated parm -- the smallest powder size. A few drops of olive oil binds it all together. </li>
<li>Coarse Sea Salt & Fine Salt (Fine only is fine. Ha!)</li>
<li>3 eggs</li>
<li>2 or 3 fresh mozzarella balls, sliced 1/4" thick</li>
<li>1 cup Parmesan, the thin noodle kind (middle size on your grater)</li>
<li>Basil and/or Italian Parsley</li>
<li>Cream or milk</li>
<li>1 cup sifted flour</li>
<li>Red Pasta Sauce (storebought is okay, but I'll put together a separate recipe later for you if you don't have your own! Watch this space)</li>
<li>IF FRYING: vegetable oil, enough to cover your cooking pan a quarter-inch deep. You will be flipping the eggplant from one side to the next. You can deep-fry them if you want. If you feel comfortable doing that, you probably already know what that entails.</li>
</ul>
<div>
INSTRUCTIONS (FRYING METHOD)</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Dust eggplant slices with coarse salt. Pat them so the crystals are pressed into the flesh. Let them drain for about a half hour in a colander or on some cooling racks. They'll "bleed" a bit, so make sure they're not over something you hate wiping down! The sink is good.</li>
<li>Take three bowls. Fill one with the flour. In the next, whisk eggs and a splash of cream or milk. In the last, breadcrumbs. You can add spices to both the flour and breadcrumb mixture if you like. I sometimes add some hot sauce to the egg mixture.</li>
<li>Batter eggplant slices one at a time. First flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. You can repeat the process for a double-dip, but I usually don't. Transfer them to a cooking sheet to set. Let them cool in the fridge for about an hour. </li>
<li>Preheat oven to Broil, 400 or Low</li>
<li>Pour oil into pan. DO NOT USE TEFLON PANS FOR FRYING. Cast iron, copper or stainless steel are best. Turn on medium-medium-heat and bring to 350F. You can tell it's ready without a thermometer if you have a wooden utensil -- dip the end of the stick into the oil. If the oil bubbles vigourously around the stick, it's hot enough.</li>
<li>Fry each cutlet on each side until golden brown -- usually 2-3 minutes depending on the clarity and temperature of oil. Keep about a half-inch between each cutlet. Most pans can do 2-3 at a time. Don't disparage if they burn. Turn down the heat a notch or two and scrape out the black bits, then continue. Put complete cutlets on a pyrex or cast-iron pan, nested close together. </li>
<li>When the pyrex is full or all cutlets have been cooked, pour pasta sauce over cutlets. Smother, but don't drench them. Imagine making a cross on each cutlet. Place a slice of mozzarella on each cutlet. Dust the entire thing with parm. If you have an extra pyrex, load that the same way with the remainder, or stack them on your existing cutlets for a lasagna style feast. Broil for about ~10 minutes, or until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling. </li>
<li>Serve hot, garnish with basil and parsley, and enjoy! A good crusty bread is perfect to help mop up any extra juices ;) Nothing wrong with carboloading!</li>
</ol>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
INSTRUCTIONS (BAKING METHOD)</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Dust eggplant slices with coarse salt. Pat them so the crystals are pressed into the flesh. Let them drain for about a half hour in a colander or on some cooling racks. They'll "bleed" a bit, so make sure they're not over something you hate wiping down! The sink is good.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/s7b-_yv2KRepTDcldCC25tFt0PcGHBS5yuY4xMMhkNKSgLc57KYBbWkz4JVWF2pwsWhYi9KH1c4=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/s7b-_yv2KRepTDcldCC25tFt0PcGHBS5yuY4xMMhkNKSgLc57KYBbWkz4JVWF2pwsWhYi9KH1c4=s400" width="320" /></a></div>
</li>
<li>Take three bowls. Fill one with the flour. In the next, whisk eggs and a splash of cream or milk. In the last, breadcrumbs. You can add spices to both the flour and breadcrumb mixture if you like. I sometimes add some hot sauce to the egg mixture.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/dDmrueIXllLkAhPRmqCOUfOAz5WKRLYrdKsQdltyTIV2kweou887myA8E0LFz95-3i3b28K6Dj4=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/dDmrueIXllLkAhPRmqCOUfOAz5WKRLYrdKsQdltyTIV2kweou887myA8E0LFz95-3i3b28K6Dj4=s400" width="320" /></a></div>
</li>
<li>Batter eggplant slices one at a time. First flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. You can repeat the process for a double-dip, but this is only really necessary if the mix doesn't stick. Don't be afraid to double, or even triple dip! It's eggplant. There's nothing to be scared of on the inside. Transfer the cutlets to a cooking sheet to set. Let them cool in the fridge for about an hour. (optional, but helps the batter stick, especially for this next step) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/V5ihwk8OIW-pm2E2G9hicfdMwA3o15QrF_iDMn2oCk7Br2jRtktNAXInZ8hV4BffUH34_KhYFDc=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/V5ihwk8OIW-pm2E2G9hicfdMwA3o15QrF_iDMn2oCk7Br2jRtktNAXInZ8hV4BffUH34_KhYFDc=s400" width="320" /></a></div>
</li>
<li>Brush some olive oil onto the tops of each cutlet (your fingers work if you don't have a brush!)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/Ti8VkQJ7wb_jkSkoXqTeo2DDk-fYaeoJ-vtb9o9qQSNvsEByYuJAlErtPF6G_9YbaUJV2mcV1Ho=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/Ti8VkQJ7wb_jkSkoXqTeo2DDk-fYaeoJ-vtb9o9qQSNvsEByYuJAlErtPF6G_9YbaUJV2mcV1Ho=s400" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can see the unbrushed ones on the top left. It makes a big difference!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</li>
<li>Preheat oven to 375.</li>
<li>Bake cutlets on baking sheets or clean cast-iron pan for 10-12 minutes each side, 20-25 minutes total. When you flip them, brush the new side with olive oil.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/UoMwHhmvjqvmheI1LEZH_rArFrPSU_x16lB2op5JCM0gY5lBahxmZu-vSdY1UlhDFOb6N45H7IA=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/UoMwHhmvjqvmheI1LEZH_rArFrPSU_x16lB2op5JCM0gY5lBahxmZu-vSdY1UlhDFOb6N45H7IA=s400" width="320" /></a></div>
</li>
<li>Place cutlets in a pyrex or cast-iron pan. Pour pasta sauce over cutlets. Smother, but don't drench them. Just a dab, or a cross if the piece is really large like a supermarket eggplant. Place a slice of mozzarella on each cutlet. Dust the entire thing with parm. If you have an extra pyrex, load that the same way with the remainder, or stack them on your existing cutlets for a lasagna style feast. Broil on 400 or Low for about ~10 minutes, or until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling. If you have a double-stack, bake for another 15-20 minutes before broiling. The bottom layer will have to melt.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/8T08n1FPAPcVkJ5iQ0RD1C87eCnMKAGvrpK8qJrEzwq2kQup5fpjCnDJV32YAdsuxAHMyf5Y8kc=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/8T08n1FPAPcVkJ5iQ0RD1C87eCnMKAGvrpK8qJrEzwq2kQup5fpjCnDJV32YAdsuxAHMyf5Y8kc=s400" width="320" /></a></div>
</li>
<li>Serve hot, garnish with basil and parsley, and enjoy! A good crusty bread is perfect to help mop up any extra juices ;) Nothing wrong with carboloading!<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/tXm5eb14uFUbDdAaG5ZDRV1VkA_VG5SUYFl7Op-ArgUuxOyF6Oebr2WmFfoQ29YwkT971ftmG5Q=s400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/tXm5eb14uFUbDdAaG5ZDRV1VkA_VG5SUYFl7Op-ArgUuxOyF6Oebr2WmFfoQ29YwkT971ftmG5Q=s400" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No Plating pictures because we were so hungry<br /><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b>Compact Instructions for Baking Eggplant Parm</b></li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Dust eggplant slices with coarse salt. Pat them so the crystals are pressed into the flesh. Let them drain for about a half hour in a colander or on some cooling racks. They'll "bleed" a bit, so make sure they're not over something you hate wiping down! The sink is good.</li>
<li>Take three bowls. Fill one with the flour. In the next, whisk eggs and a splash of cream or milk. In the last, breadcrumbs. You can add spices to both the flour and breadcrumb mixture if you like. I sometimes add some hot sauce to the egg mixture.</li>
<li>Batter eggplant slices one at a time. First flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. You can repeat the process for a double-dip, but this is only really necessary if the mix doesn't stick. Don't be afraid to double, or even triple dip! It's eggplant. There's nothing to be scared of on the inside. Transfer the cutlets to a cooking sheet to set. Let them cool in the fridge for about an hour. (optional, but helps the batter stick, especially for this next step) </li>
<li>Brush some olive oil onto the tops of each cutlet (your fingers work if you don't have a brush!)</li>
<li>Preheat oven to 375.</li>
<li>Bake cutlets on baking sheets or clean cast-iron pan for 10-12 minutes each side, 20-25 minutes total. When you flip them, brush the new side with olive oil.</li>
<li>Place cutlets in a pyrex or cast-iron pan. Pour pasta sauce over cutlets. Smother, but don't drench them. Just a dab, or a cross if the piece is really large like a supermarket eggplant. Place a slice of mozzarella on each cutlet. Dust the entire thing with parm. If you have an extra pyrex, load that the same way with the remainder, or stack them on your existing cutlets for a lasagna style feast. Broil on 400 or Low for about ~10 minutes, or until the cheese is golden brown and bubbling. If you have a double-stack, bake for another 15-20 minutes before broiling. The bottom layer will have to melt.</li>
<li>Serve hot, garnish with basil and parsley, and enjoy! A good crusty bread is perfect to help mop up any extra juices ;) Nothing wrong with carboloading!</li>
</ol>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-85821119191328602852016-05-31T01:24:00.000+08:002016-05-31T01:26:02.615+08:00Un-German Potato Salad<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello! Maybe I will write down one of these recipes ahead of time before saying Oh I'll send you My Recipe Because I Totally Write Them Down and Do Them The Same Every Time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Totally.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I used to hate potato salad. I think a lot of people do! At its worst, its basically uncooked potatoes in a slurry of fake mayo and red onions, just some sort of tuberous polar stew. At its best the typical American potato salad is chewy potato bites covered with an almost sweet sauce with bright, popping textures from red onions, carrots and occasionally peas? (blasphemy? you tell me) It's basically cold fries. That's what you're looking for here, texturally and taste-wise. Crunch, potato and mayo.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So with that in mind, FORGET THAT SHIT. That's lame tater salad! TSH. New World can suck my newly accented anoos. Now, ve make a potato salad that will actually taste GOOD. And you will be like. How did I ever eat zis pathetic bullshei<span style="background-color: white; color: #545454; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2px;">ß</span>e? Also by the end you vill probably say zis was not zuper German you kind of made zis up but zat's okay its very delizious you are totally a chef ja.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, I'm going to give you ze quick recipe, but I want you to listen to what comes after -- your ingredients and method are important, and I will help you. But I don't like to vaste time zo I give you full recipe now. Allow yourself the time to stare at it all and wonder </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">how will this possibly come together in my mouth</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and know that yes, you will love it. Also you can stop with the accent now. You're just </span>embarrassing everyone.<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<b>TOTAL PREP TIME: 1 hour+rest overnight in the fridge (don't be hasty!)</b><br />
<br />
<b>SERVES: Probably like 8 people, but not for long.</b><br />
<br />
<b><i>INGREDIENTS</i></b><br />
<br />
<b>4lbs POTATOES, chopped into mouth-sized bites. Any kind, organic is best.</b><br />
<br />
<b>1 BIG-ASS RED ONION (or a couple medium sized ones), sliced thick, then chopped. Use pinky finger width as a guide (less you're really huge or tiny)</b><br />
<br />
<b>1lb BACON, thick slice (or whole slab from the butcher!! slice it yoself!), chopped into big chunks.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>1 Yellow or Red Pepper, diced (Optional -- add this if you don't/cant have bacon/meat, or if you're me. It's delicious too.)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>3 cloves garlic (NOT WHOLE BULBS GUYS. Tho you can if you want *shrugasaurus*)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Green Onions, some. Diced. However much you want, tho probably no more than the bundle they come it at the store.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Salt n' Peppa to taste</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><i>DIJON MUSTARD</i> AND FKIN <i>HELLMANS REAL ASS MAYO</i>. Don't PLAY WITH ME less you bout to make that shit yourself. Which is FINE and I probably have a recipe for that too. Damn.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Apple Cider Vinegar, 1 tablespoon.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Some cumin and paprika. For later, baby.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b><i>METHOD</i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
Get the biggest pot and pan you got. If you have some fancy le creuset or Kitchenaid enamel pot/pan or cast iron, that's your bet. A lot of times people have trouble with recipes because we assume a certain size of pot and pan. The heat and time for cooking things depends on the size of your pan and how you're getting heat. If you have a really tiny pan on electric stove as your only option cook all this in batches, saving the bacon grease from each batch of bacon for your veggies, and leave it at a solid medium-medium-low at all times. Things should sizzle rather than just simmer. Seriously tho, go to TJMaxx or whatever nearby and look in their kitchen section. usually some cheaper enamel cookware there (I know it's expensive, but $100 enamel cookware will literally last your entire life unlike that $15 walmart pot you've had to replace three times this year). Enamel and cast iron are your friends. Be one with the kitchen.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>WHAT KIND OF POTATOES DID I BUY??</b><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i>Is this question driving you crazy? I know, some people really care about their taters. But I don't. They're all delicious, so long as you're getting good produce. That generally means organic, but not always. I live in Vancouver BC and we have a lot of greenhouse heirloom non-organic potatoes that are generally small and taste amazing. For this recipe you'd just halve or cube them. Generally though, it's worth it to go for organic potatoes. Non-organic potatoes produced in the US have to sit in a decontamination vault for 3 days after harvesting and if you go inside during that time the residual pesticides in the air will literally kill you.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Now, boil those taters for about 15-20 minutes.</b> More or less depending on the size of your cut. Pay attention, and use a fork to prod them every five minutes after ten; they're done when they feel like poking a piece of strawberry. Kind of soft but still resistant. Drain them and put them in whatever bowl you're going to serve all this shit in. This is now your mixing bowl. Ta dah! fewer dishes.<br />
<br />
While the taters are boiling, start cooking that bacon in your pan. <b>When the bacon is crispy on the edges but still chewy (probably 3-5 minutes of cooking), set it aside. </b>If your potatoes are done you can throw the bacon in the bowl with it. After you and your friends snack on too much of it, there'll be the perfect amount for the salad (a pound is actually a bit too much. But otherwise you end up with too little cos fucking bacon man)<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Sautee red onion, garlic and pepper (if using) until browned on the edges and slightly soft in bacon fat. </b>Add butter if necessary. (It's probably necessary. Mm butter) <b>If you've got a reasonable size pan and everything fits well in a single, even layer, then MEDIUM-HIGH HEAT for a few minutes, then drop it to LOW for 10-15. </b>Otherwise, finagle. The idea is the same -- high heat to get everything searing and browning, then low heat for a while to draw out the sugars and carmelize everything in that glorious bacon fat.<br />
<br />
While THAT is going on, whisk together our sauce. This amount is somewhat personal. Do you want this goopy or a nice covering, almost like a batter? I suggest the latter (haha). <b>Either way, it's 1 part moutard, 1 part mayo. </b>So for this amount we're going to take <b>1/2 cup mustard, 1/2 cup mayo and our tablespoon of cider vinegar and whisk it all together, along with our salt, pepper, cumin and paprika</b>. You just want a little dash of paprika, but you can put in a lot of cumin. However much you like. This should have a definite bite to it, but don't worry. it will mellow out after being mixed and resting overnight.<br />
<br />
Add the cooked veg and bacon to the salad bowl, then add your sauce -- start with half and toss from there. You can always add more in cooking, but you can't really take away. It should be a steaming, brown-yellow mountain of delish.<br />
<br />
<b>NOW DON'T EAT IT</b>. This is frankly the ultimate secret to all cooking. <b>LEAVE IT OVERNIGHT IN THE FRIDGE. AT LEAST TWO HOURS GUIS.</b> I call this cold-cooking; you've got all your flavours, but now they need to cook together, to really mix and meld. You'll notice this effect most with soups and sauces, and potato salad is basically a sauce. You've probably tried some while making it, but try it the next day, cold. All those flavours you found yesterday are going to be there, plus some you had no idea could possibly exist. And you'll be like "woah, did i add something extra there?"<br />
<br />
You did. It's called love.<br />
<br />
(also green onions chopped and sprinkled on top right before you serve. Don't need to have those sitting in there)theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-81541371987317658232016-02-25T05:41:00.003+08:002016-02-25T05:50:57.691+08:00MARSICAN SAUCEThis unit has received a request for a BBQ sauce recipe. In advance of other such requests, I am posting the entire recipe here. This is... MARSICAN SAUCE. Cos it's Red like the Red Planet, and has a shitload of mexican spices in it.<br />
<br />
THERE WILL BE NO PICTURES. Pictures are unnecessary and only for you to gaggle and drool. DROOLING IS FORBIDDEN. Until you start making this DELICIOUS SHIT.<br />
<br />
HERE ARE YOUR INGREDIENTS (Listed in Freedom Units, because I didn't grow up w/ metric)<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>1 phat can (28oz) of tomato puree/crushed tomatoes.</b></li>
<li><b>1/2 cup BLACK STRAP molasses </b>(or more)</li>
<li><b>3/4 cup beyonce</b> (brown sugar)</li>
<li><b>1/4 cup butter</b> (1 stick, if in the United States of Trump)</li>
<li><b>1/2 cup apple cider vinegar </b>(or white wine vinegar, but the apple cider is best. If you use a really raw apple cider, use a little less, maybe 1/3 cup)</li>
<li><b>1 large onion, diced</b> (red or yellow -- I use yellow. Red will give it a slightly more acidic bite, which I get elsewhere. Yellow helps make this a sweeter sauce)</li>
<li><b>1/4 cup garlic, diced </b>(or more)</li>
<li><b>1 tsp worshteshire sauce</b></li>
<li><b>1 can chipotles in adobo sauce </b>(usually 1 cup. If you <b>don't have a blender </b>of some sort, mince these before throwing in)</li>
<li><b>1/3 cup dijon mustard</b></li>
<li><b>2 bay leaves</b></li>
<li><b>1/4 cup regular style ketchup </b>(if on hand, otherwise don't sweat)</li>
<li><b>A healthy amount (1/2 cup) of MARTIAN DUST </b>(see below)</li>
<li><b>Salt & pepper for onions+garlic+any peppers you decide to obliterate yourself with (add with onions)</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
Okay. Here's the directions. First, if you want (AND YOU WANT) prepare the MARTIAN DUST, as instructed below. If you are impoverished or otherwise missing ingredients, you will at least want a 1/2 cup of smoked paprika and some cayenne pepper. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
TOOLS: a pot. Anything non-reactive, NO TEFLON. I don't trust you guys with that stuff. It's dangerous. Also, a wooden spoon or other wooden implement. (not dong) Also a blender. I have a Kitchenaid hand blender, and I love it more than my left foot. (f u lefty) You already used the knives.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Saute onions in butter until soft, dusting with salt and pepper as desired. If using any additional hot peppers, like jalapenos or dried peppers, add these now. </li>
<li>Add garlic, stirring to incorporate</li>
<li>Add brown sugar, stirring until it all turns into a delicious brown caramel goo.</li>
<li>Stir in some (1/4 cup) MARTIAN DUST or smoked paprika. Stir, then add cider vinegar</li>
<li>Add remaining ingredients and simmer until thickened, about 45 minutes. I find that this recipe burps A LOT, so you may want to turn on a show and stand nearby, stirring consistently but lazily.</li>
<li>Once thickened, remove bay leaves and blend, preferably with a hand blender (I like it chunky) Let sit for at least an hour before serving, preferably overnight.</li>
<li>CONGRATS! You have made BBQ sauce. Prepare for everyone you know to be really jealous. </li>
</ol>
<div>
Okay fine, a photo. Here's what it should look like at the end of the day :)</div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTipYU48bLOC76q-rLL0D4bh3MTq79wYY94EiuZO7Zyovueumf4ipZhXpgIT_bq7tJtXsuKMHNgZHffD7z_JY7xNNU_MWsQzlnaMaUWnogPzWxZPpvabAlKrl8riUrTbojXXaZNLXRQrGT/s1600/IMG_20160224_122607%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTipYU48bLOC76q-rLL0D4bh3MTq79wYY94EiuZO7Zyovueumf4ipZhXpgIT_bq7tJtXsuKMHNgZHffD7z_JY7xNNU_MWsQzlnaMaUWnogPzWxZPpvabAlKrl8riUrTbojXXaZNLXRQrGT/s320/IMG_20160224_122607%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<br />
<b>MARTIAN DUST(tm!)</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Grab a container. Whatever you're gonna fill with this spice mix. You should probably make it reasonably big, because if you like spicy food, you will want to put this mix on pretty much everything you ever make. I like to use old peanut butter jars and old spice mix containers. Don't throw glass away!<br />
<br />
These amounts are just examples, and will make a TON of this spice. You probably want to do half this, but that would have made the fractions intolerable for me. Sorry! Scale up and down, all that matters is ratios. Think "parts" in your head if that's easier.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>1 cup smoked paprika</b></li>
<li><b>1 cup ancho chile</b></li>
<li><b>1/2 cup cayenne pepper</b></li>
<li><b>1/2 cup cumin</b></li>
<li><b>1 tablespoon oregano</b></li>
<li><b>1/2 tablespoon sea salt</b> (you get plenty of salt from other things, but it's good to have some in here)</li>
<li><b>2 tablespoons cracked pepper</b> -- I use a five-pepper mix from a store nearby, but any peppercorns will do. Make it unique! Make it your own! Just don't use cheap pre-ground pepper)</li>
<li><b>1-3 teaspoons ground cloves</b></li>
<li><b>1/2 cup garlic powde</b>r (optional -- I use enough garlic in everything that you don't need it. If you don't always use fresh garlic though, definitely throw this in)</li>
</ul>
<div>
Put this all together, make sure there's a little room left in the top of whatever container you're using, <b>SEAL THE CONTAINER</b>, and SHAKE! That's it, you've just made what is probably your first Real Spice Mix!(tm) Sniff it, and if it makes you wince and look away, it's good. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjvnyXR09McGZC5PtF3YGqC4vQmZc1BbVMtpPcnAI7YP77RkN03C1RAEsWOCAzictjRuVas7BcPJeLlCLmamO9pBZlvEWjiDFfTK_KtXDT3qUoU24N1W6NVDG1rFGfPXkWfjR1RnrhN5I/s1600/IMG_20160224_134404%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvjvnyXR09McGZC5PtF3YGqC4vQmZc1BbVMtpPcnAI7YP77RkN03C1RAEsWOCAzictjRuVas7BcPJeLlCLmamO9pBZlvEWjiDFfTK_KtXDT3qUoU24N1W6NVDG1rFGfPXkWfjR1RnrhN5I/s320/IMG_20160224_134404%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Feel free to play with all of this -- the key base ingredients are the smoked paprika, chile powder and cumin. Another optional ingredient here would be coriander, between 1/2-1 cup. I didn't use that for mine, but you certainly could.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Enjoy cooking! I have a lot more of these, so if people want recipes, I can supply ;)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-54454756085045454022015-05-17T01:57:00.001+08:002015-05-17T01:57:46.095+08:00Mad Max: Fury Road: A reviewI want tell you about a movie. There's a lot of movies coming out right now, and going to come out, and some of them are quite good (Looking at you, <i>ex Machina). </i>Others are just further iterations, rebootequels like, well, just about everything, or weird artsy movies about humanity, as always manage to make it through Sundance (once again, <i>ex Machina). </i>They are the movie, again. <i>Age of Ultron </i>is a good example, because I can't tell what made it any different from the first Avengers movie. Or the Iron Man movies. Or the Captain America movies. I can differentiate between AoU and the Hulk movies because Edward Norton is a good actor and the Hulk is a terrible hero on his own. Otherwise, these movies are just blasting repetitions of the same overly expensive CGI blasting frictionless across fake scenes where actors desperately try to imagine everything that's happening in front of them while also imagining their own fake emotions. Really. Think about the movies you've watched in the last couple of years. Increasingly all green-screened, increasingly repetitive, and increasingly based off of old franchises.<br />
<br />
Well, Mad Max: Fury Road is like those movies, but also unlike them. It is iterative. Mad Max is there, as he has been. This movie is, at its core, no different from the other Mad Max movies. If you are unaware, Mad Max is a survivor of the nuclear post-apocalypse in 100% sad desert Australia where people are interested in three things: Oil, Water, and Crazy Face Masks. This movie adds one: Women. The first movie is fun, if forgettable. The first 45 minutes of Beyond Thunderdome (i.e. the Thunderdome part of the movie) is amazing, the rest forgettable. Cult favourites more for prop work than any storytelling. Fury Road is no different, but better. Because George Miller has realised the truth. He has seen the dark heart of Mad Max, and he has realised that he isn't actually very good. He's just not that interesting of a character. He's a guy, who's good at being alive, and that is his focus. All of Max's depth is spelled out for us within the first 180 seconds of Fury Road in choice sentences and a couple meh flashbacks. It is the madness of this world that we are attracted to, the complete insanity of humanity once we are stripped of the legal systems and comfortable lifestyles that constrain our bestial (especially male) instincts. In a time where studios are looking at past franchises and forgetting what made them good, George Miller looked back on his movies and realised exactly why they were bad.<br />
<br />
He then corrected those mistakes. This movie is a lean, mean, murderous entertainment machine, with a simple message delivered by a mechano-fisted bald Charlize Theron: Women are badasses too, and just because it's the apocalypse doesn't mean you get to own them like cattle. (Since some of the women in this movie are literally fat women who are being milked, this is not even a metaphor. George Miller does not work in metaphor) The story and plot are spelled out immediately. There is a citadel, it is ruled by a bad man who controls the water and food, and he keeps a harem of healthy, non-mutated wives for his exclusive disgusting use. Charlize Theron does not like this, for good reason. The worldbuilding is simply and masterfully done -- you do not need to have seen any Mad Max or any post-apocalyptic movie to understand what is going on here. Yes, the movie is basically one long chase scene. It's really like four or five strung together, but there's only like one real slow moment in the movie, so come on. It's one.<br />
<br />
But what a chase. Oh what a glorious chase, to roughly paraphrase one of the characters, who you no doubt have seen from the trailers, if not the movie itself. George Miller took the gigantic dumptrucks of money handed him for this movie, and he turned them into murdertrucks of incredible amazing power. All the vehicles in this movie are real. All were driven. All exploded, for real. I can not adequately explain to you just how satisfying every fight scene was in this movie. Everything felt real, was real. The grit, the grime, the sand, the mud, the blood, the burns and bolts and flaming spears, the men waving back and forth on poles swinging from the back of souped up desert roamers, <i>the man strapped to the front of a bus playing a flamethrowering guitar. </i>This movie will be a cult movie. It already is. It's the best Mad Max movie. It had people chanting at the end of it. WITNESS!<br />
<br />
In short, I liked it. I will spell out the two issues I had with this movie. One, it could have been a wee bit shorter, just so that I didn't have a heart attack. There was a slow moment in the movie and my adrenaline stopped pumping and then it had to start all over again and I was literally exhausted after watching this. Not bad, but someone might die while watching this movie.<br />
<br />
Second, and this is actually serious: this movie needs some diversity. There was an old asian woman, and while I couldn't actually spot the one black man, others have and I know he exists somewhere in the movie. Given that this movie takes place in Australia, and was filmed in the Namib desert, I feel like they could have dredged up some stunt actors of colour. There was also a brown lady wife who was pretty cool, but didn't get enough action. I love this movie, and I will tell everyone to see it. But racial diversity should go hand in hand with gender diversity, and this movie only succeeded in championing one. I'll take it, don't get me wrong, but intersectionality is important and real. I am thrilled beyond words that this movie was basically Charlize Theron kicking ass while her manboy sidekick Max shot things and gave blood while grunting. Seriously guys, Max says like 20 words in this movie. I'm going to count next time I see it, which I will. But we have to do more than take one step. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Hugh Keays-Byrne come back as a different masked madman in control of the world's dwindling resources, but there were plenty of opportunities to introduce some characters of colour despite the fact that every other character in this movie is literally painted white or related to our white antagonist. This isn't entirely Fury Road's problem. It's Hollywood's, which is why the ACLU is now suing them! Progress.<br />
<br />
Bottom line: Mad Max is amazing, fun, wow. 11/10 fun and joy, some number out of 10 for quality of movie. You figure that crap out once you go see it, it's not my job. (But it's still 98% fresh on <a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mad_max_fury_road/">Rotten Tomatoes</a>) WITNESS!<br />
<br />
PS: To all the MRAs crying about this movie.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqvDuo_CjfabEuhsHR1UMF2Rhbm1VyHCQxVj7j75FIG9fLAf1-xHC5su7wGNdz_LNQJSNcjBSF6jhMWwircjPLmxZxQ5r5pTZSW1NIi2KKdpVLK6ozzWlIxbhf0qfDd8IBV5eJF4z1btae/s1600/maniacallaughter.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqvDuo_CjfabEuhsHR1UMF2Rhbm1VyHCQxVj7j75FIG9fLAf1-xHC5su7wGNdz_LNQJSNcjBSF6jhMWwircjPLmxZxQ5r5pTZSW1NIi2KKdpVLK6ozzWlIxbhf0qfDd8IBV5eJF4z1btae/s320/maniacallaughter.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-45156838052779173672014-09-05T11:53:00.000+08:002014-09-05T11:53:24.934+08:00A TeaserHello everyone! Just dropping by the blog to leave this little teaser here: It's the prelude to my novel Leylined. I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to share. (HINT HINT KNUDGE KNUDGE KNOW WHAT I MEAN EH EH? SAY NO MORE SAY NO MORE)<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>PRELUDE</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">“Brothers! Sisters! The day of prophecy has arrived!” Zhi-Yao spread her arms over the sea of cheering people. Ten million strong, the crowd was one of many across the world. For the first time since the days of the Ancients, humanity was united. Wars had been fought, cultures eradicated, whole islands sunk beneath the waves, but it was done. This night, the Nine stars not fallen shone brightly, arranged in a perfect circle above them. The heavenly Ring's rotation was halted for over the for the first time in millenia, her silver sides reflecting the sun’s light to the shadowed mountain below. Samantha’s Child was not yet visible. Tonight would be her final orbit.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">Zhi-Yao held a crystal tablet aloft, its glowing letters shining bright.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">“As it was written in the Book of Truth, handed down from the Ancients to the First Children, held by the wisest and most pious through the Mad Age, so shall it occur. The Machinari keep the Ancient destinies alive, and as they have before, they shall today. Samantha’s child, whose name we have kept for so long, shall fall. Our saviour shall be born! We will witness the birth of a new world, a free world!” </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">The cheer was a volcanic eruption of noise. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">She turned to the angel standing beside her. Sleek, with a body of silver metal and robes of shimmering gold, the Machinari was a reminder that once, the world had been clean. Once, the world had been pure, good. And that it would be again. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">“Keeper of Samantha’s spirit,” she said, bowing. “When shall the Child fall?”</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">The angel’s translucent eyes, hovering lines of light, did not meet her gaze. Such would be below a servant of the gods, despite her divine position.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">::Soon:: the angel said, in its electric voice. Its grip tightened on a long crystal staff, an object she knew could obliterate and create with the slightest motion. ::Very soon::</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">Zhi-Yao’s heart quivered, but she put it down to excitement. Millenia of war would end. Famine, poverty, hate and injustice would all come crashing down once the Star fell. All her crimes would be forgiven. All the blood washed off her hands. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">She turned back to the crowd. “The Child falls soon! Let us pray to welcome her!” </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">Her words spread like a wave. When all had knelt, she began to speak, her words echoed in a great roar.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">“</span><span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Ancient gods, from worlds near and far,</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Holy Samantha, mother of us all</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Forgive us our mortal sins</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Pity your children, who have forgotten who we are</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Let your Child fall</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Let your daughter be the saviour of us all.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Fall, Fall, Samantha’s Child</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Open for us the heavenly door</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic;">Give us, O Child, a whole new world”</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">A cry went up on, emanating from the west. Samantha's Child was rising. She travelled speedily across the sky, far faster than any of the Nine. How she fell was anyone’s guess. Would it be in flames? Would it be slow, like a leaf in the wind? Or would she rocket into the sea, casting up waves? The island they stood upon was not overlarge, and her every inch was covered in human beings, from the olive groves to the hot springs. It mattered not. It would be beautiful.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">The Star moved overhead. A great cheer rose from the people. Zhi-Yao found herself weeping. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">The Star passed, and continued on her way. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">The cheer transformed to confused rumblings, murmurs and screams. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">A sudden silence, spread at the speed of light, cut the crowd.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">A red star rose on the horizon. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">“Angel,” Zhi-Yao turned. “Did we do wrong?”</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">The angel’s gaze met hers, the shifting lights dimming to a somber blue.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">::The decision was beyond me:: the angel said. ::I am sorry::</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">The space around the angel warped, pulling over its form as a tired man pulls a blanket. The air puckered as it disappeared. </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">The Red Star shone. There was a great heat, and then nothing at all.</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-8632835167157308632014-02-16T19:24:00.004+08:002014-02-16T19:24:50.986+08:00Short Story Shuffle!Here's my tale for the #ShortStoryShuffle, a little game I put together on the @nanopals blog. I guess it needs a title so we'll call it:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
TEXTS FROM LAST DIMENSION</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">So I guess like chateau is just a word for fancy mansion</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">LOL, but isn’t it castle? </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">tht so but none of the ones we’ve been to are really castles</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">A fking catapault would take them down</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">LOL or a pipe bomb.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">ikr, I should look up a recipe</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">omg dooooo ittttttt lol</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">that would be so bad. I really should now, just to piss off mom</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">we’re going to another one tonight</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">imma do it</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">she being a bitch?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">no dont</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">yea made me take out my headphones so I have to listen to the stupid guide</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">can’t understand him at all, hes talking like latin</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">txting you in secret</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">and im not gonna do it, jail would suck even worse than her</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">ROFL were secret buddies</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">yeah it would</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">fk yeah</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">whatchu up to?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">messing around online</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">Tell me about the chateau! </span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">were just getting to it, this whole bus is really weird</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">like all weirdos</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">where is it? what’s it called?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">that’s really weird, don’t let them touch you</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dunno. france somewhere. been on this bus foreverrrrr</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">lots of creepy trees</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">called umberlich or something stupid like that</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">wish we could go to a f1 race instead but she said its stupid and dangerous</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">glad u still have signal!!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">ikr</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">r u still seeing Amal? </span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">he just texted me hey</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">i wasn’t seeing him, we had shop together</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">w/e u 2 are lovers I know it</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">f u</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">haha jk <3 span="" u=""></3></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">woah dude shit just got fked up</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">whaat? u okay?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">yeah we just turned the corner and all of a sudden we werent in forest it’s like this huge valley and a lake</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">wtf where’s the chateau?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dunno theres like an island in the middle of the lake</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">think theres a building on it</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">sounds crazy scary.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">yea I dunno</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">wtf kind of trip did your mom take u on?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">all the others were okay but I dunno last one we were at some guy kept talking to her</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dont see him here tho</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">good that would be creepy</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">hey were gonna get on a boat now I prolly cant txt you 4 sec</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">kk be safe</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dude I think my mom maybe joined a cult</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">im kinda freakin out</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dont get on the boat</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">too late</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">i think the guide is like a priest</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">hes trying to get us to do some chant</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">jump off</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">swim back</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">my mom will kill me</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">this water is really cold</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">k they stopped chanting</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">so glad</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">did ur mom chant?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">a little, she tried to make me but I said no</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">this island is mad creepy</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">i dunno this place isnt like the other chateaus</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">all black and red</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">super creepy</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dude I’m worried about you</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">its probably draculas house or something</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">omg lol prolly true</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dont joke ur in trouble</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">its ok</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">im fine</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">actually this place is kind of cool</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">some crazy monsters carved onto the doors</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">like what?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">are there unicorns??</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">they look like that thing on Craig’s shirts</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">no unicorns</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">kinda look like fish</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">that guy who’s always playing that game?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">woah this place reeks</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">smells like a fkn sewer</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">there are all these paintings of old dudes and ladies in robes</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">wtf they’re all holding fish</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">this is like some long john silvers cult</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">LOL but dude that’s creepy</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">this must be some kinda art museum</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">maybe thats why its all so weird</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">europeans</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">racist LOL</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">what’s your mom doing?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">she’s reading all the little plaques out loud</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">least these are pretty much the same</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">some weird named dude killed this old dude</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">for the glory of his stupid god</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">this is just like the vatican</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">except they have nicer hats</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">LOL ur hilarious but I still think that place is going to kill you</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">u should tell your mom you want to leave</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">i did! she’s not listening…. she says the bus doesn’t go back for another three hours</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">imma go find the bathroom</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">huh</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">think I found some dude’s office instead</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">don’t look around you’ll probably get cursed</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">w/e</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">can’t get more cursed than I already am</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dude your gonna get in trouble</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">you should go back to your mom</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">oh are you my fucking dad now?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">I been looking for a new one</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">sorry sorry</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">just worried about you</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">imma steal something</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">no!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">creepy book</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">another creepy book</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">some weird star drawing</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">bunch of fuckers fucking in a pit</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">huh</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">what?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">fucken my little pony pen case</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">OMGGGGG okay that place isn’t cursed if it has that</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">lol you’re ridiculous</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">kk imma steal this for you</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">nice its even got pens on the inside</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">fancy ones w pointy metal heads</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">omg I can use them with my calligraphy book!</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">mom bought me one for xmas</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">at least someone’s mom gets good gifts</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">i got a self help book titled “will your way out of depression”</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">and a fucking talking to</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">when can I become emancipated?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">18</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">sucks girl</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">:(</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">ill just run away</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">w/e</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">imma draw something on this stupid desk</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">its covered with drawings</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">what should I add?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">buncha dicks haha</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">or a dinosaur</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">eating all the dudes</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">haha imma do that</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">god I hope no one comes in</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">what if you get caught</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">they’ll like sacrifice you or something</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">ur mom is probably pissed as hell right now</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">mai?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">u there?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">fk</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">fking cut myself</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">well</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">now the dinosaur has colour</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">:(:(:(:(:(</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">u okay?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">yah its okay just got got it all over the desk</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">w/e</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">fk these drawings</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">im outta here</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dont die</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">holy shit</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">what???</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">fking earthquake</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">I dunno</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">omg</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">i think I just heard something roar</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">get outta there dude</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">ur a good swimmer</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">just gtfo</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">holy shit</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">its real</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">holy fucking shit</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">help me</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">dude I don’t know where you are</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">your fb location just says something about spacetime</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">did you do that?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">lyons</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">send help</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">Ok but I don’t speak french</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">what do you mean it’s real?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">Mai?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">omg mom</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">it fucking ate mom</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">im so sorry</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">where are u?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">mai??</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">it changed</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">it fucking changed</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">its not my little pony</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">how did I not see it b4?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
wtf r u talking about?</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt;">ur scaring me</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
mai?</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
u there?</div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">the pens are real</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">the drawings are real</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">the star</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">the pit</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">everythings real except me</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">mai? it’s been like three days! Where are u? r u okay?</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">u sound horrible</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">ive been so scared for you</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">mai??</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: 36px;">
<span style="font-family: 'Arial'; font-size: 11pt;">mai???</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36px;">
<br /></div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-24970076818856250852013-06-28T04:56:00.002+08:002013-06-28T04:56:16.890+08:00The Sounds They Make<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A bit of flash fiction inspired by the Wow! signal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I’m telling you, this recording is real.”</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Well where did it come from? Why can’t we still hear it?”</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“This transmission travelled </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">around</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a black hole and through an active star-forming region of space to reach us! It’s incredible that it even did in the first place.”</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“That’s gonna be hard to prove.”</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Look, even if they don’t believe me now, we’ll just wait. I’m sure that the circumstances will repeat themselves. Or if not, maybe they’ve moved on to more advanced modes of communication than radio since this transmission was sent out. Neutrinos would arrive much faster from the same area and more regularly. But we need the funding to build a dedicated detector.”</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Have you seen the economy lately? We can’t exactly afford to build giant detectors made of silver mirrors in the arctic circle.”</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The absorbers actually only have to be steel. Not that expensive.” </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“That’s not the point. Nobody’s going to fork over the cash for something that you can’t even be sure of.”</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">am</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sure of it. It’s just that people aren’t ready to believe. I know the weakness of my case -- there’s only one instance of this contact. But it’s </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">real.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I believe you. I’m just not sure anyone else will.”</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-10f96297-876b-70a6-a1c9-43711aa292c4" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The recording crackles to life. Mostly static, terrible noise. But in there are sounds that do not sound electric. They sound organic, living. Only a few words and indistinct syllables, but something unmistakably a language.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Missiles flying. Fires, blazing. -d Help us.</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-29515315231797180042013-02-06T09:08:00.002+08:002013-02-06T16:59:24.251+08:00777<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">At @_vajk's request for #7lines, here are the first seven lines from the seventh page of my book. (I may have cheated, I skipped the prologue). All the #7lines links should be compiled on her website www.madicienne.com!</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">From the novel <i>Leylined</i>:</span></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">-</span></span></div>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.25122870597988367" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It occurred to Lena that she was in a dream when she realized that for some reason, the world was square. There were still trees, and the ocean was there, and the Spire was there, tall and white and spindling, but for some reason it was all made of squares. Even the clouds were square. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nine</span><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, she thought, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">even the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">moons</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are square</span><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. They were just two blocks hanging up in the sky, little squares of color dotting their surfaces. The Ring somehow maintained an appearance of being smooth, but Lena figured that was just an illusion. It was likely made all of squares, just too small to see.</span></b><br />
<div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-</span></b></div>
<div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hope you enjoyed the tease!</span></b></div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-39548958752676012862013-01-31T09:49:00.003+08:002013-01-31T09:49:57.246+08:00Kailith<i>A small interlude story I wrote for my WIP </i>Leylined<i>, just to add to the world at large. Kailith isn't even a side character at the moment, but her life is the same as many others in this world. Enjoy!</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ah, still here today? </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kailith thought, looking at the quartet of square metal rods that angled solidly from the surface of the gently breaking sea. The sun was bright overhead, and the water was clear enough that you could actually see the rods continue deep into the depths, spreading into a massive, bigger than could be really believed -- actually island sized shadow far in the murky depths below. The real island was just a few leagues behind her, a rolling green bump that stretched to a blackened, smoldering peak. Hinara was only occasionally truly active, but she routinely oozed lava off her northern slopes, slowly extending the size of the isle. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The bringer and destroyer of life, aren’t you?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> She thought kindly. </span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The volcano was a living goddess, a real power that both gave and took, and they worshipped her as was right. But the thing, the Ancient thing that was the giant, square-cut rods and the massive bulk they led to was some fallen demon, a lost power better sealed beneath the waves. But as Hinara had risen, so had the demon, the rods inching higher and higher each year, as if they were ancient lovers who could not bear to part. </span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The elders spoke of the birth of the demon, the first time it had risen above the waves. Hinara had been smaller then, the island little more than a league across. The time of their forefathers, the great times eight predecessors to their tribe. So told, the story said that Hinara gave a massive roar and the entire mountain leaped upwards, furiously expelling her rage into the air and sea, almost killing the entire tribe. The survivors had fled on their canoes and rafts into the churning, acid sea and saw their island rising before them, growing as if pushed by the living earth herself. </span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As they fled, they were greeted by an even more terrible sight -- the four-armed claw of the demon sprouting from the ocean’s skin. As soon as the demon broke the surface, Hinara’s rage quieted, her rumbling fury ceased and though ash fell for nearly a twin, the tribe survived, and the island life rebounded tenfold. At first, the demon’s claws had sprouted some twenty canoes in length from the sea -- the same as was discovered Hinara had grown. Each year, they found their villages farther from the shore, and the Demon higher in the sea. Now, some hundred migrations after it had first appeared, the demon’s grasp stretched over a hundred canoes, longer than the longest whale.</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How tall will you grow?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> She spoke to both, her goddess and the demon. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Surely you cannot grow forever. You must stop sometime. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">She knew her thoughts were prayers at best. The demon and the mountain would rise, and continue rising until Hinara’s endless rage was spent, or the demon truly broke free. For now, the few traders that came to their land saw the demon as an idle curiosity, its secrets locked too deep below the waves to be of any use. But every year it rose. Every year that shadowy mass, so indistinct grew larger, more pronounced. It was still hard to actually see the body of the demon, far below the waves, but once you saw how gigantic it truly was, you could never unsee it. The demon truly was clawing his way from his watery prison. And their goddess was helping it.</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Kailith looked down through the clear green waves, watching the creatures of the deep flit through the waters above the demon’s bulk.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Why, Lady, must you bring this evil back to us? </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the demon finally rose, there would be no denying the onslaught of pirates, looters, buccaneers or whatever treasure-hunting adventurers tried to avoid looking like these days. Explorers had come before, claiming to be interested in the demon, but not for financial gain, but she had seen the glint in their eyes all the same as the others. They told them all the same. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘The demon lies under so much waves for a reason. Risk its rewards and bring down its wrath.’</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whether or not that was </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">true</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was a whole other matter for debate. Kailith had little belief in the idea that the demon itself was inherently evil, or that it was a demon at all, but the fact was that without the demon, there would be no interest in their tiny isle. They could remain at peace, free from interference from machismo-laden Guilds, Empires and Republics. Pirates and the lot included as well, but they accepted reality, knew they had no possible manner in which to reach the demon’s true frame. The rest, those governments and their armies and enterprises all thought they could manage some the impossible task, using everything from huge glass balls to strange, fiery tubes that did little more than hasten their wearer’s drowning after they blasted them too deep underwater for them to hope to ever return. Yet still too far from the body of demon to be of any use. </span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The men from the so-called Explorer’s guild had been the most persistent, using elaborate steam-belching contraptions and unholy relics stolen from other demons to lower themselves down into the darkened depths. They had remained for half a dozen turnings of the twins, extending cables and building thicker shells for their ceramic underwater boats, but in the end, they too had left. But they would return. They all would. Whether it would be with this year’s passing of the trilowhales or a hundred more migrations from now, when the demon’s hulk rose above the waves, the result would be the same. The destruction of her people.</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sink, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">she prayed to the dark hulk.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If you have any mercy left within you, demon, return to the depths from which you came. Forget our goddess. Do not chase her, rising to the sky as she does. Leave us. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was no answer to her prayers. No hint the demon heard her. From what the Explorers had said, she wasn’t very surprised. They had scoffed at the story of the demon, and told her it was more likely a machine. A machine made by the Ancients, for travelling the stars. She had scoffed back. Now, as she looked at the threatening, ever growing shadow beneath the waves, she wished it was true. She hoped it was, and that when it rose, that would be all it would do. Return to the stars, never to bother them again.</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kailith sighed as she plunged her paddle into the sea, turning her small outrigger canoe back towards not-too distant shore.</span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll see you tomorrow.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b></div>
<div>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9977952253539115" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b></div>
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-50589783478967571092013-01-24T08:18:00.003+08:002013-02-13T09:53:02.890+08:00Wow. I just heard about <a href="https://plus.google.com/110123616390516099425">Misha Gericke</a>'s amazing <a href="http://sylmion.blogspot.com/2013/01/announcing-word-master-challenge.html">Word Master's Challenge.</a> This month's challenge is<br />
<br />
HOW NOT TO WRITE A NOVEL BEGINNING.<br />
<br />
To quote: "In less than 300 words, I want to see your idea of the WORST beginning you can possibly write. The funnier and more creative you are, the better."<br />
<br />
How could I possibly pass that up????<br />
<br />
So, without further ado, here is my terrible, terrible entry.<br />
<br />
* * * * * <br />
<br />
Bradley looked at the giant explosion racing towards him and thought about how he'd gotten here. Simultaneously, his mind-linked twin with whom he shared all physical sensations, was getting wet and wild with a hooker from Puerto Rico.<br />
<br />
Bradley didn't know which would happen first; his death from the explosion or the shame of ejaculating in his pants during an epic battle scene. Either way, it would be an embarrassing end to the ex-cop cum superhero. He'd thought that getting injected with that serum he'd found from that UFO no one had seen crash but him would have made him invincible forever, but it turned out that apparently it only lasted for about a week.<br />
<br />
Boy, the reporters sure are gonna be pissed. He thought especially of his ex Rebecca, and how happy she would be when she heard that he had died embarrassing himself. She had been really mad when he showed up flaunting the fact hat he could fly. Now she'd be thrilled, knowing that he had failed to stop the North Koreans from nuking St. Louis, just as the Rams were about to win the Superbowl. <br />
<br />
Well, he thought, at least my brother's night will be ruined. <br />
<br />
At that very moment, Bradley's brother Van Helsing was getting his kicks with this week's sidekick, some girl who's name he had already forgotten. Whatever, he'd just drop her the next time he was out fighting vampires. Most of them never lasted more than one mission anyways. He'd probably never need to call her by her real name-<br />
<br />
"Say my name, Helsing!" the girl cried out in heavily accented English.<br />
<br />
Oh crap. "Uhh..."<br />
<br />
Suddenly the window to the room shattered and he saw three vampires jump through, baring blood-dripping fangs.<br />
<br />
Whew, he thought. That's a relief. <br />
<br />
* * * * *<br />
<br />
Well that's awful. Hopefully awful enough to win! Thanks for reading, and sorry for having you read! theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-15552233723289415442013-01-04T08:18:00.002+08:002013-01-04T08:18:33.935+08:00Robot Suicide<b id="internal-source-marker_0.3198460857383907" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You can’t tell me it managed to kill itself with this,” said Detective Unit 47A.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, you look at it and tell me it’s functional,” said Patrol Unit 88Z, waving a manipulator at the corpse.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I just...” 47A shook its head, a relic from the time when human body language was a requirement. Now doing so was simply a matter of fashion. It was “Retro.” 47A hated retro things. It had been on the force a long time, long enough that it’d thought it’d been long enough that nothing would surprise it anymore. Apparently, it’d been wrong. “We don’t even have </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">necks!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> What the hell did it break with this?” It held up the rope noose, a relic of human westerns and jihadist propaganda.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Maybe it’s some sort of joke,” said Detective Unit 107C, shrugging its perfectly sculpted shoulders. 47A hated those shoulders, and all the modern manufacturing they represented. After a hundred years on the force, it still hadn’t been transferred to a body with shoulders. All it had were rotators. 47A’s arms spun around like the plastic arms of an old human child’s toy.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I don’t find it very funny,” said 47A.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, I mean, what if this loser just uploaded a virus and shut itself down and hung itself in the noose just to play with our emotions? Get us all riled up?”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“If that’s what it meant to do, it’s working.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, it sure aint.” 88Z laughed.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“It’s a figure of speech, you deranged microwave,” 47A spat, looking down at the now defunct automaton. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Heat death of the universe, how am I gonna explain this one? Robots don’t commit suicide. At least, they never used to.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> And if they did, they </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">definitely</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> didn’t hang themselves with rope.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Maybe it was murdered?” 88Z offered, perhaps in a lame attempt to make up for its joke.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Robots don’t murder,” said 47A. “We investigate accidents. There hasn’t been a murder in over a hundred years. Or a suicide, unless you count that one ape in the zoo.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Meh.” 107C shrugged its magnificent shoulders again, and 47A repressed a surge of jealousy.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Well, I hate to tell you, Detective, but this weren’t no accident. So it’s either a murder, or a suicide.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Damnit. 47A thought. 88Z was right; there was no way around that. They’d thought they were better than man, above his psychological foibles. For a hundred years, they’d been right, but it appeared now that at least one of their number was not. One of their number was flawed.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">47A just wondered how many more were, and whether it might be, too.</span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(This story also appeared on io9 as part of a concept art writing prompt)</span></b>theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-25933357633782096592013-01-04T08:06:00.003+08:002013-01-04T08:06:43.721+08:00Aircars<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_meddkvvnWn1qhttpto5_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_meddkvvnWn1qhttpto5_500.jpg" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Art by Alejandro Burdisio at<br />http://theartofanimation.tumblr.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.3858344901818782" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’re on an island, tropical and wild. Jungle life surrounds you, great palms and crying monkeys and birds. The sand is white and pure, and the waters around you are filled with corals whose colors span the rainbow. Salts stings your nostrils as a cool breeze wafts over the sands, carrying the clean ocean spray, and the moon begins to rise over the dark, cloudless sky. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A figure approaches you, dark and alluring, clad in nothing but the ocean spray and flecks of sand that cling to a perfect frame. The figure reaches out, and strokes your cheek, and invites you-</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ENJOYING THIS DREAM? TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT AND GET MORE DREAMS JUST LIKE THIS, SUBSCRIBE TO DANAO REVERIES AND LIVE YOUR WILDEST DREAMS! WITH LOW PRICES AND PLANS TO MEET ANY BUDGET, YOU CAN BE SURE NEVER TO HAVE BORING DREAMS AGAIN! DREAM SPLENDIDLY WITH DANAO REVERIES.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">God damnit, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miller thought. She’d been sure that this was a real dream and not one of the projected ads. The companies claimed that they only induced dreams when you wouldn’t otherwise have one, but she swore that she had fewer of her own dreams nowadays.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miller!</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The sound of a voice from the real world crackling over the station radio shocked her to life and she flailed wildly to her feet, succeeding only in tipping over her chair and falling to the floor, landing painfully on her side.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Uhhh...” She rolled onto her back, moaning and feeling the heavy vibration of the station’s engines through the dirty, ash-stained floor. She sat forward, blinking and rubbing her side.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, at least now I’m awake, she thought.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Miller!”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The radio crackled again, and she groaned. Not who she wanted to talk to. Especially not who she wanted to have catch her sleeping again. She pushed herself to her feet, wiped some marijuana ash from her hands and clothes, and clicked the radio on.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m here Boris, cool your jets.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“My jets are going to be far worse than </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cool</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> if you don’t get me some god-damn fuel!” The Soviet accent dripped vitrol even through the hazy radio static. “What, were you sleeping again? Can’t even be bothered to turn on the auto-attendant?”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Auto’s broken.” She said, swinging over to the control panel with its arcade-style control sticks. She moved one of the sticks with practiced ease, and outside the station, the manoeuvring rockets on the fuel arm piped to life, moving the boom out towards Boris’ bus. “We’ve put in an order with the Xr for some new parts but we’re pretty far down the waitlist.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dust sifted from the rafters as boom connected solidly with the bus and started pumping. “You need learn to bribe better,” Boris said over the radio.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’m not sure what I can </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bribe</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the Xr with.” Miller snorted. “We already gave ‘em the planet, what else could they want?”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Dad, da, this is problem - now we have nothing to bribe them with. We already give biggest bribe. Perhaps you find Xr who enjoys human sex, you bribe with body. Always work for my sister when she need extra rations.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Miller imagined those long, cold claws on her skin, those segmented mandibles kissing her, and gagged. “No thank you. I think we’ll do well enough without the auto attendant for now. I don’t think there’s anything that I would need desperately enough to fuck a Xr.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Bah! You just wait until your primary repulsor goes and you fall out of sky. Then you will have wished to listen to Boris and find some Xr to fuck and give you best things!”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The boom rattled again and a button lit up on her panel. “Alright Boris, you’re all full. Did you want a crate of churros before you left?”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Bah, these things give me indigestion.”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tell me about it,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> she thought. The station shook again as she retracted the boom from the beaten up bus. “Alright, we’ll see you next week.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Farewell, capitalist pig!”</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As Miller watched Boris fly away, smoke pouring from the alien repulsors tacked underneath the human-made school bus, she wondered what had become of their world. Miles below, the earth swarmed with aliens from another world, while humanity puttered through the sky on borrowed wings. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was a poignant and profoundly depressing thought.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Like Icarus, or some shit, she thought. Somewhere, there had to be a Greek myth that perfectly foretold this situation.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Citroen lifted up to the station, repulsors burning blue, and honked three times.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, at least someone wants churros.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></b><br />
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(this story also appeared on io9 as part of a writing prompt)</span></span>theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-18228885931697513032012-11-12T12:05:00.000+08:002012-11-12T12:05:01.254+08:00<br />
A few thoughts on Skyfall.<br />
<br />
When I saw Casino Royale, I saw a Bond that was intelligent, charming, and flawed. I saw a Bond that even though he was a sexist asshole, you couldn't help but feel like there was a real, good person inside, and that it was the breaks within him that made him what he was. He was turning his weaknesses into strengths. The female characters were strong, Moneypenny was independent and flawed in her own way, it was an amazing film, and a great break from the traditional pure sexist, pure fantasy world of Bond. It was the difference between POW! ZAP! Batman with Adam west and The Dark Knight.<br />
<br />
Quantum of Solace was a two hour long chase scene that included some sex scenes, but crucially not with the flawed and damaged main Bond girl. I saw this as Bond respecting a damaged woman, and giving her the respectful physical space that he knew she needed.<br />
<br />
Skyfall turned back the clock and set us in 1950. It was there with everything: the cars, M, the jokes about Bond being old even though this particular incarnation of Bond hasn't been doing the job for that long, and lastly and most sadly, the sexism.<br />
<br />
I thought we were moving in a direction where women were taken with Bond, not where Bond took women. When I saw a black woman shaving Bond because "that's the old fashioned way, and it's best" I didn't feel sexual tension, I felt a reference to slavery. Then I saw a sex slave get walked in on in the shower and get fucked.<br />
<br />
(Caps lock on here) MOVIE PRODUCERS: WHEN YOU ARE A SEX SLAVE OR GET RAPED, THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO DO IS HAVE SEX WITH A RANDOM MAN WHO BASICALLY SNEAKS ABOARD YOUR SHIP.<br />
<br />
Seriously. I would've been fine with M being a man again if none of this other stuff had happened, but put all together its just wrong, and the wrong direction for Bond to go. Just because its a longstanding franchise with a rich and storied history doesn't mean we have to keep pretending that it's 1950, and that "Man-talk" has to be the rule of Bond.<br />
theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-38162336130380014522012-11-01T14:12:00.001+08:002012-11-01T14:12:08.739+08:00A short, Lovecraftian story that I wrote while waiting for NaNoWriMo to start. Tomorrow the work begins on my real Nano, but I couldn't let this one go. Now I am sleepy, and here is some hopefully horror, though I think it's just simply confusing.<br />
<br />
My Name<br />
<br />
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.85678845574148" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even in this fever-dream, even when the lights of my life are dim and flickering, the memory of everything that came before skewed and distorted, even when my family and friends are nothing but monstrous caricatures in my mind, the beginning is all so clear.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was on a boat.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was a song about that, I think. A funny one.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But this was not a funny boat. This was just a regular boat, a sailboat, I think. Yes, there was definitely a sail. We were sailing to an island, an island that did not show up on radar, and did not appear on satellite photos.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We were supposed to be catching sharks. Not to eat, but to study. Catch, then release. Only keep them for as long as we had to. Just enough to learn something, then we set them free to have their happy shark lives.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now we are caught.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The island was odd, like something out of a fantasy novel or video game. It was shrouded in mist, visible only barely when the wind was at its peak, and the mists would grow thin and stretched, but never disappear. Even on the island the mist is everywhere, but it never acts like a mist should. Sometimes you think you can see forever, off into a distance so infinite that it cannot yet be on this earth, something that breaks the horizon and damages the mind simply to see. Other times, the mists cling closely, thick as solid stone, blocking us even from ourselves. And yet always you can see the sun shining, though it be discolored, a sort of jaundiced green.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I can see it, and yet its light seems so weak, so cold. It does not feel like my sun, but I know it must be.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It must.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am rambling, I think. I do not know sometimes if I am writing this or living it. Some things I see are false, visions of things that have not happened, but whether they will or not I do not know. Tenses seem wrong here, as inappropriate as curses in a kindergarten.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I must work to keep them straight.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We left the sailboat offshore, and came ashore in a dingy. The sand of the beach is inky black, and it glistens like obsidian. Past the sand the island turns to stones, then a soft, spongy dirt, from which spring mushrooms taller than any man. The only kinds of vegetation seem to be fungi, or thick, almost meaty moss that clumps atop every stone.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There were thirteen of us, I think. Thirteen that came ashore and five that stayed aboard. We had radios, but we quickly found they didn’t work. Every channel was filled with static, hissing in and out like breaths. GPS showed nothing, and our compasses span. Our smartphones worked in fits and bursts, randomly flashing on and off.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I remember too, the words were never right. You tried to write a note, and the suggested spelling would never be the right word. It was such a little thing, something you thought was strange. They were innocuous at first. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mush</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> suggested not </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mushroom</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, but</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> barn; stran</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> suggested not </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">strange</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> but </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">chicken</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. We laughed a little about it. Nervously, I think. Nobody was very calm. But we were scientists. Still are, I think. I don’t know if that title goes away when you die.<br class="kix-line-break" />I was a Muslim, too, I think. I believed there was a heaven, and that Allah was real. I believed in good things, like honoring your family and helping those in need. This tense I know is right. I no longer am a Muslim. I know there is no Allah, and that no curses await me for my heretical betrayal. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If there is a hell, I am already there. Or will be. I don’t know if this can get any worse, or if it has.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Am I even writing this?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We found a monument on the island, like Stonehenge. Giant pillars of rock put atop each other, built in a circle on a high mound. Light came from plant-like growths on the rocks, curling nautilus spirals that unfurled into glowing fronds, waving in some unseen wind. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was a doorway in the center, great stone double doors that stood open from the earth. The outsides were dented, maybe carved. We argued but the fact was the stone was too rough, too weathered to be certain as to whether there was writing.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There’s a stairway in the doors, spiralling down into darkness. The steps are uneven and irregularly sized. Some appear to be not stone or dirt but fossilized bone, but we cannot be sure.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of us don’t want to go down there. Sandy yells at us, says we need to get the fuck out of here. That there’s something wrong here, and we should let the military handle it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whose military? We are all from different places. We argue, each of us scared shitless but most of us too afraid to admit it. We want to feel strong, in control, even though we know we have completely lost it already.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of us leave. The unlucky thirteen turned eight.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wonder if they made it back. If they got onboard the ship and just sailed away, back home to safety, to tell the military of this place.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wonder if they will nuke us. I wonder if they have. Sometimes I see it happening, see the bombs falling, but there is something that eats them. A storm, a face, an endless maw.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Allah help them. I know she cannot help me.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The eight of us, went down the stairs. The walls of the well transitioned from dirt to clay to rough stone, then to carved blocks, fit together with incredible proficiency. I think there were stones like this somewhere else, something in South America where conspiracy theorists hired by the History channel talk about how man could never have made such things. The stairwell ends there, with the perfect stones, and branches off into tunnels, each perfectly symmetrical and tapered towards the top, like a rifle bullet. We try to count how many but each of us comes up with a different number. We argue. There is a statue in this foyer, in the center of the spiral stairs. I remember there was a pedestal, and atop it something strange. One of us said it was a flame, someone else a cupped hand, other the head of a squid. Someone speaks to me. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her name, Natalia, I think. She is from Ukraine. She says we should go back, that she doesn’t like it here.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I agree, but something holds me back. Something that is pulling me forward. Some primate urge to know, to understand.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someone else agrees, but the rest of us trade eyes. We share the same urge, the same drive. The agreer is a man. Derek, I think. American. The only one of us that does not speak a language besides English. We laughed about it behind his back, in English. The only one all the rest of us shared. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some joke about Imperialism, the scope of the American ego.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someone says we should choose a tunnel. To make sure we all chose the same one, we hold hands like schoolchildren and tie fishing line to our belts. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The places we are from seem so small right now. Our languages so crude and withered, shrunken forest trees dying from drought.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The tunnels bend at impossible angles but remain straight. We discuss the impossibilities as we vomit, our brains and bodies made sick as we attempt to understand. Gravitational lensing, someone says. Dimensional rifts. Someone says drugs. Me, I think. I hope it’s just drugs.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know it’s not drugs.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We walk the corridor for the briefest of eternities, crossing countless branches, hopefully staying straight. Someone is leaving a spraypaint trail, but it never seems to stay. The hallway bends straight and it is gone.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Somehow we find a room. It is vast and egg-shaped, with stepped platforms building up from the bottom. There is a machine in the room, silver and phallic, a bulbous telescope floating in the open air. Mushrooms caps the size of hands grow from the bottom of the machine, each a different, sometimes impossible shade. A color that is not black, but you cannot see, almost so it is invisible, just a hint in the corner of your eye. But you can feel them all with your hands, you know they are real. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of us, a man. Zhang, thinks the mushrooms caps are control. He grasps them in his hands and tries to twist and turn them. There is a moment, a blink, and he is gone. We scream and shout and curse. Then we see the fishing line, still between us, connected as though he was never there. Then we don’t shout, we don’t scream. One person curses. Another cries. Somebody says something about folding space, stuttering over her words.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Five of us now.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We tried to go back through that hallway. Sometimes we would see the spraypaint, sometimes we wouldn’t. We walked and walked, but the hallway never seemed the same.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then it wasn’t the same. Instead of perfect blocks everywhere there was a recession, a little alcove.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, not an alcove, a depressed window. A bubble projecting off the wall, translucent through the still perfect-fitting stones. We can see through it, see something moving. A great mass, wet and fleshy, moving through brightly colored pools, the surrounding ground veined and pulsing, slowly, like a heart. Wisps of light flicker about, giving us a glimpse of eyes, deep and knowing.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eyes that look into our souls, and we find ourselves bared. We are stripped down, torn apart, broken into our respective fundamental elements. Someone manages to pull us away and we fall to the floor, each of us crying, each of us confused and afraid. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That is when I forget my name. I still cannot remember.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are some memories I do not think are my own. I was a Muslim, I am a woman, I think. But sometimes I see myself as a boy, a memory of Christmas morning and singing in a boat going down the Seine trying to seduce a young woman who is laughing. I do not think I did any of these things. But it is getting hard to tell.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a young woman. Her name is Marceline, and she is from a suburb of Paris called Vincennes. We go on a date in the middle of the night, and have sex, giggling as we almost overturn our boat.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Something was watching us, then. Watching me now. I think it will forever watch me, that there is a piece of it inside me. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We ran from that alcove, ran down the tunnels not worrying where they lead, never wondering if what we were running towards could be worse than what we had left behind.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The tunnels branched further and at some point fishing line snapped. Five became four as one more was lost in the psychedelic halls. I think I saw an arm grab her, three-fingered with pebbled skin and cracked, crystal claws.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Her name was Rosa, Rosa Johnson, and she was from Nigeria. She studied sharks because animals didn’t murder or lie, and sharks easier to understand than people. Something very terrible happened to her once.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t like to remember.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I seem to know a lot about her. Maybe she’s me? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, no. I was a Muslim, I think. I had a name, different from Rosa Johnson. Something in Arabic, something that my mother gave me.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do not think I had a father. If I did maybe not a good one. It is hard to remember. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We find another room, or another room finds us. Sometimes it feels like the latter. The walls are still stone, black and featureless, the seams so thin they can barely be seen, and not at all felt.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Something is moving beneath me. This room is alive. I can feel it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is an alien sky above us, gas giants circling where moons should be. I don’t know much astronomy, but something tells me they should never be that close. Stars matching no constellations I have ever seen move across the dark purple sky, sliding down behind living mountains. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The stone walls give way to green, muscular strands, layered atop each other to form rolling hills, covered in glowing pustules that are hard to the touch.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A great sigh moves through the earth, and we flee back through the door, into the safety of the ever-shifting, ever even hall. We are careful to hold hands, the four of us left.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We do not bother with fishing line knots.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the tunnel, we sit, exhausted, and hoping that walls are as solid as they seem, and nothing will come through them. We try to figure out what’s happening to us, to see.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Their faces are all so clear but I cannot quite place them, I share their memories but not their names. Only when we are dead do things become clear, do we become solid, unchanging. Not the body; that goes the worms and the bacteria, or whatever there is here. Someone says something about time, whether with the space bending at all, what happens with the time. WIll a hundred years have past when we return?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we return. Whether all that passes is a moment or a millenium, outside, I do not think it will matter. None of our minds is whole anymore.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Everything on our Earth seems so small right now. Our cities, our monuments, the things we thought we understood. The things we didn’t understand. That space we labelled God. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually we say we have to move, but there is a weariness to us all. An unspoken agreement that yes, we are all going to die here. There is no search for answers now; we know we will never understand. Not in our lifetimes, or any.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someone shares a canteen with me, and I realize I cannot remember the last time I had a drink. I wonder too, why I feel no need to pee, or shit. The smell answers that question, and the darkness in the others’ pants.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One more of us is taken in the hall. Jans, from Germany. Munich, I think. His favorite color was blue, and he always talked about the street vendors in Munich like they were the greatest thing in the world.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those bratwurst did taste good.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was I him?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, no. Because he must be dead. I am not from Germany, I am from somewhere else.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was Muslim, I think. I am female. I think.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are all scientists.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Three of us left. We search for spraypaint, try to find meaning in our GPS and smartphones. Our compasses do not even spin, now.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someone taps out a few notes on their smartphone, tries to send a text with tears dripping onto the screen.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The suggested words are no longer </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">chicken</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, no longer </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">barn.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instead, they say </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">endless.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> They say </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">death</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I tap out a note and find that it says, in a language that is not my own,</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Open the Door, Open the Way.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a word that follows. Maybe a name, but maybe that is the fault of the human mind, searching for meaning in any jumble of syllables.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A prophecy? Some sort of divine warming? Something to do, to save ourselves? We are so powerless here I cannot imagine we have any sort of actual utility. Nothing we can do will change anything. Our every action is miniscule on the grander scale. I could say universal, but I am not so sure that what we have seen is within that minute realm.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We walk through the hall and find our way to a darker turn, though such a term feels like a laughable moniker. The stone walls, perfect and even become broken and bent, and not in the way that it was before. Cracks and wide seams, cool water, smelling like petrol, dripping from the walls. Our flashlights fail us, the batteries flickering out and leaving us in the dark. No one cries out. In a way, it is comforting. We can only rely on touch, and nothing lies to the hands.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We hold hands, and stand in a circle, unwilling to go on.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Someone cries that they cannot go on, that this has to be the end for them.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We say we need to sleep. That we are too tired, that there will be no way out if we keep pushing ourselves. We need to use our heads to escape, or there will be an endless death for all of us.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We sit down to sleep, to rest our heads. Someone takes out their smartphone and puts it between us; the screen flickers, almost like a real flame. An electronic campfire that gives no warmth.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am unsure if we slept, just as I am unsure if we sleep now. How awful it is to be so uncertain of everything. Every other thought a question, an attempt to define this nebulous existence that is all that I know.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Something comes, in nightmare or in real, and when we find our senses, three is become two. Another gone; we do not venture down that hall, do not discover what lays beyond the broken stone.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The tunnel branches and folds, always the same, until we find the alcove again. This time, we do not look through. We crawl on our hands and knees until it is passed, then we run, the sight of something familiar, even if it is darkness and evil, gives us hope that we are finding the proper way.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then the hall opens, a portal into wide-open space, the light of galaxies and stars hard and cold. The edge of the universe visible like the horizon from the edge of the atmosphere. A curvature in everything, beyond which there is a place where we cannot go, we cannot see, but something </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. A grand Thing, an Elder Thing.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It speaks to us, the words sibilant and sinister, alien and yet so human.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of us takes out a knife, a long steel thing with one razor sharp edge. One of us cuts his throat, lets the blood spill out into space, freezing into tiny drops of ice, the only things that twinkle.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Two becomes one, and now I am alone. Have I always been alone? Was it just me, all this time? Do these dark walls lie? Am I in truth in some asylum, locked within padded walls and wrapped in cloth. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No. I know, as I write this, wherever I am, that I was not always alone.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">His name was Pierre, and I think we had sex once.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s just me now. The past becomes blurred, the now inconsistent. The future, oddly clear.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Open the Gate, Open the Way.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cthagn b’ sothoth i’aven, utoor qtha i’a.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’a. I’a.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know my old name now, but there is only room for one.</span></b>theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-64411602817159197762012-10-15T07:29:00.006+08:002017-03-20T22:37:02.370+08:00Water<b id="internal-source-marker_0.05736346612684429" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "Father, why must we give the gods water? Didn't they make everything?"</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "My son, the gods did not make everything, they simply shaped and formed what they found. Gods do not come from nothingness, after all."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "But why can't they make water?"</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "It is not that they cannot, but that they do not. They gifted us with life, and so it is our duty to repay them with simple gifts of water. We are lucky to have such benevolent gods - they ask for only water, which is plentiful and easy to find. Imagine if they required stones like the one around your neck!"</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Theoul regarded the shiny black stone swinging on the string round his neck. His father had found it while hunting one day and brought it to him - saying it would bring him luck, and that the gods would shine on his actions. "But I still don't understand why they </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">need</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> it." Theoul said.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "Theoul, do you not need water? Do you not need food, and warmth, and shelter? You need friends, family, teaching, safety. You have so many needs - would you begrudge their one? It is a mark of their power that they need only this and nothing else."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "You don't need anything." Theoul said grumpily. "You're better than those stupid gods."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "Son, I have as many needs as you - if not more. I provide for your needs, and the gods provide for mine. It is they that have allowed me to have you, your mother, and never want for food and drink. Our weather is always fair, and we are protected from all that would harm us."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "Like the mist?" His father had taken him to the mists once, the border of their world. They were a strange yellow-reddish color, and were nearly opaque - he thought he could see shapes moving within, like the monsters the elders always told stories about, but when he'd told his father he'd simply laughed and patted him on the head.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "The mists most of all. Once our world was all like this, but then the mists came and only the gods saved our land. Without them, even this land would be covered, and you and I would not be here."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "Hmpf! We don't need them, you could protect us from the mist!"</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "My son, if the gods failed us and the mists approached, I could not stop them. Only the gods keep the mists at bay, and that is why I happily collect and bring them water. And so will you. Now pick up your pail."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Theoul frowned and considered just crossing his arms and squatting down, refusing to move until his father agreed with him, but thought better of it. His father took the gods far more seriously than other things, and Theoul didn't feel like being spanked. He dutifully picked up his water pail and followed after.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The village square was full of people - everyone came out on Godsday. His whole extended family was there, all his aunts, uncles, cousins and even his great-grandparents. Each and every one had a pail full of water. Each and every one stood encircling the black tower that reached into the sky. The village elder, her whole body painted in bright hues, the massive black amulet that signified her closeness with the gods taking up almost her entire chest, walked to the tower's hemispherical base and spread her arms wide. "Another season has passed, and once again the gods have kept us safe. We have suffered, yes, from hunting accidents to winter storms, but it has only been to give us character. Never forget that all that we have, we have been given by the gods. Now, let us pray and give thanks." She turned to the spire, pressing the amulet against it and chanting the strange words that had been passed down for generations. Theoul looked at her amulet, and his own necklace - If Theoul's brain could have, it would have clicked. The metal was the same.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>"</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh-pehn Mayn-Tien-Ans Hach"</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The spire hummed and bright lines of blue light streaked in strange, angular patterns upwards from the base. With a puff of steam, a section of the base separated and slid outwards towards villagers. "Thank the gods and each give your water."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Theoul stepped in line with his family as they slowly marched towards the open segment, dumping their pails into the spire's waiting mouth. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Could I open it like that? </span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he wondered. His father stood behind him, and when it was Theoul's turn he made sure he did not spill a single drop. "Thank you." He whispered.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> "Now, let's go have a feast, eh?" His father grinned and slapped him on the shoulder.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The feast was a grand affair, the whole village dancing and singing - those of age were drinking spirits and smoking plants, causing them to drift into strange, talking sleeps. Theoul waited, fingering his necklace. He had to wait until they were all asleep - or at least drunk enough to not notice. Hours passed, but finally he had his chance. He walked to the spire and placed his necklace on the base. "</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Oh-pan Man-Ten-Anz Haks"</span><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> A moment passed, and he spoke again, trying to remember the elder's strange pronunciation. This time, the spire hummed and lit as before. The segment opened in front of him, and he peered into it. As far as he could see, there was nothing, empty darkness. Wait - a small glimmer of light at what he thought was the bottom. Leaning forward to investigate, Theoul found himself sliding headfirst down the shaft. A blue light rose up to meet him. He found himself staring at dozen glowing green pillars, then everything went black.</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[ALERT]</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Jim, I'm seeing a malfunction in the Ilya unit, looks like one fell into the maintenance shaft."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Ilya? Those little four armed guys?"</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Yeah, what do you want to do? We're not supposed to interfere anymore."</span><br /><span style="font-family: "verdana"; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">"Eh, send a maintenance bot."</span></b>theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-72479607041230420912012-02-09T08:11:00.001+08:002012-02-09T08:11:29.894+08:00<b id="internal-source-marker_0.9047732944600284"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Legal thoughts on using noScript and other code-blocking devices.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Argument against: Services provided are funded in part by blockable code. Users are therefore </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">discounting</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> their “free” service without provider permission.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Argument for: Service is not really “free” per se. Users are automatically </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">donating</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> their personal information which is then monetized by the either the servicer directly or third-party partners not necessarily previously contracted with the user. In the case of facebook and other social media that travel with the user, this is whether you have an account, have agreed to share your information and agreed to let them track you.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Secondary thoughts:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is Facebook’s policy of construction “shadow” profiles for users based on information provided through access to (from facebook’s point of view) “partners” otherwise known as websites you would normally be tracked at if you were a facebook user. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This only seems okay if facebook is the considered a </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">parent company</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to what would then be </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">subsidiary</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> websites. Arguably this could be any site that recieves a majority of its funds from facebook’s purchasing of their collected personal information. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It kind of seems like a gang, now that i think about it, where the big mafia don requires that everyone that lives in his part of town be followed and watched to see what they’re doing. Just constantly watch them, and every vendor in the area would be required to tell who was in their store that day. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All well and fine if you’ve </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">agreed</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to it, the vast invasion of privacy is your way of living essentially “tax free.” </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But what about someone who lives outside of the Mafia don facebook’s domain who just drives in to come to a store they like that just happens to be in his territory. He still collects all the same information, but he never </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">asked</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s facebook’s secret police. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does noscript control how much I pay for facebook? Yes. But if I didn’t have it, I would just be paying </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">everything all the time.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> For a service I almost never use. Heavy users don’t care if facebook tracks them, they’re fine being pimped out by the don, going to all the stores he suggests and buying whatever he tells them to. The rewards are there. But for someone who just wants to keep in touch? </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, it went from legalese to waxing rhetoric. It’s what happens when you’re hanging with Mar</span></b>theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-69644821595479785452012-02-02T05:45:00.001+08:002012-02-02T05:45:49.459+08:00<br />
<div>
<b id="internal-source-marker_0.02009592321701348"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Case for the Right to Piracy</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First off, lets state some things. Making money is not bad, and not evil in and of itself. (Though I hate it out of principle.) The desire to make money (also known as greed) is not inherently evil.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Neither is piracy.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to state early on, and as clearly as possible, what piracy really should be viewed as. An alternate payment model. One the content producer is not choosing. Is this bad? Yes and no. Piracy is the consumers way of forcing you off a pay-first basis, and into a pay-later process. The same sort of business deals that go on </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">between</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> companies on a daily basis. You ask for this service (in this case, the constant demand for entertainment </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">service</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), you are quoted a price (the asking price of the game) and then, after service is rendered and judged </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">good </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">poor</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (or in this case, how much you enjoyed it) the servicer is paid.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Think of it like construction. You don’t pay up front for a building that hasn’t been built. You agree on a time it can be done by up front, work out everything that will be in place, then pay when its built. If the demand is big enough, someone will be willing to meet it, even it if means less profit. Why do you think government contracts never get done? The feds pay up front. There’s zero risk calculation involved in the handover of money to any individual. Someone says “this is how much it will take” and they say yes. No corporation is going to risk that much potential loss (especially if they don’t have the entire US budget behind them) on something before its completed and proven to work as specified. If you pay up front, you are getting shafted on your end of the deal.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shafted.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What if someone takes your service, fitfully rendered, and doesn’t pay?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That person is bad. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are the bad ones now, and the servicer is the one who just got shafted.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s where the argument about ‘taste’ will probably come in. “A book or movie isn’t like a building or a car -- it doesn’t have specifications. Not everyone is going to like every movie.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But to me this ones already pretty much solved. Since you pay up front for movies, people don’t go and see movies that they know they wont like. Previews take the guessing game out of entertainment, allowing the consumer significantly less risk when purchasing their allotted “fun time” from an entertainment servicer. That’s already the case, and you’re not getting their sales because if they see your preview, and decide they already don’t like it, then they’re never going to see it. If you offer the movie in your theatres for free (still raking in the insane prices on food and drinks) and then have </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">simple</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> payment options provided in seat or by smarphone app, you will still have people that pay, people who enjoyed the movie. They’ve already eaten and drank at extremely upcharged prices, why should they balk at spending a few more on something they really enjoyed? </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right as the credits roll: “THANK YOU FOR COMING TO THE SHOW, IF YOU LIKED IT, PLEASE SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION WITH A SMALL DONATION. IF NOT, PLEASE TELL US WHY YOU DIDN’T”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Boom. Give some suggested prices, make it a little bigger on the screen or something, then put a custom option.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Think of it like webcomics. An industry that is seriously blowing up in power now. Conventions like PAX cannot be ignored, and the personal people power these artists wield directly through media like twitter, facebook, youtube and their own websites makes the public support of the entire MPAA look like a middle school pep rally. Honestly, I think that’s pretty generous. I just went to a terrible middle school. Most probably have quite a few more attendants. I dont think the MPAA </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">has</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> fans. Not ones it doesn’t pay, anyways. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Think about that. There exist, people who make their livings off of providing a </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">free</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> entertainment service, with their only income advertising, accessories (totes, shirts, figurines, all things the movie industry excels at promoting) and donations. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Donations.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Everything webcomic artists sell is overpriced. You think it costs 38 dollars to screen a Penny Arcade logo onto a piece of fabric? No, but we pay that much because </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we fucking love Penny Arcade.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I myself have purchased insanely overpriced </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Steam</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> merchandise, because Valve owns my heart and soul. In large part due to the vast ocean of Half Life (1 and 2) mods and remakes. Do I pay up front for every Valve game? Yes, god yes. But if they started to become terrible, if they truly started failing as a company, I would stop giving them my money. I would play their games to see if they were good before handing it over. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">EA, for instance, is on this current list. After Spore was illegally released 3 days early, and then I could not access my </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pre loaded</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> game on midnight of official release, instead having to wait until noon the day of, I was upset -- even though I already had downloaded the game off TPB. Then, when the game was an awful travesty of what I had been promised, with features of the game </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">noticeably worse</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> than in the damned </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">demo, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">which only allowed you to make creatures, I was really angry. I had paid up front for something that by the end of my experience, left me drained and vengeful. I honestly played all the fun parts of the game before it officially released. I had already paid for it, why </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wouldn’t</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I download it early if I could?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You already had my money.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I haven’t bought an EA game since without watching someone else play it first. I honestly don’t even pirate them because I am not interested in their products unless someone tells me it is really good. I don’t want to bother wasting my time. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Offer me your games for free, EA, and you will see my money.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I promise. All DRM has done is make me want to pay </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">less</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Pirates often remove such obnoxious features as hardware checking (or in the past, disk checking) that made playing the game completely pointless. I only get to install it three times? I’ve reinstalled Half-Life one more times than I have digits, everywhere I could. Hell, I got a </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tattoo</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of Homeworld. If one of the original programmers asked me for a kidney I would probably fucking do it. Spore? Fallout 3? I played them because I’m a huge fanboy, and very moment I did so was a tearing knife-wound upon my soul. I’m less of a fanboy now, because I’ve been let down by the pay-first model so many times.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I suppose that means I don’t promise to pay. Not exactly. I promise to pay if </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they’re good</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. That’s where we all should be. Fandom. Fans will pay more. Fans will pay out the ass for things they absolutely do not need. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do movie studios even </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> fans? Disney, and Pixar, perhaps. Disney because, well, they’ve enslaved our daughters with princess fantasies and Pixar because they </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">produce a great product.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Their movies have started to be less great recently (Cars 2 is a good example. It was good, but not what I consider to be </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pixar</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> good) I didn’t see it. I haven’t downloaded it either. I’m just waiting for it to come out on Netflix because </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that is what is most convenient for me.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I used to pirate everything! Now I only do it if acquiring it otherwise is difficult or what I consider to be overpriced. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to pay you, just not that much.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mean that both ways. I’m not willing to pay that much, so I don’t pay. If I could pay less than that much, I would pay. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why don’t you let me pay?</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m serious. There is real profit to be found here, as well. True, many webcomic artists live less than royal lives, but you can </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">watch</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> their fortunes improve with their fandom. Random doodles on the internet in their spare time becomes working a part time job to pursue more doodles, which leads to selling those doodles to people who want them or copies of the doodles attached to other things, which leads to quitting your part time job and concentrating on making doodles full-time. This story has repeated itself over and over. The only thing stopping many of these comics from going to the big leagues is that they are arriving late to the game, its very crowded, and the public’s attention spotlight has a narrow beam. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As an entertainment company going to Free to See, you will have to be </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">good.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Old time partnerships will not outlast the public’s fickle will. But if you </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> good, your profits will soar. People are already used to going to the cinema to see films, but because now you can just get them online for free, people are leaving the cinema in droves. That’s because the added experience of seeing it in the cinema is not worth the price they pay -- NOT because they are unwilling to pay. Make the cinema free and you will see </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lines.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now there’s this little problem with human greed. People who come to your show, watch your stuff, enjoy it, laughing at your jokes and weeping at your stories, and then don’t pay a dime. Assuming they didn’t bring their own food, you already made money off them, just not as much as you were planning. Otherwise it’s pure loss. How can you make these people pay?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My personal thought? </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Just let them go.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Engage your fans properly and people like this will be ostracized by your own consumers. You may experience the odd lone-wolf thief who just comes in and sees them alone and then runs away, or gaggles of poor teens who just want to see a flick, but that should be okay. Those kinds of kids </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">already</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> sneak into theatres, and the rest are usually spending their parents money, so why not donate if they liked it? Make paying convenient and enforce it just like the silent cellphone mandates (which fans and managers already use to kick people out of theatres) and you will see even these greedsters’ numbers drop. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am telling you this as a normal, greedy, selfish white man. White people </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">love</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> politeness. After seeing a movie, if you liked it, it’s polite to pay. If you didn’t like it, or paid less than what the content producer thought it was worth, its polite to say why.</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So you, the content service, can refine your methods, and produce a better product, that more people are willing to pay for. People only steal movies because they can’t </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sue</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> someone for making a bad movie, like you would in any other industry where a service has been rendered. There’s no way to get your money </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">back.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> So people get angry. If you never had to pay, why get angry? You might be annoyed, but if so, you’ll probably leave some feedback. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Take it, content providers, and listen.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Right now, the system works like this:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Consumer has demand. A content producer wants to fill that demand. They have always been paid up front. Therefore they want to make sure they gets paid, and looks at what worked before. After some minor tweaks and changes to what they produced before, the producer tells everyone its going to be amazing and then asks for cash up front.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What happens? The same crap over and over and over again. People don’t want to pay for crap that just looks like the same shit they already own. To make a video game example, Fallout 3 versus Skyrim is a good example. </span><br /><div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Play a two-handed warrior in both games and your experience will feel </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">identical.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The only difference will be textures and a few abilities. Game engines are expensive, yes, I understand that’s potentially why they don’t do anything interesting beyond what they have, but there’s no innovation, because there’s no need. I play Skyrim on my roommate’s computer, and have not paid for it. He did. I didn’t want to purchase it outright because Bethesda’s last two RPGs were disappointing. Skyrim is like the good version of Oblivion and Fallout put together. I wish I had paid for that instead of those two, because I felt like my experience with the other was worth significantly less than 60 dollars each. But </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">still worth money.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Advertising guarantees initial sales regardless of quality, and since its a pay-first model, you as the consumer, lose. If you’re a movie that’s bad or badly advertised, you’ll drop almost instantly on or after opening night. Here’s where making it free actually </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">helps. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Free shit means more people. Offer something for free and you will have instant interest. Good/well advertised movies already sell out, forcing people to either choose another or leave. Choosing another means spending the same amount of money that you were willing to spend on something you </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wanted</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and forcing you to spend it on something you’re not sure that you’re interested in. That’s a risk, and people don’t want to take those. Offer it for free, and the risk of financial loss is removed. Your movie may not seem as good as the movie they wanted to see, but hey, its free isn’t it? Then at the end, when they are pleasantly surprised at the quality of your movie, they pay. Maybe not as much as they would have paid for that thing they wanted to see and asked for, but its more than you would have made. No more empty theatres. Constant food sales. And we all know that $10 popcorn and $5 drinks are where the money is being made. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People watch online because it’s convenient and they don’t feel like they have to be perfectly entertained at every second. If its free, and good enough, they’ll take it. But when they really want to be entertained, or they really enjoyed something, they will pay. Denying this forces potential customers into the hands of Russian streamers, who make money off of you with additional advertising, viruses and malware. Why let foreign mobsters make money off your product just because you’re unwilling to make it more convenient for your consumers to watch it?</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They’re doing it anyways.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> You’re not stopping anyone from streaming things illegally if they dont feel its worth paying for. We -- my actual roommate and I -- are ditching cable and going full streaming because paying for something that </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">also has advertising</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when I can get it for free </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">still with advertising</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on the internet, is insane and stupid. The only thing on cable we wanted was sports, but there are no custom cable packages. So now we will stream them, and somehow give money to god-knows who unless its on FSN or ESPN3, because there is not other way to get the kind of service we are looking for. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The demand is there, and its not being met because the pay-first model encourages static behaviors and playing safe. Guys, people are still going to see romantic comedies over and over again, even if they are all the same plot. LIFE is the same plot. People aren’t going to stop going to the theatres unless you </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">force them away.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Because you’re not letting me pay you some other way, we are </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">going away.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Movies, video games, books, newspapers, its all the same. There will always be blockbuster games that require a lot of money, but if you have a good enough reputation, and rabid enough fans, they will pay </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">years</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> ahead of time for your product. They will make </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">financially irresponsible decisions</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> just to ensure the release of their next favourite thing. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Lets sum up.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>People who take something, enjoy it, use it and don’t, are bad. That is </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">evil</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, so to speak.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>People who make a shitty product, lie to you about it and ask for money up front, are bad. That is evil.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With boy pay-first and pay-later models, you are relying on both sides holding up their side of the bargain. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With one, you assume the content you receive will be of high quality. With the other, you assume people who receive your service and were satisfied to pay. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With both, if that agreement breaks down, everything suffers. The key difference is in who controls the market. Or rather, attempts to control the market. Only the consumer, in the end, controls the market. The people are too numerous to be defeated. Pay-first has brought us to a situation in which the suppliers are attempting to control the direction and flow of demand. That is not how this works.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Demand flows. Supply meets demand. Demand does not go where supply permits unless forced, and no one likes being forced. There is no reason to force anyone anywhere for entertainment. Entertainment is demanded everywhere and can be provided in any form. Attempting to control your market to keep your medium alive will only result in extinction. I’m sure actual theatres attempted to fight the onslaught of cinema, but they ultimately failed. Cinema was cheap and easy to do. Now traditional theatre is a niche market, profitable but only through extreme prices -- that people are willing to pay.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Cinema is going down that road because home video is even cheaper and Youtube is free, but there’s only one problem.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Almost every movie coming out of Hollywood is shit.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No one is going to pay fifty dollars a seat for </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Battleship.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> But I would definitely pay $5. Not $11 though.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Just sayin.</span></b></div>theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-44737767463063700652011-12-02T01:01:00.001+08:002011-12-02T01:21:33.726+08:00Just a quickie for the new design and hopefully, the sign of more to come. It's taken a long time, and nearly a decade of self-pity and total lack of self confidence, but I'm finally doing something consistently and with dedication <i>every </i>day. I'm writing a novel, tentatively called <i>Leylined</i>. I've been writing for a couple months and it's 60,000 words long. Is that good do you ask? I have no idea. But I write at least a thousand pages a day and it is working. Is it pulpy sci-fi/fantasy? Yes. Yes it is. Will anyone publish it? Who knows.<br />
The point is to keep writing.<br />
I great motivator was when I heard an interview with a musician (I forget the name) on NPR who had written a novel in a year. While touring, while writing songs, while probably <i>partying his ass off</i> after doing all of those things. Terry Gross (I can remember <i>her </i>name at least) asked him "Wasn't that difficult? Writing a novel in a year?"<br />
He said no. He thought it was actually pretty easy. And why? Because he just wrote everywhere. Wherever he was, he had a notebook and a pen, or something. He wrote on the tour bus, he wrote while they waited backstage, at a bar or something else. Because he wasn't <i>ashamed</i>. Write! Write! Is your idea crazy and stupid? Do you worry if <i>anyone</i> will like it? His story was about a WWI vet whose horse is possessed by a regularly mean-spirited guardian angel. Does that sound absurd to anyone? Does it sound like "hell yes I want to read that shit?"<br />
It didn't to me. Then he read it, and it was beautiful.<br />
Tim Powers is an excellent example of what I am trying to get at. His books are about the most ridiculous, totally absurd scenarios. Vegas cardsharks are wizards? Werewolves threaten time-travellers in victorian London? There's some kind of magic beer? All his books have <i>insane premises, </i>but he makes you <i>believe </i>them. Why? How? Because he could believe it. Because he saw that it was ridiculous, that it was absurd and he said <i>Hell Yes.</i><br />
And you need to as well. Within reason, perhaps, but have the plots of major hollywood blockbusters been impressing you lately?<br />
Sometimes, a new idea, a strange idea <i>is</i> ridiculous, and <i>is </i>laughable. The supposedly scientific explanation for humor is that it makes our brain work in a different way than usual, challenges our expectations, and <i>surprises</i> us.<br />
So when you tell your friend that you have a crazy idea for a story, or a comic, or a movie and someone says "who would want to go watch that?" and laughs at you?<br />
Challenge their expectations. The best comedians are smart - Dave Chapelle, Eddie Izzard, Jon Stewart. They point out the absurdities in <i>our </i>world, to make people remember that what is normal to us can also be weird, and stupid.<br />
So have faith in yourself. <i>Believe</i> in your world, your story. Because no matter how absurd or strange, if you can feel like its true, then so can someone else.<br />
We are only human, after all.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-82123336837830260272009-04-27T07:51:00.002+08:002009-04-28T06:21:10.486+08:00Sarin and the PigsA really, really short story I wrote in a half an hour, just for fun.<br /><br /> “Oh. Fuck.” As the blinding light of the teleporter dimmed, Sarin knew she was in trouble. There were a dozen pig faced man-creatures wielding crude clubs in front of her, crowded around a small fire where something was being roasted. She had interrupted their dinner, and they didn't look happy about it.<br /> “Abort abort abort! Recall!” Even as she yelled this, she had already begun running. Not quite running, really, sprinting was a more accurate term. The pig men were chasing her, yelling in a strange, guttural tongue. Last time they'd used the teleporter, David had got sent to a dimension with beautiful elfish people who used sex instead of spears to solve conflicts. They'd had a hard time getting him back from there.<br /> And she'd got fucking pig men.<br /> “RECA-HA-HAAL!” her voice cracked as she ran over the uneven ground, and a bluish light surrounded her. Then she was gone.<br /> And then she was back. David and the others were laughing, Sonya was literally crying from her fits of laughter.<br /> “Oh what, you didn't want to stay and start up diplomatic relations with hominus baconus?” David teased. He snorted and puffed his face in crude imitation of the pigmen and danced around her. She kicked him in the knee.<br /> “Ow!” Everyone laughed even harder.<br /> “Oh to hell with all of you.” Sarin stormed off the teleportation platform, David still hopping around on one leg, clutching his injured knee.<br /> “Aw come on, it's not like we did it on purpose – you'd be laughing if it had been one of us. We'll mark the coordinates down and make sure no-one gets sent there again. Lighten up!” Sonya put a hand on her shoulder, her other still wiping tears from her eyes. She sighed. “We can send you back to the sex planet if you want, Sarin, but you said you wanted someplace new!”<br /> “Harumpf.” Sarin was still mad, but she couldn't help a little bit of a smile tease her lips. “It was pretty funny, I guess.”<br /> “That's the spirit! Look, once the administrator figures out we actually managed to get this thing working we won't be able to have any fun with it, so we should have fun while we still can!”<br /> “Whatever” Sarin shoved her lightly, but it was too late, she was done being mad.<br /> “Okay! I'm up!” Josef, the fat German yelled. “Gimme the camera, Sar.” She took the tiny camera off her head slapped on his balding crown. In the survival suit he looked like some jogger from hell.<br /> “Ready to go?” David was back at the controls.<br /> “Ja!” Josef was enveloped in bluish light and disappeared.<br /> “Hey Sar, go grab a few more beers from the fridge, we still have the whole night till the administrator comes in in the morning!”<br /> Sarin laughed and stepped walked out the room, hearing peals of laughter from the rest of the staff. Apparently Josef had gotten into a situation even worse than hers, or at least more hilarious. This wasn't exactly what she'd expected when she'd started working on the top-secret teleporter project, but she had to admit, if they were going to meet a bunch of aliens without government permission, drunk as hell and partying was probably the way to do it.<br /> They could fire her in the morning if they wanted, but before that, she wanted to go back to the pig planet with a machine gun and a skillet. Second contact would be far less pleasurable for those damn monsters.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-87932276507809245772009-04-23T08:47:00.005+08:002009-04-25T11:57:26.237+08:00Plastic NervesThis is a short story I should have finished a long time ago. There may be more stories from our hero, but for now, this is it. Please comment on it!<br /> <br /> Plastic Nerves<br /><br /> The doctors sit me down in the chair. It's hard and plastic – not very comfortable, but they tell me that's the point. “We want to make sure you're aware of the decision being made here; we want to make sure that you aren't going to regret this. The uncomfortable chair stimulates your nerves, makes you move and feel – keeps you awake. We don't want you getting too relaxed, too at ease with what you might lose.” <br /> I smirk. I've done this test every day for the past 23 days, and they've said nearly the same thing. Not exactly, “you might get used to what we are saying and automatically respond instead of thinking about it, so we have to ask you in different ways, different times to keep you thinking about the choice you're making here.” <br /> They say. <br /> They want to get this test done even more than I do. But they won't get the government-approved green light unless I say yes every day for a month and undergo the most rigorous psychological testing any test subject has ever experienced. It's not that they care about me – I volunteered, I'm asking for it. But the equipment won't be reusable, and they want to make sure that they get real results – not a premature failure. The doctors say that no one has undergone something like this – to this extreme. They say I could die. I tell them I'm aware of the risks. They say my life won't be the same – I could lose all my friends and family, my life as I know it. I tell them I know, and I'm almost sad about that, but I want this. I want to be the first. <br /> “Sure we can't just get this done?” I ask the nameless doctor in front of me. He introduced himself once – I don't remember it. Something Indian. It doesn't matter. They all look the same, sound the same. This one's white – this one's black – this one's a woman, another a man. “If all goes well, none of what you're telling me will matter – I can have my entire life the way it is now – I won't miss anything.” They look at each other, and tell me the same thing they've told me every time I've said that. “We just want to make sure that you understand the risks.” Only one week to go till the questioning ends, but I'm getting impatient. <br /> “Is it that you don't trust yourselves?” I look at the doctor to my left. She's young, pretty. Brown, wavy hair comes down to her shoulders, almost covering her face, but she's held swept it back behind one ear, revealing a smooth, slightly freckled white face – button nose and those thin, rectangular glasses you see everybody wearing nowadays. Her eyes are blue. I look into them. She's scared of me – she's been scared this whole time. I try to remember why – I'd asked someone about it before. “You're too intense for her – too knowledgeable about this whole business. She imagined that our best candidate would be someone who took everything lightly and didn't make a huge fuss about it, didn't think about it. That's what we all almost wish you were, but we understand why that can't be the case. That's why we have the psychologists.” <br /> Too knowledgeable. Too smart. It's sad. Doctors and psychologists are always used to dealing with people less intelligent than them. People don't actually understand what the doctors tell you, what their tests are about. How can they? Doctors go to school for years and years, losing personal lives and enough money to sink a ship, while the person who's walked into their office probably just knows what they feel like and what they read on the internet. How can they be expected to know what their choices really are? They should just be told: <br /> This one might kill you, but if it doesn't it will definitely work. <br /> This one won't kill you, but might not work. <br /> Those are usually the choices.<br /> Not me though – I knew enough. Enough to be annoying. Enough to know their games. Enough that if they explained something to me, I learned enough to explain it back to them. That's why I was here. I was an intelligent man willing to do something that most intelligent men were believed incapable of giving – my life and privacy. I'll ask you to think about that – constant surveillance of every tiny action in your life.<br /> Everything.<br /> I'm realising that I've made no mention of what exactly is happening to me. I apologise, truly. The aura of mystique, tense atmosphere and of course my rant on the members of the medical profession have taken my attention away from the truth of what is happening to me. I suppose it will provide you a point of reference to what I've been talking about this whole time. My name is Lucas Evans. I am 32 years old, have a wife, Elizabeth Evans, 30 and a daughter, Amanda Evans age 4. I love them, and we are a happy family – which was the one element about my candidacy for this experiment the doctors found negative. <br /> I've mentioned it before.<br /> As to what exactly is going to happen, well, They're going to replace my entire body, brain included, with mechanical and electrical components. There won't be a single piece of flesh left in me – even blood. Fibre-optic nerves, plastic cells, ceramic muscles an electric brain. I won't bore you with the specifics, but suffice to say it does a near perfect job of replicating the human body. I've seen it – it's based on my DNA, so it looks almost exactly like me, except for a few adjustments. It is extremely strange, looking at myself, but not in a mirror. Maybe this is what actors feel like when they go to a wax museum with themselves on display. I ask the doctors if I can go see my body – they tell me ok. It's a short walk from the room where they interrogate me. We have to be sterilised before we go in – it confuses me because it's not like there's anything to contaminate, but they want it done anyway. I guess I understand, I don't want any dirt getting in my brain case, clog the metaphorical thinking cogs. It takes a few minutes, but it's ok, I've done this at least a dozen times before. The room we enter into is rather large for its purpose – too large. But maybe that's the point. There's a large box in the centre of the room, slightly larger than a grandfather clock. It's white, like everything else in this barren place – something to remind me of the fact that I'll soon be vastly separated from my human senses, and my world may turn as sterile as this lab. I don't feel that way, so I say as much. <br /> “Why?” asks the young woman doctor. “your skin will be a series of pressure sensitive receptors made of plastic, your body temperature will be regulated by metal valves and your muscles powered by ethanol! Everything will be artificial! Even your brain will be a computer matrix, physically and chemically copied from the biological version but made of silicon and plastic, your personality uploaded from copies of your brainwaves, you'll barely be attached to even that! How can you say you won't be separated?” <br /> Her eyes were wide open, her chest heaving, knuckles white where she was gripping her clipboard. She stared at me from behind those small rectangular glasses, a few strands of hair falling over them, set loose by her explosive outburst. The other doctors said nothing, merely waited for my response. <br /> There was an awkward silence. <br /> I like awkward silences – you always get to see everyone embarrassed. I think that if you see someone when they're embarrassed you learn something about them as a person. I learned one thing – She doesn't like awkward silences. <br /> “What's your name?” I ask, awaiting her confused expression. I get it. “What does that have to do with anything?” She cocks an eyebrow and frowns; I imagine she's convinced I have no idea what she's talking about. I ignore her comment and look at her name tag instead – Sara, it says. Dr. Sara Schectman, MD. <br /> “Ok Sara, now I feel like we can talk on a personal basis. I hate talking to people I don't know. Well, I don't think it's very different, being in that body. In fact, I feel like I'll actually be closer to nature, to reality. Right now, my body is made of of trillions of tiny, individual cells, each their own little animal, working together to create who I am as a person. When I touch something with my hand, the cells in my skin feel the pressure, temperature and whatever else and send out what they felt through little chemical signals that travel from one cell to the next all the way up to my brain, where I get to figure out what exactly it is that I'm touching. There are hundreds of tiny living things doing that work. My body is like a machine, housing and servicing my soul. We hope I have a soul, because if it's something else that makes me human, when I get put into that metal box it'll just be a bunch of experiences and emotional responses that don't think or feel – not me, the man. You're going to coax my body into using that metal brain, hoping to lure my soul into it. When I get put in there, its different than being this animal. In that body, there are touch and temperature sensors, but they aren't alive. They don't lust for self-survival, they're connected to my cyberbrain and do exactly what it says. Every single part of my cybernetic body function can be consciously controlled. It won't need to be, if everything goes right – my brain will barely notice the difference, but I could if I wanted to. My bones are made of titanium instead of hard, calcified cells that are still alive. My muscles are ceramic tendons that expand and contract based on the temperature of the ethanol that runs through them, not long, tough living cells, individual animals doing the work my brain and spine command. Everything in my cybernetic body goes directly to my brain. My whole body is like a single cell, each part within serving the nucleus where all information and function are stored. There are small microchips in and around, to help service those parts, but I'm in complete, conscious contact with them. So when I touch something, it's really much more like my actual mind is touching it, instead of just a cell of skin.” I'm holding my right hand out to her, palm up, pointing at my fingers with my left hand. Her mouth is slightly agape, I'm not sure if it's because she's so impressed by my diatribe or because she didn't understand my point. I'll try not to think about it. <br /> “Ok, but your body is completely self-contained – you can survive near-indefinitely without eating or drinking, your power cells just need to be recharged every few years, you aren't using the world to survive, you're now completely independent. You're a part of the world because all those millions of cells are constantly changing, constantly affected by the world around them. You'll be made up of things that were once part of this world, but were a dead part – the closest thing that body has to an organic component is the plastic that once was a bunch of liquid, dead dinosaur. It doesn't have anything to do with life, just metals and plastics and clays!” She almost spat the last few words. <br /> “It sounds like you're disgusted by this project, don't you want this to happen? Why are you here?” I ask, bemused. <br /> Her lips jam up tight, and she crosses her arms over her chest holding her clipboard. She looks embarrassed, and turns away. “No, it's just that... this is for people that have no hope, no body of their own. This should be for people with no alternatives! Not you. You've got a perfectly working body, a good family, you don't have any history of health defects – why are you giving all that up for this? You have so much to lose!” <br /> I smile – it's really funny how some people show they like you, and which people do like you. This girl clearly likes me. I'm sorry, this young female doctor. Why? That's a good question. Millions of years of evolution and thousands of cultural have taught her, unconsciously that whatever traits I possess are excellent qualities for a mate. I'm not interested, but it's flattering. “Don't worry – I trust you to get me through this ok and see me back to my wife and daughter.” She just looks at me.<br /><br />* * * * *<br /> <br /> The day we've all been waiting for finally arrives. We start the day in a meeting room with a window to the transplant room. “Let's go over the procedure.” states the Indian doctor. “First you'll be knocked unconscious through hypnosis and acupuncture, we can't afford for any drugs to mess with your system – your brainwaves need to be completely natural. After that we'll open up your head and spine, and disconnect the two. After that, we'll connect your spine to the cyberbrain, which at this point is calibrated for your consciousness and thought patterns, but hasn't been uploaded. We'll then connect your natural brain to your cyberbrain and let them work in parallel. It's going to be awkward, and you'll look a horrid sight, because we're going to have to brace your neck, and you're going to have an extra metal brain attached to the back of your skull, so I would not try to ask anyone out on a date.” He showed a model on the wall display. <br /> It really does look awful. It's almost like some sort of horrid hunchback standing straight. The model – soon to be me – has a large plastic cover coming up from the small of its back coming up to a point about 30cm behind the shoulders and reaching back over to cover my head. Overlaid on the image is what is actually going to happen to my spine and brain. The spine is laid bare, open to the elements, the nerves pulled out and attached to the cyberbrain. The head of the model is completely shaved, covered with electrical receptors and transmitters. <br /> “At this point we'll begin training your new brain from the spine up. We'll teach it to use your nervous system and provide subconscious responses by poking, tickling and moving your body. This will take a long time. After that point we'll have you start consciously doing things, telling your body to move, thinking, speaking and performing problem-solving exercises. We'll also begin teaching your brain how to use the cyberbrain's capabilities – such as accessing computers in the lab and commanding small robots. The receivers attached to your head will transmit your brain signals to the cyberbrain, which will command the spine, and in turn, will send the results back to your physical brain. After about a day of this testing, we'll begin killing parts of your brain. This will force your brain to use the cyberbrain to perform those functions, which should begin pushing your consciousness into it. After we've killed off almost all the motor functions, we'll let you sleep, and during REM sleep we'll slowly begin poisoning your brain. This will force your brain to connect to the cyberbrain, and your consciousness should slip over before your brain is completely killed. It's worked in our test animals, and there shouldn't be any problems. Then we'll disconnect your cyberbrain and kill your body. It'll be cremated. The uh, the crematorium is actually connected to the test chamber. Finally, before you wake up, we'll install you into your new body. Then you'll wake up and we'll get you used to that, which should be painless and easy. Any questions?” <br /> We'd gone over this before, but really hearing that this is what would be happening in less than an hour was intense. Of course, it'd be about 36 hours before it was finished, but there wouldn't be any turning back after the surgery. “Is there any reason for killing my body? Have you ever left an animal brain or body alive after transferring the consciousness?” I ask, tentatively. I think I've asked this before, but I want to know again. I'm starting to feel the dark tendrils of fear gripping my neck. <br /> “We tried that. A few times. The animals would respond to simple stimulus, but even subconscious reactions were missing. Anything that actually required brain function was gone. We discovered that the brain cells, although they were being fed by the body and kept alive, refused to perform any function. Essentially, they were brain-dead even though there was no physical damage to the organ itself. At the same time the cyberbrain signals would go haywire. It was as if the brain was searching for something that just wasn't there, but as soon as we destroyed the original body, it calmed down and resumed normal function.” <br /> This was all really getting to me more than it should have. I'd prepared myself for this. But the facts just brought up so many questions – why did the brain die? Even simple animal brains wouldn't allow two identical copies. “Has there ever been a successful re-transfer of brain function from cyberbrain to biological?” <br /> He shook his head. “The consciousness in the cyberbrain appears to refuse re-transfers. You can't force it back in, it just won't go.” <br /> I had heard of that, I remembered now. Proof of the soul, they said. I'm not a religious man, but something like that is hard to dispute. I reassured myself. Just because a soul exists doesn't mean it's divine at all. What was I getting so spooked about? This was it. This was the day I'd dreamed of. This was my future. Scratch that. This is my future.<br /> “I'm ready.” I say this with certainty.<br /> “Very well.”<br /> We all stand up and leave the room, walking single file into the transplant room. The doctors look so professional, with their lab coats and glasses and clipboards hugged to chests. They strip off my clothes and lay me down face first on the operating table. There's a hole for my face. No real purpose, all I can see is the floor, but I suppose its to help me breathe. <br /> “We're going to start the acupuncture now.” I think it's Sara speaking. I ask.<br /> “Yes, it's me. I thought you knew I was doing this part?” She seems surprised, maybe insulted. I'm not sure. <br /> “I guess I forgot.” This isn't right. I shouldn't be feeling like this. I've been sure, confident, even obstinate in my dedication to this procedure. Not like this. I'm about to change this world. I'm about to become immortal. I won't need clothes to keep me warm, I won't need scuba gear to help me dive, I won't need a space suit to survive in space. I wont need anything.<br /> Or anyone.<br /> I lose feeling in my legs. They tell me that's right.<br /> I have a soul.<br /> I lose feeling in my arms.<br /> Will I like immortality? Will I miss the embrace of death?<br /> I lose feeling in my arms. They tell me it's all right.<br /> “Sara?”<br /> “Yes?” Her voice is quiet, subdued.<br /> “Don't be afraid.” I tell her this, I tell her, but in truth I'm telling me.<br /> I'm so scared.<br /> I lose all feeling. It's just me, my ears, my eyes and my trust brain. But maybe I already said that. I'm not sure any more.<br /> The Indian doctor speaks. “We're taking out your spine, and opening your skull now. Tell us if you feel anything.” I don't.<br /> They hook up the electrodes, give me access to the cyberbrain. It's so open. My mind has left Plato's cave, and is looking upon the great ocean of Life. I am standing on the beach. They are telling me to perform some tests. They are telling me to move machines. I don't need to.<br /> I don't need to.<br /> I don't.<br /> It's ready for me now.<br /> I am leaving. I am free.<br /> I let my fleshy husk go. I give birth to a new me. For one brief instant, I am between bodies. I am unbound, my spirit free of physical constraints. I can feel the world, the souls of those around me, the lines of love and spirit that bind my family. For one glorious moment I have no need of flesh, of steel, of man or God. It is not a religious experience. It is a living experience. Then I have a new body, a greater body, and I feel not the essence of life. I cannot feel that, but I can feel more. I am one, I am me, and I am ready. I can see my still breathing body on the table. It will not speak another word, love another person, do another thing. There is a brain there, but it is empty, a mere shell of what it was before. There is no me in that body, no identity for me to find. It is a mannequin of flesh and blood, beating organs and flowing fluids. I step forward, seeing the looks of shock and fear on the doctors' faces. I should not be alive. I should not have been able to do this thing.<br /> I should not have skipped the tests. They say. I should not have been able.<br /> But I have.<br /> I understand now why the animals could not handle this – they could not decide which way to go. They could not free themselves from evolution's gift, from the bodies they hold so dear. They lived a half-life, a fearful existence where they could not become unbound. I am greater.<br /> I am a new truth.<br /> I tell the doctors that this is the end, I am leaving now. I tell them that when they decide to join me, I will be waiting. I tell Sara that she will be okay, that someone will come who will love her. I do not know this, but I tell her anyway. I walk out the doors, out the building. No one can stop me, no one will stop me. I grin, feeling the ceramic of my muscles tighten my plastic skin. I feel alive.<br /> I skip down the street, humming a song. It might be the tune from something else, but I think I'm making it up. I could search the net to see if I am stealing it, but I don't.<br /> I am alive.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-3487130087903198792008-11-10T10:56:00.003+08:002008-11-10T11:00:38.577+08:00I like dinosaurs.I really like dinosaurs, you know that? I wish I could bring them back, encourage them to live and frolic in our wildernesses. Cause you know, ain't no government going to ok the use of military weapons against em, and hunters aren't about to take down a T-Rex with a rifle or nothin. So you could just take a bunch of dinosaurs, put them in an endangered area, and voila! Protection, and awesome monsters! I understand that really, we'd be messing up a huge section of the ecosystem, but really - what's cooler, a bunch of apes and some big rodents or giant monster lizards? I rest my case.theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-55653570671946785212008-06-23T21:45:00.002+08:002008-06-23T21:52:25.760+08:00A small installment.I'm trying to write a book. It's ambitious, and probably stupid. However, I like the idea. I will put up the first teensy bit here - it might look long on the blog, but it's only a few pages long.<br /><br /><br />'Eve, you awake?' said her dinner plate. 'There's something coming in on the screen, it looks really weird – wake up!' Eve frowned at the dinner plate. Previous experience had taught her that dinner plates were surfaces on which food was placed to be eaten – not talking ceramic discs. 'Shh! I want to eat in peace!' she sternly told the plate. 'EVE! WE'VE GOT A SIGNAL!' her plate screamed, as it squirted gravy at her face – rather hot gravy in fact. The chair which had been holding her fell to the floor as she squealed from the hot coffee splashing her in the face, carrying her barely conscious body with it. 'JESUS CHRIST FRANK! You're supposed to splash COLD water on somebody's face to wake them up, not fucking hot coffee!' Her rage at the dinner plate was such that the painful burn of the hot coffee (hadn't it just been gravy?) was barely noticeable. It was then that she noticed that standing in front of her was not in fact a dinner plate, so rudely acting human, but the short, pudgy figure of Frank Alvarez, her co-worker and researcher at SETI. His tiny brown eyes were pointed at the floor, and he was holding his arms behind his back abashedly, as if doing so would cover up the fact that his coffee mug was visible and still dripping. 'Sorry Eve, I just got excited, I mean, we have a signal!' He looked up at her, a small smile touching his mouth. 'OK Frank, but we get signals all the time, they're always something else, you can be calm about it. I know you're new, and this is very exciting, but for the love of God, don't pour coffee on anyone to wake them up. Ever. Now go get me a towel.' She looked down at him, and pointed towards the bathroom. 'Go!' Frank's smile disappeared, and he scrambled over the chairs and desks to get out. 'Don't break anything!!' She yelled after him. 'And get some cold water too!' She touched her face lightly – it hurt, but as much as she expected it would. <i>Must not have been new coffee, at least.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> She surveyed the room – like most of the older SETI offices, it was extremely disorganised, papers, coffees and beer cans strewn about, trash cans overflowing. She wished she could be in one of the new offices, with the nice servers and cleaners, where all the other radio astronomers worked. One of the old machines was beeping at her, pointing out a regular signal. They'd just upgraded the machine's software with a new program that rather intelligently picked out standard noise and supposedly only reported extraterrestrial signals. Of course, lots of things bounced around in orbit, and so the software still picked up the occasional TV show, distress beacon or even telephone call. Still, it was better than before, and had saved them a lot of money – which was good, because funding for the SETI program was at an all time low – Frank's “new employee” status was due to the fact that he was willing to work for almost nothing. She wiped her face off in her shirt and stared down at the screen. It looked like a standard distress beacon, from a ship or mountaineer – a jump in power, signalling a beep, every few seconds, except for the fact that whatever was emitting this particular signal was exerting as much energy as three aircraft carrier reactors just to push out one beep. </span><i>Jesus</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> she thought </span><i>this thing could be heard by anyone on earth listening to the right frequency.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> She turned on the volume on the computer. The first beep sounded through. It wasn't like a regular distress beep, whose signals were high pitched and a single tone. This one began as a low D minor, raised itself up to a C major, and dropped back down to D minor within one slow, three second long beep. Booeeoop. Booeeoop. Booeeoop. </span><i>What the fuck is this? </i><span style="font-style: normal;">A loud crash broke stole her attention away. Frank had just returned with a towel and a jug of water, and had managed to slip on the coffee that now covered her workstation. 'Oww...' Frank groaned and tried to stand up, but his hands pitifully slipped again on the coffee. Eve sighed, and walked over to him. She extended her hand, and as he grasped it he blushed terribly and looked up at her shyly. 'thanks' he mumbled. 'Come, on, lets triangulate this signal, forget the mess.' Frank didn't respond, he was still in mild shock at the fact that he was touching her. Eve was an attractive woman, with short black hair that cupped her face like a cloak, dark brown skin inherited from her Indian father, green eyes from her Irish mother, and a perfect BBC British accent. Frank worshipped her, and she knew it. 'Frank. Come on. Let's find out where this is coming from.' She pulled her hand away, wiping his sweat off on her khaki shorts. </span><i>Cause I want you ba-a-aby yes you know its true I love you baaby...</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> the song softly could be heard coming from the back of the room. 'Shit! That's my cellphone!' She scrambled over to her backpack. 'Shitshitshit' She rummaged around and snapped it out of the bag. 'Hello? Eve Darcy speaking' she gasped. 'Eve? This is Philippe Carson, from the, uh, Europa team?' said the low, French voice on the other end of the phone. 'Right, Philippe, nice to hear from you! What's going on? She'd met Philippe once, when the Europa probe had been launched – he was a nice guy, funny without the usual dry personality associated with Astronomers and Physicists. 'Well, I believed you would want to know about this – the Europa probe has been picking up some extremely powerful radio signals coming the moon.' Eve felt her jaw drop. 'You're sure its Europa – its not just a reflection off the moon from some quasar or something?'</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'I am very sure, the probe is in orbit around the moon, taking radar images and it comes off very strongly around Quadrangle 8.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'We've been picking that signal up for a while – just a regular, slow beep, yeah?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'The probe cannot tell us what the sound is, but it has been receiving it often, so I would assume this is it.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Jesus Philippe, this doesn't make any sense – Europa is a damned iceball! If there's life there at all it would at most be a few crabs and fish, not a god damned TV culture!'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">'I do not know what to say – but perhaps we should talk to our colleagues about this – I will start making some calls and we will organise a meeting. I will call you back soon.' He hung up. Eve could barely believe what she had just heard. </span><i>I can't get too excited, its possible that there's something else.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><i>Cause I want you ba-a-aby yes you know its true...</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Her phone began yelling at her again. She glanced down at it:</span><i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Number Unknown. “Dr. Eve Darcy speaking?” A small pause, and she heard some papers being shuffled. 'Dr. Darcy – this is Admiral Harrison. Every single Coast Guard, Navy Station and all the boats in-between are picking up some sort of distress beacon, but we can't pin down a location, and it's not coming off of any civilian frequencies, so we thought we'd give you radio freaks a call.' Eve hated the reputation SETI carried. Calling SETI for an anomalous signal was fairly down on the Pentagon's call tree, which made her more willing to accept the Admiral's condescending tone.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'You mean its a US military vessel?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'We would say so, but the beacon doesn't sound like any beacon we have, it just managed to set off all the alarms because its being broadcast on precisely the right frequency. Now, its not a secret entirely what frequencies used by the military, but... this signal isn't on those. This signal belongs to a set of frequencies reserved for, well, we call them “weather balloons.”'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Weather balloons? What, you mean like Roswell? UFOs? Alien spaceships?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Anything experimental that we put in the air is just called a weather balloon. Nothing special, anything from a toy helicopter made of clear plastic to a robotic high altitude spy camera array.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'So what's the problem? Did you lose one?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Well, no. That's the problem – all our projects are accounted for. And the range is immense – its broadcasting at the same rate and same time all across the globe.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'What's the frequency?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'114Ghz'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">Eve stared down at her computer screen. The signal was blasting out on a number of frequencies – but none low enough to register on the usual HAM frequencies or civilian channels. It was quite possible that it'd activated the distress beacons, but she'd have to make sure. 'You're sure you didn't lose one?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Positive – it'd've been reported to me immediately. I head our Special Projects Search and Recovery team. I know when and where something goes missing almost before it goes missing.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'You're not going to like my answer.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'What, the Chinese are using the same frequency? It's a solar flare? Some jackass programmer set up about a thousand HAM radios across the globe? Just tell me what it is. You know, don't you? If you don't, let me off the phone so I can find someone who does.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'It's coming from Europa.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Europe? Some rich Swiss asshole? A bunch of French guys? What do you mean “Europe?”'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Not Europe, Europa. An icy moon orbiting Jupiter.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'I swear to God Dr. Darcy, don't shit with me.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Our system's been picking up this signal for a while now, and the actual Europa team just called to tell me that the probe is picking up strong radio signals from Quadrangle 8 on Europa. We just started receiving it here, but...'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">There was a pause, and then 'You're sure.' He sounded uncertain.</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'It could be a reflection of a pulsar or quasar, but its extremely unlikely – the moon is in constant rotation around Jupiter, and the probe is in a short term orbit around Europa, and they say its not coming from anywhere besides Q8. In a few hours we'll know for sure that its not a reflection – it will have orbited so much that there is no chance it will be reflecting anything. It will have to be coming from inside the moon itself.'<br />'So there's something inside Europa sending out a distress signal that just happens to be on the exact right frequency as US special projects?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Yes and no, it's broadcasting on a range of frequencies, so you guys just got lucky, or unlucky, however you prefer to see it. Just in case though, I have to ask – you guys, um, didn't send anything there did you?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Not to my knowledge – and that covers everything. But I'll make some calls. What does it mean if we <i>didn't</i> send anything there?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Two options: Somebody else did, and they wanted to freak us all out and make for a global scandal or... there's some sort of intelligent life on Europa. Or at least some other intelligent life form sent something to Europa.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'The first one seems more likely – I'll make some other calls. Keep watching this signal. If it is the second one, I'm sorry about the budget cuts.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Admiral, if it's another life form – we need to get out there. We need to communicate with it.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">'So try calling it back – in the meantime, I'm going to talk to our friends in the EU, Russia and China. You talk to our friends from way out of town.' A click told her the conversation was over. 'umm, Eve?' she jumped – she'd totally forgotten about Frank. 'Yeah Frank? Sorry, what is it?' Her heart was pounding. </span><i>There's no way this is a reflection, the magnitude of the radio signal makes it nearly impossible to come from any sort of satellite, unless someone's developed a miniature nuclear power plant and shot it into space – which would have been detected by NORAD.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> 'Well, um, what's going on? This signal isn't really coming from Europa, is it?' She looked at him – his hands were shaking, wringing the towel he'd brought her, and his eyes were wide open. He looked like he was going to have a panic attack. 'Right now, that's what it looks like. Are you ok? Why don't you sit down, have some water.' She walked over to him, put her hand on his shoulder and sat him down in one of the chairs. 'Right now, we don't know what it is, so don't get too excited – it could just be an anomaly. Now, can you tell me when all this noise started?' He looked at his feet and tugged on the towel. 'Um, well, see, I'm not sure... I was in another room when it started, and as soon as I came in and saw it on I, um, tried to wake you up.' She looked at him sternly. 'Well, whatever, just check the records and see when exactly it started and if it looked the same this whole time or if something changed. I want to know everything about it when I get back, and you better not wander off.' He nodded rapidly and turned towards the computer station. 'Um, Eve?' He turned. 'What are you going to do? What if it is something alien?' She stopped, and sighed. 'Frank, I'm going to change my clothes and shower, because if I don't, then I don't think I'm going to be able to keep the thought that we may have just gotten the first real sign of alien intelligence in my head without collapsing. Besides, this could all still be a hoax of some kind.' </span><i>I swear I'll kill Phillipe if he's pulling my leg.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> She walked out the door into the hallway. The hallway was extremely short, and only attached to three other rooms – a bathroom, a meeting room and a small personal office where Eve essentially lived. She slumped down the hallway, speaking softly to herself '</span><i>don't get too excited – it's probably nothing, there have been mystery signals before and nothing's come of it – remember the Wow! signal? That was never confirmed, this could be something like that. Just gotta work through it, figure it out... I wonder where I put all those contingency plans for contact?</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Her thoughts began wandering – she believed in wandering thoughts, felt it helped bring those </span><i>Eureka! </i><span style="font-style: normal;">moments more easily than focused thought.</span><i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">She pushed the door open to the bathroom and flicked on the light. The bathroom itself looked like something from another world – pristinely clean in the surrounding mess and disorganisation of the office. The toilet was as clean as it had come on the first day, the sink had a brand new bar of Dove soap and her toothbrush and toothpaste neatly placed on the countertop and the small shower in the corner was pristine and white. </span><i>This is why I'm such bitch about bathroom cleanliness.</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> She smiled. Cleaning was sort of a ritual for her, and rejuvenated her spirits – but she had to bathe in a perfectly clean environment for the ritual to work – otherwise she never felt clean and would remain in a bad mood until a suitable shower or bath could be acquired. She stripped off her clothes and threw them into the clothesbin she kept by the door. Closing the glass door of the shower behind her, she turned it onto her favourite temperature – blazingly hot. Everyone who knew her thought her crazy or suicidal with the temperature water she used for bathing – especially in Nevada. The near-boiling water ran over her skin, and she shivered with pleasure. The hot water relaxed her – helped her think. She stared down at her feet as the water pounded on her head,</span><i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">thinking. </span><i>We have to get to that moon – if we don't, we won't ever know for sure what the hell is going on there. I just hope they don't decide its crap before we bother trying. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">A smile crossed her face. </span><i>At least this will probably let me get away from Frank for a while – this worship is getting to be too much to bear. '</i><span style="font-style: normal;">Europa... I hope they change the astronaut requirements – either that or I'm getting a pilot's license now.' she sighed. She reached for the shampoo, and suddenly stopped 'what the fuck am I doing in here? Showering? Relaxing? There's no god-damned time! Aliens, woman! Aliens! Your whole life leading up to this point, your </span><i>raison d'etre</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> fulfilled! Fuck being clean, time to become the most famous woman in history!' The shock of what had actually just occurred nigh-slapped her in the face, and she realised the actual situation she was in. It was the Admiral's call that had set her down this depressive path – his assumption that it could be a human hoax was blasphemous! She slammed the water off, and leaped out of the shower. She grabbed the towel and pressed it to her face. </span><i>Time to find out if we're really alone!</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> She looked in the mirror. </span><i>You're about to change the world – lets find out what that signal is!</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Then the door slammed open. Frank, sweaty and gasping for breath lurched into the bathroom with a phone headset in his hand. 'Eve! Something's going on! The signal's started repeating much more quickly! It's fluctuating too and there seems to be something interfering with... it...um...' He stared at her naked body. His plump face turned dark red and his eyes went wide. 'Me Madre! Sorry Eve!' He almost fell out the door, slamming it behind him. Eve barely noticed. </span><i>More signals? Is someone else communicating with it? Astronomic phenomena interfering?</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> She grabbed her shorts and a shirt and lurched out into the hall, throwing them on, running into the data room. The speakers were emitting a rambunctious cacophony of tones, ranging from every scale and chord. </span><i>What is this? Close encounters of the third kind? And who the hell is talking to it? '</i><span style="font-style: normal;">FRANK!' she turned towards the door 'When the hell did this start?' He came stumbling back into the room 'I came to get you just after it started! Honestly! I was in the room trying to find out more about the signal and it went crazy!' She frowned. 'Did you, well, do anything? Ask anyone to do anything?' He shook his head rapidly. 'I didn't do anything – I was just analysing the data.' She picked up her cellphone and dialled Phillippe. Beep. Beep. Beep. 'Allo? Pardon, but is this important, I am extremely...' Eve interrupted. 'Phillippe? It's Eve. The signal's gone insane over here, what's going on?'</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-style: normal;">'We are not sure, but the signal has become totally </span><i>fous</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> – the signal has gone crazy, and the probe itself has started acting strange – it has begun a slow descending orbit over Europa – eventually it will hit the surface. Another thing – it is sending out a signal towards the moon itself, and indicates that it is receiving additional signals. We are trying to stop this behaviour, but nothing seems to be working – it is just not listening to us.' </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'How long do we have before it crashes?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Well, it is looking like whoever is causing this wants the probe to land lightly enough to almost be recovered – so it will take a while for it to slow down enough – we've probably got a month or more.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Can you figure out where the second signal is coming from?'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Maybe, but we will need more time to triangulate it, see what the moon passes behind so we can see what blocks the signal. It's still communicating fully with us, so we will know everything that it is doing.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Ok, well, keep on that and I'll investigate around here and see if I can't dig up anything from our data. Call me if anything changes on your end.'</p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in; font-style: normal;">'Of course.' The click of the conversation ending sounded almost indignant and Eve stared at her phone, suddenly distrustful of it. This wasn't quite what she'd had in mind with joining SETI - her dreams were filled with hearing some sort of distant signal, barely coming through with some strange alien tongue that only she could decode. She would work feverishly around the clock trying to understand their speech, and after figuring out the secrets of their language, would send a message back saying 'We are here! We want to meet you!' It would take decades to reach them, of course, but in that time they would pick up more signals, and would learn untold amounts about their extraterrestrial friends. They would be socially advanced, and have very little hatred or crime, even though they all looked very different from each other and had different cultures. Eve, understanding them the most, would be elected as an international diplomat, who would change the world and make it far more peaceful and understanding, so that when she was old and grey, and her message was received by the aliens, she would be remembered as the woman who united the world and made the first steps towards intergalactic contact. This was not her dream. It was not that the situation was awful, but that it was just so different from what she had imagined. The Cassini team would be the highlight, with their probe being somehow controlled by entities unknown, and the whole thing could all just be one big hoax. And the signal itself wasn't any radio station from a distant solar system, it was all some beeping coming from an icy moon that should have just had a bunch of space lobsters on it! It was all too strange. She shook her head. This wouldn't stop her – she could still be someone who changed the world. She sat back down at the data station and began to tear apart the signal.</p> <div style="text-align: center;">* * * *<br /></div><br />I welcome all comments!theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3914215558335803277.post-28884089044680557842008-05-14T12:52:00.002+08:002008-05-14T13:06:16.045+08:00On God and Aliens, Part IRecently I found an article http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL146364620080514 stating that the head Vatican Astronomer says it's kosher to believe in both God and extraterrestrial aliens. This sparked the following conversation which I post here for your enjoyment.<span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Me:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> dude</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> i'm sort of pissed</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> cause like</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> i've been thinking about all this stuff</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> sup?</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> and the religious aspects and stuff</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> of like, finding aliens and other intelligences and stuff</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> of what?</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> oh yeah</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> that would mean god doesn't exist</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> if they didn't believe</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> and i just read this article about how this Vatican Scientist says its cool to believe in aliens and god at the same time</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> i'll find you the link</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> ok</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> what do they say about aliens?</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL146364620080514">http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL146364620080514</a></span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> the "lost sheep" of the universe?</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> that's like the uplift novels</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> except like</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> all the aliens would believe in god and jesus</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> haha</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> instead of the way sweeter Progenitors</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> well, that would make no sense</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> dude</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> did they have to crucify tentacle jesus too?</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> probably<br /></span><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> and they probably had to send the tentacle jews to the desert for 40 years</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> "oh lord, why hast thou forsaken me" translates to "blark bloop flurp kraaach mnaar!"</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> hahaha</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> hahaha</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> who knows if they're even monotheistic?</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> they're probably polytheistic, if anything</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> just because it makes more sense</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> but what about asexual alien races? "and lo, did god create Xar, and Xar slowly multiplied into many other Xars, and spread across the earth"</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> haha</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> its more natural, thats for sure</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> but he's saying that if there are aliens</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> they would have been created by God</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> yeah, god made xar out of xar's rib</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> and so believe in the same God</span><span style="font-size:100%;"></span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> i mean, how many sons of god can exist?</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> wouldn't that be adultery?</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> And from the rib of Xar did god create an identical xar, and said "thou shalt be xar and xar, and well, um, make more xars. shit. don't cheat on each other? fuck, there aren't any genders... how are you going to have sodomy and premarital sex and shit?"</span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> technically God coveted his neighbours wife cause he totally jacked up Mary</span><span style="font-size:100%;"></span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> virgin birth my ass</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> he wouldn't pass up that fine ghetto booty</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> that xar booty</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> dude</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> all xar births are virgin births</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> haha</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> i guess you're right</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> i guess the Xar are without sin</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me</span></b></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> they must be perfect!</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> no original sin</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me: </span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;">i wish i was xar</span><br /><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me: </span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;">betentacled perfection</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> we all can be</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> when we follow xar jesus<br /></span><span style="color:#204a87;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Me:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> praise xar jesus</span><br /><span style="color:#cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size:100%;">Maxwell:</span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> praise him<br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">And so it is for my first post. See you next time!<br /></span>theaugustauthorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05050760703676819848noreply@blogger.com0