Fiction: A Picnic at Mt. St. Cardiac

This is one of the five or so short stories I found when cleaning up the outbuilding, getting it ready for its new carpet, and the second to appear on the blog.

I wrote it in the early 1990s, I believe. Cyberpunk had by then established itself as the up-and-coming sub-genre of science fiction, although by then some people thought it was well in decline. Me, I thought people were missing out, treating “cyberspace” strictly as the habitat of criminals and mega-corporations. Certainly, people would work, play, and perhaps even work out emotional issues in cyberspace as well.

So click the “Read and Comment” link, and see what happens when a family takes...

A Picnic at Mt. St. Cardiac

The VR headset magnified the circuit board until it looked like... well, a miniature city. Clichés, even at the microscopic level, Mike grinned. But an exotic ghost town of copper streets and black epoxy buildings was just what it looked like.

Mike lifted his viewpoint above the board’s surface — and there was the problem. A hairline crack in a solder joint, although at this magnification it seemed big enough to slip his hand into, on pin 3 of chip U407. He reached up with gloved hands and brought down a huge — or so it seemed at this scale — soldering iron and a line of solder as big around as his arm. In a few seconds, the crack was patched.

As Mike was about to start diagnostics on the board, his phone chimed. The status area in his headset said simply, Dad. Mike smiled and opened the video onto one corner of the display. His father’s puzzled face appeared in a window on the side of one of the chip-buildings.

“What’s this? You playing that new VR City game, Mayor Mike? Patching up potholes? But where’s the media with their photo-ops?”

“Nope,” Mike grinned even wider. “Hey, why don’t you join me?” His image froze, one finger held up toward Dad in the universal gesture that meant Wait a minute, then reanimated; a pair of silvery benches appeared behind him. “Link up and come sit for a few. Remember that RW-4 factory rework unit you helped me pick up last week?”

Dad raised one eyebrow skeptically as he stepped into the rework unit’s VR, the window dissolving behind him, and sat on the bench opposite Mike. “Naw. You couldn’t have got that thing working, could you? I thought you bought it for scrap.”

“I did,” Mike chuckled. “In fact, I opened up the power supply first to see if there was anything worth salvaging in there. What I found was a mouse nest and a bunch of chewed wires. I thought ‘what the heck,’ spliced everything together, and it came right up. I think it has repair maps of most everything built through last year.”

“Quite a find. And a steal, for fifty bucks. I’m impressed. Y’know, you could go into business with this, fix up stuff —”

“Or buy up rejects and sell ’em as refurbs,” Mike finished. “I already have a flyer out, looking for a batch of boards.” He looked around to see if the slow fade he’d set up was noticeable yet. Sure enough, the circuitry was starting to look grainy and rippled, the benches grew darker and rougher, and his clothes were fading away completely.

“Good. If you need a little help from time to time, let me know. I’ve gotten down to twenty hours a week at work now.” Dad looked around him, went Wait a minute, then returned with a grin and a different look. This image of Dad was younger and thinner, with black hair (only one or two grey strands) down to his shoulder. The appendectomy scar was still there, though. Mike’s next thought started him: He used to look like that when he was younger. And it’s how he still sees himself.

Dad brought Mike out of his reverie. “I’ll go along with the nude beach. Better be careful with the wood benches though; wouldn’t want virtual splinters in your old man’s backside.”

“No probble,” Mike said, then subvocalized. The benches became canvas beach chairs. “Better?”

“Yeah, but you forgot the babes.” A volleyball game popped into existence nearby. “And this is kind of a generic beach — may I? Thanks.” Wait a minute, then the sand became coarser and darker with grassy dunes marching up from the shoreline. “I always liked Lake Michigan; too bad they didn’t have nude beaches up there.” They watched the volleyball game for a quiet moment.

“OK, Dad,” Mike said to break the silence. “I give up. I didn’t shock you with the nude beach. So what’s happening?”

“Shocked you, though,” Dad grinned. “I pretty well know you, son. You’re not much different from me when I was twenty-eight, even if you were on the way by then. Anyway, I was just going to make sure you were coming by —” Wait a minute, a prolonged one. Dad’s image reanimated with a worried look. “Trouble,” he said.

The volleyball game disappeared just as Mom popped in, sporting a grainy image that indicated a real-time meatspace scan. “Hi, son, I — God!” she gasped. “What do you two think you’re doing?”

Mike and Dad quickly added swim suits. “And a good afternoon to you too, Mom,” Mike replied. “Dad and I were just playing Shock Each Other. He won.”

Dad glared briefly at Mike, then stood to face Mom. “You ought to try it some time,” he said. A quick subvocal, and a four-foot schlong sprang from his swim suit, complete with sound effect.

“You wish,” Mom hissed. “Fifty-six years old, and that’s still all you think about.”

“Uh, Dad,” Mike said. ”You broke the rules. No caricatures.”

“Woop,” replied Dad, and returned to normal proportions. “You’re right. Congratulations, hon; you won your first game of Shock Each Other by default.”

Mom ignored the attempted deflection. “So when did you ever look like some long-haired idiot?”

“When we met,” Dad said evenly. “Don’t you remember?”

Before Mom could respond, Mike spoke up. “Good to see you, Mom. You don’t usually visit by VR; what’s the occasion?”

“Well, I was going to make sure your dad didn’t forget to ask you if you were coming by tonight —”

“Which is what I was about to do before you butted in,” Dad snapped. “Besides, didn’t you ever figure out that this is what VR is all about, to be what you always wanted to be?”

Mom smirked. “You never wanted to be a nudist. Besides, the resort is just a few miles up the road, where it’s always been.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Dad retorted. “You’ve got to stop looking at just the face value of things —”

“Uh, you guys are running up a tandem bill with this little discussion. Maybe a change of scenery would be appropriate,” Mike suggested. “How about the golf course?”

Mom looked skeptical. “I don’t golf —”

“No probble, Mom. You’ve never come to visit our masterpiece; just sit in the cart and enjoy the view.” Dad laughed and nodded as the beach dissolved and all three stood before a black iron sign. The sign read, in animated dripping blood:

MOUNT SAINT CARDIAC
The golf course from Hell!

Mike and Dad had created this elaborate construct several years ago as a practical joke on a few golfing friends of Dad’s. The friends thought it was hilarious, and told other friends. The word spread, and father and son quickly found themselves adding and refining. Soon, Mount Saint Cardiac became the place for people who wanted a break from real-world golfing. It was one of the most popular golf-oriented constructs in VR, running neck-and-neck with the authorized virtual St. Thomas. The visitation fees they made from Cardiac usually paid the entire family’s monthly VR connect charges with enough left over for a weekly gold outing in meatspace.

Mom looked even more skeptical. “I don’t think I’ll enjoy this. It doesn’t look like my idea of a good time.”

Dad rolled his eyes. “Just come on, will you? You won’t enjoy it if you don’t give it a chance, that’s for sure. Here, hop in the cart.”

“That’s a cart?” Mom goggled. The golf carts at Mount Saint Cardiac looked like a cross between a black 1970 Corvette Stingray and a plain golf cart. It had an open top and the back end was rebuilt to hold a pair of bags, but the rest was one evil-looking vehicle. It purred menacingly as it rolled, driverless, to where they stood.

“It’s safe, Mom,” Mike reassured her. “This is VR, remember? You can’t get hurt.” Mom climbed into the passenger seat, Dad took the driving position next to her, and Mike grabbed handholds on the back. “Hit it, Dad.” The motor roared, tires squealed, and they fishtailed up to the tees on Number One. Dad grinned like a maniac and whipped the cart into a power-slide that slung the rear next to the tees.

“I see your driving hasn’t changed much,” Mom remarked dryly as they climbed out of the cart.

“One big difference,” Dad deadpanned as he and Mike selected Cardiac Drivers — clubs with heads roughly the size of a bowling ball sawn in half. “No tickets here, and nobody wrecks.”

Number One was typical: 570 yards to the green, with the tees on the edge of a sheer cliff far above the fairway. The sign, which showed the layout and the hazards, named it Over the Edge. Dad and Mike both teed off and watched their balls land in the fairway below, then everyone climbed into the cart.

“Another good thing about this course,” Mike chattered. “You can’t lose your ball even if you try.”

Mom looked around. “So how do we get down there? I don’t see a path.”

“Here, I’ll show you,” Dad grinned. “Remember the name?”

“Over the Edge — nooooooooooo!” Dad floored the accelerator. The cart roared, tires howled as they spun around, and Mom shrieked as they vaulted off the cliff. Before they dropped more than a few feet, the cart spouted wings and became a glider. As they descended, Mike picked himself up from the back of the cart, laughing hysterically. “Mom — you should have seen — your face,” and again fell giggling to the floor.

“I ought to slap you,” Mom growled, then allowed herself to smile as the cart landed and folded its wings away. “So what other surprises do you have in here?”

“Oh, every hole has its own little personality,” Dad replied. “Like Boa Boa. When your ball hits the fairway, a big snake slithers out and swallows it. If you stomp on him, he coughs up the ball and goes away.”

“Your snake phobia gave us the idea for that one, Mom,” Mike continued. “Another hole is pitch dark, except that the green and your ball glow in the dark. The idea is for you to remember where you are — in VR where you can’t get hurt. Here you can overcome whatever fears you might have, since they really aren’t here.”

“Psychotherapy?” Mom looked skeptical and a little sarcastic.

“Funny thing, Mom: some shrinks actually bring their clients here. We get email all the time from people who said this place has helped them out some way.” Mike chattered on about other comments they received, while Dad steered them to a picnic area in the shadow of an erupting volcano. They sat in the lush grass and watched the lava flow endlessly down.

“But what’s the point of all this?” asked Mom. “Just entertainment? Or is there something else to it? You know I don't go virtual, or whatever you call it, very much.”

“Sure, it’s entertainment,” agreed Dad. “But are you talking about the golf course, or VR, or the entire Net?”

“All of it, I guess,” Mom sighed. “I know people go to work over the Net all the time, and there’s lots of games, and stuff like this place — but why do you go around looking like that, twenty and hair down to your back?”

Dad sighed in turn. “What’s the whole point of an illusion — or a fantasy world, if you’d rather — if you can’t control it? There’s a part of me who’s still twenty, and will always be twenty no matter how old I get on the outside. Here, I can let him out.

“But what about you? Haven’t you ever wanted to look different?”

“Well, you know I’ve always wanted to lose weight,” Mom grimaced. “But what’s the point? I could look like a supermodel here, but that won’t change anything.”

“It might change how you see yourself,” Dad replied. “Here, let me work your image. Now don’t look at me like that; I’m not going to do anything weird in front of your own son.” Dad went Wait a minute, then reanimated. “You wanted to be thinner? Here you go.” Dad reshaped Mom’s image into a young woman’s, made her hair longer and pulled it back into a tail, then replaced her generic floral print dress with overalls and a flannel shirt.

“Hey Mom,” Mike grinned. “You look gooooooood.” He subvocalized a full-length mirror so Mom could see herself.

Dad winked. “You know, women in overalls always did turn me on.”

“Uh, guys, I’ve got a board to finish fixing,” Mike said, recognizing his cue. “See you tonight in meatspace.” He dissolved and was gone.

Mom looked at Dad and grinned shyly. “So now what?”

“We go for a ride,” Dad replied. He whistled, and two horses with full tack trotted out of the woods. “Somewhere a bit more traditional. This can be your fantasy, too.” The scenery shifted, becoming a grassy meadow, with hazy mountains in the distance and a chuckling stream nearby. The horses ambled over and drank.

“Let’s go somewhere different,” Mom countered. “How about that beach? We can build a driftwood fire when it gets dark.”

“You’ve got the idea,” Dad replied happily. They mounted up and rode across the dunes.

Are we there yet?

A while back, I wrote a letter about the oil crunch to come, probably sooner than later. It looks like it might be getting started.

This IEA¹ graph, from their Oil Market Report, shows world oil production from 2002 to the end of 2005. As you can see, total production seems to be levelling off — only in the last half of 2005 do you see production for two quarters in a row lower than the previous quarter.

Better news is in the text of the report: production climbed to 85Mbpd in December, resuming the steady climb (US production was hosed up by the hurricanes, and is slowly coming back on-line). But what the text giveth, another graph taketh away: follow the link and compare the "World Oil Supply" and "World Oil Demand" graphs. Demand is consistently outstripping supply, which suggests the reserves that Western nations have been building up for an emergency are being tapped and slowly(?) depleted as well.

So are we getting close to Peak Oil? The graph above suggests world production is starting to plateau, although it may well be a temporary hesitation while the Gulf of Mexico producers get their collective act back together. OPEC et al can still increase production, but it’s getting more and more difficult. My crystal ball is a little murky, but I think we’ll see another year or two of increasing yields before the trend turns the other way. The wild card is the deteriorating situation in the Middle East: military in Iraq, diplomatic in Iran. As bogged down in Iraq as we are, we can’t make a credible threat to Iran.

What’s more important is the difference between demand and supply. Unless Americans suddenly get rational and park their SUVs, permanently, demand will continue to climb. But even if we could control our own consumption habits, we can’t control China’s and India’s increasing thirst for oil: anything we leave on the table, Asia will grab with both hands.

The only thing I know for certain, the era of cheap oil is over.

---

¹International Energy Agency, a consortium of energy-consuming nations.

Dangit

Mrs. Fetched baked some salmon last night, with some potatoes etc. on the side. I put the leftovers into two microwave plates — one for my lunch today and one for The Boy after he came home from band practice.

As things really went, Lobster ate The Boy’s plate... and The Boy ate my plate.

Hey Solar-bro...

Gimme a call tomorrow morning, 8 a.m. would be great, let me know that Dad got there OK... OK?

Thanks!

Camera shakeout

Seems that the photography industry has started quietly shaking out: Konica/Minolta is throwing in the towel and Nikon is dumping most of its film cameras to concentrate on digital — quite a turnaround in attitude at the iconic manufacturer.

Film is going to be around for quite a while — unless you have massive thousands of bucks, digital is going to lag film’s quality for some years to come. On the casual/consumer end, a lot of people still have good film cameras and aren’t ready to drop $350–$400 for a decent digital just yet. But for those of us who have them already, the quality is fine for snapshots and 5x7 prints (if you don’t look too close). The best part is that we can blow through the equivalent of four rolls of film in a day, keep the good shots, and make the bad stuff disappear with no guilt, extra cost, or waits for processing. It’s also nice to not have to keep a scanner around when I want to put my pictures on my blog.

One of the neat things about digital cameras is that many of them have a video mode, so you can take at least short clips of video. My camera takes video at 320x240, roughly equivalent to VHS quality, and can manage up to 3 minutes at a time (which about fills a 128MB card anyway). iMovie, to my pleasant surprise, converts and upsizes its AVI files so I can edit them and even mix them with DV video from my camcorder. Some digital cameras can take full-screen 640x480 video, which would require the biggest flash cards you can afford since it would require about 4 times the space of 320x240 video.

But that’s where things will head, eventually. Flash memory will continue to get cheaper (I’m thinking about a 512MB card for my camera), processors will continue to improve, and I expect solid-state camcorders to start pushing into DV territory in the next few years.

The Boy and His Pills

The Boy gets a pair of trips to his endocrinologist each quarter — one to draw blood, one to get the results. As we expected, his sloppy maintenance resulted in an A1C score of roughly 10... if you don’t know what that means, it’s not good; it should be around 7. After a stern lecture from the doc, who went into graphic detail of the slow painful death (piece by piece) that awaits him if he doesn’t get his act together, he confirmed that The Boy is indeed a Type II rather than Type I. “He would have probably hit 500 and ended up in the hospital over the summer if he was Type I.”

This is very good news for The Boy: it means he’s down to typically one injection (the Lantus he takes at bedtime) per day, with the Novolog as a backup if he needs it. Of course, he still has to poke himself and meter his glucose, but that’s no big deal by comparison.

I took an empty pill bottle and had him put a few of his pills in it to keep here. His regular supply is at his apartment, but if he comes home for a weekend or whatever he’ll have them even if he forgets his normal supply. (We also have a backup glucose meter.)

A great laugh for Zork players

Former or current, it’s pretty funny. But he left one question unanswered: where’s a grue when you need one?

Exceeding expectations

I was rather amazed.

The Boy actually found an apartment that didn’t ask questions about his educational status. Sure, it isn’t much: two rooms (not two bedrooms, mind you) plus a decent bathroom, full kitchen, $400/mo includes utilities. Good thing about the latter; the door has a pretty good gap under it to let the chilly wind in and keep his heater running. But it's his own place. It’s also within walking distance to where they do band practice, which was probably one of his more important considerations. His 18^th birthday was Friday, he put his own money down on the place: well, go for it, kid. People are giving him furniture; if he’s not careful, he’ll be tripping over it. I suggested to Mrs. Fetched that I, her, and Daughter Dearest all mark a calendar with the day we figured he would have a problem big enough to need some real help. She said no... like it made a difference.

So a friend of his loaned him a little pickup truck to get around with & move his belongings from FAR Manor to his new nest (and pick up gifts of used furniture, of course). Like a lot of young guys, he associates staying up late with being cool, or adult, or something... I remember being that way but can’t really say what the attraction was, just that it was there. So about 2 a.m. Sunday morning, he called Lobster (who was elsewhere) and asked him if they wanted to meet at McDonald’s. After that, they were driving back to his new place when they got the Blue Light Special on aisle 136. Turns out that the friend neglected to tell him the truck didn’t have current plates! Smooooooooth.

That details aren’t too clear about what happened next, but Ossifer Friendly wound up searching them... and found a joint on The Boy. Break down, take down — you're busted. Fortunately for Lobster, the joint was the only contraband in the truck. The second cop (they travel in pairs these days) took Lobster back to his own truck and let him go. The Boy went directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

So The Boy used his phone call to tell the friend who loaned him the truck, whose mom knows a guy with a tow truck; they came and got it. Lobster called M.A.E. (note that nobody so far is in much of a hurry to tell us) about 9 a.m. Sunday morning. M.A.E. went to Mrs. Fetched and said “Something terrible has happened!” With that for a lead-in, the wife’s reaction on finding he was in jail was like, “Oh, is that all?” In other words, major relief. She was thinking hospital or worse.

So The Boy exceeded — no, shattered — all expectations. I figured he’d last about a month until he got in over his head, although I was thinking financial issues or diabetes complications. It took him all of one day.

Then the phone calls started. Collect, of course, even though the jail & we are in the same phone exchange. It sort of complicated things, what with Monday being a holiday... although that at least meant I could be there to help bail him out (literally, for a change). Even though it was a holiday, they set his bail, a bondsman (actually, a freckled young lady) was available, came to the jail & took care of things. I had to ask her how she got in that line of work; she said she works for her dad, who’s an ex-cop (an Irish cop, from the looks of his daughter).

We collected The Boy (who was, ironically, wearing a T-shirt with “How Not to Get Caught” instructions) and took him home. Mrs. Fetched yelled at him; I yelled a little and laughed a little. Fortunately, he’s looking at a misdemeanor charge. Even more fortunately (have I ever said this kid is massively lucky? well, for the most part), he said the cop never read him his rights. Lobster was there & didn’t hear it either. Sounds like he might get off on a technicality, which would suck if he doesn’t learn anything from this — but would be good if he’d just get (and stay) straight. The bad part is that it could drag on for two years before he gets a court date... which makes getting it tossed on a technicality a bit more attractive.

The other bad part was that he told the jailers, M.A.E. called and told them, we called and told them, he’s diabetic. They didn’t give him any insulin while he was there, or check his sugar, or anything. Since Mrs. Fetched knows the sheriff, she’s going to have a little talk with him. I took him to his place to pick up his meter; he was at 296. The more I think about that, the happier I’d be to see his case thrown out for something stupid. If there’s anything that cheeses me off even more than what Bush-league is doing to the country, it’s sloppy local law enforcement.

Friday Night Cinema - we’re back!

You’ve watched up all the DVDs you got for Christmas, the bills started coming in, and you still haven’t cleaned up from that New Year’s Party... never fear, we bring you short flicks that won’t strain your budget or schedule.

Daughter Dearest pointed me to this one. It’s been 8 years or better, and people still find ways to get a chuckle out of the Hamster Dance. Tune in, turn on, and get ready for the Psychedelic Hamster Dance!

Sodium dodging

There's a new extreme sport for middle-aged men, called “Sodium Roulette.” Here’s how you play:

1. Go to the supermarket.


2. Pick up something that sounds good.


3. Now, look at the label and see how much sodium there is in one serving. Write it down.


4. Repeat until someone goes over 2400mg of sodium. That person is out.


5. Last man standing wins!

Actually, I spent my lunch in the supermarket yesterday and actually found some good stuff. I’ve been trying to come up with some foods that are easy to fix in a microwave, don’t require refrigeration, are tasty, and not bad for you. I consider the trip a success, coming back with:

• “Instant” brown rice (I don’t consider 7 minutes cooking time to be “instant,” but whatever.)


• Cipollini onions (they’re small, so you can use whole onions and not have halfies left over)


• Albacore tuna, marked “very low sodium” (at albacore prices, naturally... ouch)


• Sardines packed in water (very little sodium, especially compared to packed in mustard or oil)


• Smoked oysters (more sodium than the fish, but still within reason)


• Low-sodium Triscuits (I was looking for Wheat Thin(g)s, but these will do)


• Bean sprouts (there’s a refrigerator at work, fortunately... I just didn’t want to fill it up


• Mrs. Dash Tomato/Basil/Garlic Blend


• Bananas

I have a few packs of ramen hiding in the back of one of my overhead bins; chuck the “flavor” packet and what’s left is the closest thing to instant pasta that I know of.

Googling for “cipollini onions,” I found some recipes for roasting them that sound absolutely divine as a side dish to beef or pork... but right now, I’m primarily concerned about what I can cook in the break room microwave. I cut up a couple of onions into the rice pot, threw in a small handful of bean sprouts, added some Mrs. Dash, and nuked the whole shebang then topped it with a can of tuna. The result was edible, if a little bland; I need to vary the ingredients a little bit and maybe toss in some green pepper. I’ll post a recipe when I get it right.

I’m thinking about how I can do something with the ramen & smoked oysters...

Weird news items

From the BBC, but worthy of News of the Weird:

Now you can blame “it” on the trees!

Pigs may not fly... but they glow in the dark?

Other things going on

If I haven’t posted in a couple of days, it often means I (temporarily) have gotten a life or something. I think in this case, it’s “or something.” Here’s what’s been going on.

I mentioned this in Vacation Reflections: at FAR Manor, we open our presents on Three Kings Day (Epiphany, Jan. 6). Or, like this year, work schedules can slide it into the weekend. So on Saturday, I got the 4-DVD Firefly series (highly recommended by David) and a Holy Grail T-shirt, showing the Black Knight with all his limbs hacked off and emblazoned in raised red letters: IT’S JUST A FLESH WOUND. The Boy got the same T-shirt, This is Spinal Tap on DVD, and a couple other things. Daughter Dearest got her iTunes gift cards, a betta tank (we’ll get the fish this weekend), and miscellany.

Mrs. Fetched got some stuff here & there, but what she needs is a Canon GL-2 to replace her business camera (a Sony of similar specs). The video circuitry went to hell on her while we were shooting the community chorale; fortunately the audio was still good & I was using my ZR-80 as a B-roll camera off to the side. With that, she was able to dub her decent audio onto my mediocre video and produce both CDs and DVDs for the chorale. One good-sized video job will cover the $2800 or so... if she can get a client who will pay quickly, we could get the camera on a “90 days same as cash” basis and not be out of pocket.

I’ve gotten hooked on She’s a flight risk, a blog purporting to be the diary of a young woman on the lam from her ultra-rich family. The link starts you off in the archives, which have been conveniently rearranged to go top to bottom (so you don’t have to scroll up to read). I seem to remember looking at it a year or two ago and then somehow forgetting about it.

Last night, I got myself a break and started working on setting up a computer for EJ, a friend of The Boy’s. It’s not the newest thing in the world — a PowerMac 8500/180 — but it will get him online and work for writing papers and the like. I’ll load it up with a few games and things too.

Working at home today. Time to grab a bowl of cereal and get to it.

The Young Mayor

Some time back, I wrote about Michael Sessions, an 18-year-old high school student who ran a write-in campaign for mayor of Hillsdale, Michigan — and won. I got to wondering how that all went down and started Googling; it would make a good follow-up, anyway.

Well... after several ballots were invalidated because you have to check the box and write the candidate’s name next to it, Sessions was still ahead by two votes. The incumbent, Douglas Ingles, then asked for a recount (well yeah, when it’s that close you pretty much have to). Things got touch-and-go when the city council found an ordinance that barred swearing in an official whose election was the subject of a recount, and called a special meeting on November 18 (the Friday before Session was to be sworn in).

Session himself found out about the meeting while at the Michigan/Ohio State game, and left the game to attend the meeting. A crowd of supporters packed the meeting as well, to see what was going down.

Mr. Ingles then defused the tension by announcing that he was withdrawing the recount request, and pledging his support for Hillsdale’s new mayor, which drew many cheers — probably more than he ever got as an elected official. On Monday, November 21, Sessions was sworn in as mayor in front of a huge group of citizens and media from around the US, as well as international media including Japan, Russia, and France.

Lansing Community College’s Lookout has pictures of the mayor at work and... not-work.

Sometimes, it’s best to fire a customer

So many manufacturers are willing to cut their own throats — or at least those of their employees — to get into Wal-Mart. Once in a while, you find an executive with the vision and nards to get out.

“Now, at the price I’m selling to you today, I’m not making any money on it. And if we do what you want next year, I’ll lose money... we have this independent-dealer channel. And 80% of our business is over here with them. And I can’t put them at a competitive disadvantage. If I do that, I lose everything. So this just isn’t a compatible fit.”

I wonder why it’s so hard to shut off a sales channel, even knowing that those sales are losing money and possibly costing you in other ways.

When spammers lose... we all win!

That’s gonna leave a mark.

CIS Internet Services successfully sued James McCalla over claims he sent more than 280m illegal spam messages.... The judgment further bans McCalla from using the internet for three years.

Too bad there wasn’t a one-way ticket to Abu Ghraib involved. Hey, if you’re going to torture something, nothing is more deserving than a spammer.

Smack the Penguin

Daughter Dearest praises this one with faint damnation: “this game is so stupid... but it's so much fun.”

1. Go forth and click.


2. Click the snowman to make the penguin jump.


3. Click the snowman to hit the penguin as he descends from the cliff

What's your distance? I got 587.something my first try, and haven’t beat it yet. Daughter Dearest has been working at it for a while, and beat it with 588.3 in between telling all her friends about the game.

I’ve been tagged

Carnacki got me.

OK, the rules of this little game are: reveal five weird habits about yourself, then tag five other bloggers. Fair enough.

1. The more I like a song, the more likely it is that I will make up my own lyrics to it.


2. I yank the occasional eyebrow hair that gets long (like, half my eyebrow long). That wouldn’t classify as a weird habit for women, perhaps, but I are not one of those.


3. I “clip” my toenails by notching them with a fingernail then zipping it off. I then drop them behind the headboard.


4. For whatever reason, I have a hard time with ending a project. I’ve been known to let them sit for months. I have no clue why.


5. I almost never watch TV. Probably has something to do with wanting to scream at the right-wing talking heads. (When Reagan was sleeping speaking, I used to moon the TV and yell, “FACE THE NATION!!!”)

Awright... that’s probably more than you ever wanted to know. But now it’s my turn. I think I’ll tag two C&J’ers, two Techcomm’ers, and one of the other folks. Hmmm... Mountain Cerridwen, Cosmic Debris, Voodoo Mike, Laugh Practice, and... hm... yup, Austin Post.

Born pure, salted to death

Given my aging-male issues (blood pressure, cholesterol), I decided to take a closer look at some of the labels on stuff I eat. I was surprised; except for that one weekend breakfast where we fix bacon & eggs, I don’t eat that much cholesterol at all. Through the week, I eat oatmeal when I get to work then have a pop-tart in the mid- to late morning; not much of the artery-clogging stuff.

But My God! the sodium!

It’s in everything, it seems. Even Coca-Cola (which I don’t drink much of) has a little! I had lunch at Subway today, and grabbed one of the nutrition charts they keep handy: most of the sandwiches have like 1100mg (or more) of sodium. Hunh? That’s as much as a cheap can of soup (the Healthy Choice soups are better). The sandwiches must absorb it from the Chinese restaurant about three doors down or something. “On average, Americans consume 4,000 to 6,000 milligrams of sodium daily” (recommended intake is 2400mg, just over a teaspoon of salt). No wonder over 25% of the population has high blood pressure!

I was already taking a hard look at cheese, thinking the cholesterol might be a problem there. Well, not so much as the sodium. Mom was telling me about touring a cheese-making operation last year; she saw them literally using shovels to throw salt into the batch. Low-fat Swiss cheese seems to be the best bet in terms of both sodium and saturated fat.

Even a slice of bread has 120mg to 180mg of sodium. That just floored me; I often make my own bread, so I decided to have a look at my own product. Aha... preservatives. My bread recipes call for about ½ tsp. of salt per loaf (and I tend to skimp on the salt anyway), the only sodium in any of the ingredients I use — at 14 slices per loaf, I get 82mg of sodium per slice. Yup, gonna be making my own bread from now on. And maybe slicing it just a little thinner, too.

When it comes to scary, Stephen King’s got nothing on food labels.

Eeeeeyaaaaaaaa!!!

That’s what it sounds like to this non-metal fan, anyway. The Boy just handed me a CD entitled, “The Death of Black and White,” which he says is the demo CD for his band. They finally got off the dime and did it! Six songs, a tad over 17 minutes, no “explicit” lyrics that I could tell (but I couldn’t catch about 90% of the lyrics anyway). Ironically, the track “29 Seconds” is the longest cut on the CD, nearly 4 minutes.

The sound is a tad muddy, no highs at all. I think they recorded it in somebody’s living room, but it’s better than I could have done (I tried in the detached garage last year). I’ve not figured out how to keep the drums from over-freeking-whelming the rest of the band; maybe the living room acoustics had something to do with it. Or maybe they put the drummer outside, or just recorded him separately and mixed the rest of it in. Or maybe they just had somebody who knows what they’re doing; The Boy claims the guy who recorded it was with Staind before they got big.

He came home with a small stack of CDs, which he plans to hand out to just about everybody he knows.

How does my (herb) garden grow?

With some inside, and some outside, and I can’t think of a rhyme at the moment.

As the colder weather came on, I dragged the pots in and out of the garage. That worked OK for a while, until it got into the low 20s one night and the basil started getting frostbite. Then I moved them inside, putting them on the coffee table by a window. Mrs. Fetched, for some reason, didn’t want them there (it might have had something to do with the basil almost touching the ceiling)... but I convinced her to wait until I got the carpet down in the outbuilding & things moved back in. That turned out to be a great idea, because she helped & recruited the boys to help as well.

So. In the outbuilding, with a window by day and a plant light by night: basil, marjoram, oregano, and thyme. The oregano especially is liking its new surroundings, shooting out several large sprouts, but the marjoram (after clipping dried stems and flower buds) and thyme are both showing plenty of new growth. The basil dropped a lot of leaves after its frostbite episode, but is showing some new growth here and there. I’m clipping off dried flower stalks and stems that don’t have any growth, hoping the rest of it will come back a bit better. Basil likes lots of light and lots of water, I’ve found — if I don’t water it every 2 or 3 days, it starts to wilt.

Outside: parsley, rosemary, and sage. That rosemary is one tough hombre — The Boy actually ran it over with the van once during the Summer of Discontent; it bent over and sprang back up like it was nothing. It wintered over like a pine tree, shrugging off the cold with aplomb. But my uncle (a retired chef) had the Food Channel on when we were visiting him (he lives fairly close to my mom & bro), and the Barefoot Contessa went out and clipped some fresh rosemary off a plant that must have been the size of some of our shrubs. Now where’s that plant food??? My mother-in-law uses sage in her canning expeditions; she knows she can get what she needs when she needs it. The parsley hung around and did OK through the summer, but really started thriving when the cooler weather arrived. I had a cilantro plant going, but it died for unknown reasons during the summer... maybe too much water.

I want to make a bed for growing garlic... but as cheap as garlic bulbs are at the supermarket, I might not bother.

Music to my ears

I’ve been following the Sony/BMG fiasco, which culminated in several lawsuits, for a while now. The New York class action has brought about some positive change:

Under the Settlement, SONY BMG will be enjoined from using XCP and MediaMax software on audio CDs they manufacture. SONY BMG will implement several changes to its policies and procedures concerning content protection software and the EULAs associated with that software. These changes will ensure that the content protection software will not be installed without the user’s express consent, will be removable from the user’s computer, and will not render the user’s computers vulnerable to known security risks. In addition, the EULAs will be written in plain English and will accurately describe the nature and function of the content protection software.

No more one-cheek sneaks, it looks like. And you thought class-action lawsuits benefit only the lawyers.

Vacation reflections

We got home at about 9:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, to a house full of people. Not only the extras we had when we left, but Mrs. Fetched’s brother, his wife, and their kids. We ended up playing euchre and dominoes until 5 a.m. (that I managed to grasp the Byzantine rules of euchre only goes to show how brain-fried I really was). We spent January 1 not doing much of anything; I was one of the first adults up at 10:30 (Daughter Dearest went to bed around 2 and got up around 9:30). I’ve found that I have a difficult time sleeping much past 9:30 nowadays, no matter how much or little sleep I get.

Yesterday, we went shopping. I think I mentioned that we (as a family) adopted the Hispanic tradition of doing our gift exchange on Jan. 6 (Epiphany or Three Kings’ Day) for several reasons, not the least of which is that it gives us 12 extra days to deal with shopping. Just in case DD or one of the other denizens has started reading, I will not go into details. Neener neener!

The brother & family stayed at our place until this morning: seems the gas company was dragging their feet about sending out a truck to fill their tank until Mrs. Fetched’s mom had a “little talk” with them. Sheesh. To make things even “better,” my cholesterol weighed in at 236 (about 30 points higher than what I expected, yucko). I’m hoping the eating & exercise habits I’m using to attack my blood pressure will also do for the cholesterol. But after only a handful of workouts, it’s taking more effort to get my heart rate up. The way things are going, I’ll have to start running marathons or something.

Chucked right back into the pressure cooker, it helps to reflect on the vacation a bit. We only went down to the beach once — we carried our kites, but it was too calm to fly them, so we walked some instead. The entire week was very nice, except for the flu I talked about earlier.


570 miles from FAR Manor, physically... light-years away, in another sense.

That water is cold, by the way!


Joking with Daughter Dearest, I told her Katrina washed all the dishwashing & laundry detergent out to sea, and the suds are washing up everywhere. In reality, it’s most likely just plain ol’ sea foam.


Back to dealing with reality. *sigh*

Home again

9-½ hours after leaving, give or take. Wife’s brother & his family is here for a little euchre & New Year’s celebration. So FAR Manor is full tonight & I have to go be a host or something. :-P

Outrage of the Day: Bush-league posturing

So you commit criminal acts by using the NSA to spy on American citizens. The news gets out, and what do you do? Stop the criminal acts?

Oh, heck no. Not if your name is George W. Bush, anyway. You go after the “leakers” instead.

I’m sure more readers of Tales from FAR Manor are intelligent enough to know this already: but if you still think this administration is anything but corrupt, you’re living in la-la-land. Period.

Happy b-day, Other Brother!

Hope you got lots of cool stuff!

Fingers crossed

My bro Solar came down with the flu yesterday — fever of 102°F and all. I brought some beef stew from Mom’s last night, then ran & got him some Gatorade this morning. He seemed like he was less than hungry for company, so I came over here to Mom’s for the afternoon. Got a bike ride in (I’m a day behind on exercise this week, foo) and now the bread machine is cranking away at tonight’s rolls. Daughter Dearest is napping, so I have the computer all to myself!

Things are quite a bit different here compared to FAR Manor, which has mostly to do with population density. FAR Manor is in a pretty rural area, sitting on acreage. Pinellas County FL is mostly a low- to mid-density sprawl — lots of low-rise condos, single-family homes, one- or two-story office buildings, and the like. I doubt there are 10 (dry) acres left undeveloped here, or at least 10 contiguous acres¹. At home, I have to go 10 miles just to get to town, 15 to a supermarket. Here, you can walk (or at least bicycle) to the supermarket, since you don’t have to go more than a few blocks to get to one... but going 10 or 15 miles is quite an expedition due to all the stoplights. Trade-offs everywhere you look.

DD and I are talking about going to see Chronicles of Narnia and eating at PJ’s, a seafood restaurant about a block from the beach, tomorrow. Hopefully, I won’t have the flu myself by then.

---

¹I consider a golf course to be developed. Of course, there are lots of those around here.

Vacation blogging

Daughter Dearest is hovering over my shoulder at the moment, wondering when I’m going to get off her computer so she can go back to IM’ing her online buds... hey kid, give me five more minutes, OK?

Internet access is a little restrained here... I need to buy mom an Ethernet hub for Christmas or something. DD is staying here at Mom’s, while my bro Solar is putting me up. He gets his Internet access at work, although he’s talking about having me help him put in wireless.

Have a great Christmas, or whatever holidays you celebrate at this time of year!

Score, big time

Putting stuff away in the outbuilding last night, I found two more short stories from my college days. That brings the total number of shorts found to five since I started this project. I would say those are all I have, but I’d completely forgotten that I’d written these last two... so who knows? Maybe there’s more....

The Ultimate Holiday Greeting

Daughter Dearest has been annoying the Red teachers at school with this one:

Happy Christeidholikwanzukah!

Vacation has begun!

It’s official: I won’t be setting foot in the office until next year.

I’ll take the car in for an oil change tomorrow and generally get it ready. Friday, Daughter Dearest and I will be going to Florida for a week. Woohoo!

My new design mantra

It’s about people, st00p1d!

It applies equally well to product design, documentation design, or work environments.

E-paper becoming feasible?

Category: Technology
Current music: Digitally Imported (DI.fm) EuroDance
According to this article in Wired, Siemens has demonstrated a flexible, ultra-thin, ultra-cheap display technology. Wired’s lead-off is a tad alarmist, though: “The cereal aisle at your local supermarket may soon resemble the Las Vegas strip,” they warn us.

Um, no.

First off, the article quotes several skeptics who question whether Siemens can manufacture the e-paper in quantity. Assuming they leap that hurdle, they’re talking about 30 cents for a piece of e-paper measuring a couple of square inches (or a handful of cm²). The realities of mass retail suggest — no, scream — that when a box of cereal costs about $3 and a can of soup goes for 59 cents or less, adding 30 cents to the per-unit packaging costs will fly about as well as a pig. There might be a handful of special promotional cases, but overall I wouldn’t be concerned about blinking cereal boxes any time soon (where “soon” is 2008 and beyond).

But if the Siemens e-paper idea works out, it could be the final piece of the puzzle that leads to widespread acceptance of E-books. I thought I’d written about this before, but it must have been off-blog. I believe that electronic books will only become popular when the readers are cheap enough to be disposable — selling for $10 in the checkout line racks, for example — and are no larger than a paperback book. The major hurdle here has been the display; they're relatively bulky and too expensive to make E-book readers more than a “bleeding edge” idea at the moment. Take a page or two of Siemens flexible e-paper, put a card slot and some rudimentary controls on it, and you have a reader.

Now watch book publishers try to kill the technology the way the RIAA and MPAA are trying to kill DVD/CD writers....

The War on Christmas: Dispatches from the front

Perhaps The Register won’t yank this story about Bad Santas terrorizing New Zealand like they did with the guy who chatted up his mom online....

Gmail Mobile

Gmail, if you haven’t heard, is Google’s free (but invitation-only) email service. They’ve recently added a useful new feature: you can access Gmail through your cellphone at http://m.gmail.com — I tried it with my Moto V220 and it worked pretty well.

I have 100 invites; if anyone wants a Gmail address just leave a comment. You need to include an email address for the invite. Munge the address to foil the spammers, but not so much that I can't make it out.

Busy weekend

Current music: DI.fm Chillout
I’m not terribly fond of weekends where you have no decompress time.

Saturday morning dawned; Mrs. Fetched and Daughter Dearest headed out to deal with the chickens. I decided to try fixing some pancakes for when they got back, and botched them totally (my brain-fart was forgetting about the self-rising flour). With no milk, I used the remnants of a can of condensed milk plus water to thin it out, then tossed in some self-rising flour hoping to correct the mistake. Didn’t work. Not even the boys ate them.

So we rushed out the door to a 50^th wedding anniversary for some friends of the in-laws. It was a nice outing overall; starting at a Ryan’s, then we ended up at one of their houses where we shot a couple rounds of pool and shot the breeze with people we haven’t seen much of. From there we went straight to a Christmas party put on by a couple at church; I enjoyed some spiked eggnog and we all chowed down again.

This morning, I got dressed and sat down with the iBook for the first time in several days. Her Imperial Highness came out, literally looked down her nose at me, and ordered me to get the boys up and go over to the church early to vacuum the sanctuary and take the greens out of the window (there was a wedding this afternoon). Ooooooookayyyy... first off, she certainly knows that getting the boys up doesn’t go with getting anywhere early. Of course, The Boy had a friend over (we wish he had more friends like EJ, but that’s a different story), so of course he had to have an attitude.

First trip upstairs: “OK, I’m getting up.”
Second trip: “I’m not going to church, I’ll go help at the chicken houses.”
Third trip: “I don’t have to get up.”

At that point, I told him that he could remember that when he was walking to work and back today, then asked EJ if he wanted to come to church with me. He did, they both got moving, I dropped The Boy off at the chicken houses and grabbed the church keys out of Her Imperial Highness’s purse (another minor detail), then took care of things at church.

After church, we ended up getting some pizza, had about an hour and a half before going out again with the in-laws. Then SWMBO decided the living room had to be cleaned up (and it’s mostly her stuff), but I got a reprieve to pick up M.A.E. from work.

Now it’s bedtime. I can’t wait to get back to the office and relax a little...

The Boy meets Reality

One of the recurring theme of conversations with The Boy, especially bringing him home from work, is his assertion that he, Lobster, and M.A.E. are going to move out and get an apartment in January. My audible response has usually been a grunt, although I think “Yeah right” to myself. Trying to explain the Real World to The Boy, I have found, is a waste of syllables; I figured he’d find out for himself.

So with school closed around here Thursday and Friday due to the ice, they piled into Lobster’s truck and went off to secure an apartment they had scoped out some time back. M.A.E. later told us that the manager wouldn’t rent to them because The Boy and Lobster are still in high school, and “we’ve had problems doing that before.” The other minor detail was three people of mixed gender in a two-bedroom apartment. Nobody would come out and say it, but it was pretty clear that The Boy and M.A.E. had planned to share one of the rooms.

The Boy said, “everything was going fine until the manager asked us if we were students [presumably at the local college -FF], and M.A.E. said we were in high school.” He didn’t even mention the other part.

In a vain attempt to further drive the lesson home, Mrs. Fetched ran a few numbers past The Boy: at $525/month rent, each person had agreed to put up $175/month. Lobster says he can’t even afford to pay us $100/month for rent (plus all the food he eats), and M.A.E. barely brings home more than that per month. With the only full-time job among the three of them, The Boy would be the one essentially paying the rent. And then there’s the minor detail of electric bills, heating bills, laundry, food... kiss all the extracurricular stuff (movies twice/week, shooting pool) goodbye. He didn’t respond much. With him, you can’t tell if it’s sinking in or bouncing off.

Last winter’s ice storm

The beginning and end of this year have seen ice storms at FAR Manor now. The storm in January was much stronger, icing up the ground as well as the trees (only the trees today). Even in the northern reaches of Planet Georgia, ice doesn’t stay around too long — so you grab the camera while you have the chance. Today, I didn’t have the chance... but January’s storm was more photogenic anyway. Here’s a few pictures....

On the road in front of FAR Manor.


Part of the front yard. The tree dominating the picture flowers in the spring.


A Christmas ornament of sorts. Too bad it would have been just a stick 10 minutes after bringing it inside...


This is my personal favorite. It has been the desktop wallpaper on my iBook all year now.

Lunchtime blogging

Second night in a row that I couldn’t get to the computer — I was mucking out the gutters in the outbuilding, by hand, in the dark cold rain, last night. Blog stuff is backing up, so I compromised on my self-imposed “no blogging at work” rule and decided to post all this junk at lunch.

The NWS was a little more optimistic about last night’s weather than they should have been — they said we would be well clear of any significant freezing rain. WRONG! Power glitched at the house and rang a phone once, this morning, but everything else seems to be OK. I disconnected the DSL box at home just to make sure. Going to work was a bit of an adventure; the roads were only wet (not icy) but power was out in town and several traffic lights were dark on the highway. And how the juice managed to stay on at FAR Manor is a puzzlement. At work, the power had glitched some time last night, long enough to shut off my G3. I ran the disk repair stuff and got to work.

It’s still this cold steel rain (phrase borrowed from Pink Floyd, it’s perfect) outside, so I dug into the more dubious reaches of my overhead bin for lunch. I have several packs of ramen for days like this, but I only used a pinch of the beef-flavored sodium packet and opted instead for this “Kyo-Green® dietary supplement” packet that’s been sitting on my desk for like forever. Oh, the ingredients sounded soooo appetizing: barley grass powder, wheat grass powder, Bulgarian Chlorella (an algae grown in mineral springs, yum), cooked brown rice, and Pacific kelp (more yum). I’m not a picky eater, so when I say it was “edible,” adjust for your own level of picky. I figured worst-case, I’d be out 20 cents for the ramen and I could still go out. I’m scarfing some potato chips and some quality candy & nuts that the employer handed out yesterday as a side dish. We’ll see if I end up with with a major download event this afternoon....

The Piña Colada Song revisited

“I walked out on that dark beach thinking I was going to hook up with the girl of my dreams.... But when I got close, she turned around — and we both got the shock of our lives.”

It happened in France, of course. Quality journalism by The Register, as usual.

The Carpet Has Landed

The carpet stretcher worked a treat, as my friends across the pond might say. Mrs. Fetched thought it looked great. I finished tacking down the end where it stops a few feet short of the workbench (desired, although not planned) last night. All that’s left to do is put some plant hangers in the window and bring most of the stuff back in.

It occurred to me that I haven’t done a pictorial entry in a while. I’ll rectify that when I have it together, I hope by this weekend.

Fiction: The Pickup Artist and His Talking Car

I wrote this a long time ago — say, 1992 or so. The original hinted at an 80’s setting, when speech synthesizers were first hitting mass markets and people were amused by them as much as annoyed. But most of the themes are timeless, and it didn’t take much work to make it as relevant now as ten years ago.

So read on to find out just how goofy things get when Casual Sex meets Rise of the Machines...

The Pickup Artist and His Talking Car

Bobby and Amanda lurched forth from the Lizard Lounge some time after midnight Saturday morning, together yet strangers. Her boyfriend had recently left Amanda for one of her few friends; and after about five drinks, going home with a complete stranger sounded like a good idea. A fine idea.

As for Bobby, helping Amanda get back at her boyfriend was an idea that needed no drinks to sound good, although he drank them anyway. So he picked her up — or she picked him up. Whatever. Amanda hadn’t cleaned up her place lately, between work and sulking, so they decided on Bobby’s place.

“D’you think you can get us there okay?” Amanda asked with just a touch of slur. She wasn’t drunk enough to need support, but liked leaning against Bobby. His warmth felt nice in the cool spring air — he wasn’t bad looking either, and seemed like a good enough guy in the bar. There was still a small, nagging doubt about what she was doing, but figured another rum and Coke or three would erase it when they got to Bobby’s place.

“Yeah, the car knows its way home...” Bobby suddenly gave her a nervous look. “’Manda, lemme tell you something about my car —”

“Oh, it’s okay if it’s old. I’m not going home with you for your car.”

“No, no,” Bobby attempted again. “I mean the car... talks.”

Amanda grinned. “My best friend has one of those cars. I’m not some idiot, y’know. I can make my computers at work talk.”

“That’s not what I mean. The thing really talks. And it doesn’t have much nice to say.”

“Oooo, a possessed car. Good thing you didn’t try using that for a pickup line.” Bobby had come to like Amanda’s lopsided grin in the hour or so he’d known her, and even when teasing him now it looked even better than before. (The rest of her looked pretty nice too, he thought.)

“Well, not possessed, really, but damn it’s temperamental.” He tugged at his collar, already loose. “Well, you’ll find out...”

“Temperamental, huh?” Amanda looked intrigued. Sweeping an arm across the parking lot, she cried, “Lead on, Bobby McDuff — or whatever your last name is. Let’s meet this temperamental car.” She gave him a kiss, for encouragement.

Bobby’s car wasn’t particularly noticeable — a brown Nissan, about ten years old, looking reasonably well-maintained. He helped Amanda into the passenger seat, then stalked around to the driver’s side, muttering, “I hope this one lasts more than two blocks.”

He got in and started the car. Bongg. “Fasten seat belts,” the mechanical feminine voice said. Then, “Jeez, you’re polluted. I’d better drive.”

Forewarned or not, Amanda goggled at Bobby. “You weren’t kidding!”

“Yes, Christine, I know I’ve over-indulged,” Bobby said to the dashboard. “Talking cars drive a man to drink; I told you that.”

Bongg. “And who is this?” The mechanical voice sounded definitely icy.

“I’m Amanda. Nice to meet you, Christine.” She looked at the dashboard, and then at Bobby, who wasn’t touching the steering wheel as the car poked its way through the parking lot.

Bongg. “That’s not my real name,” the voice replied. It took on an edge as the car turned out of the parking lot, with Bobby leaning back in the seat with his hands behind his head. “Booby, among his many other vices, likes Stephen King novels. A Japanese car has a Japanese name, and mine is Miko.”

Bobby snarled, with an air of haven’t-we-been-through-this-before, “Yeah, but aren’t Japanese women supposed to be meek or something?”

Bongg. “But Japanese women aren’t made of steel and plastic,” Miko snapped. “And if it wasn’t for me, you’d have lost your license for DUI a long time ago, and you know it.

“Amanda, you should know you’re not Bobby’s first pickup attempt by a long shot. Of course, once his bimbos get to talk to me for a few minutes, they usually sober up and run.”

Bobby slammed the steering wheel. “Amanda is not a bimbo! Now you apologize and I mean right now — or I’ll by God pour sand in your crankcase first thing tomorrow morning!” He grinned nastily. “You’re paid off, after all.”

Amanda burst out laughing. “Bobby, this is wonderful. How did you program this? You really ought to take it on the road; you’d be rich!”

Bobby and Miko responded in unison, “We do. Every morning.” Bobby smiled and said, “One thing we have in common — neither one of us can resist a bad joke.”

Amanda doubled over laughing, catching herself on the dashboard. Gasping for breath, she finally wiped her eyes. “I just can’t believe this! I’ve done expert system programming for three years and I thought it was impossible to create an AI this good! How long have you been driving around in this... breakthrough?”

Bongg. “No work of Bobby’s, I assure you.” Miko’s voice managed to convey a touch of light humor. “He’s an accountant, pretty good at cranking numbers into a computer but not a programmer.”

“I have a theory,” Bobby rejoined. “You know how cars kind of develop a personality when they get older? Well Chri— Miko started talking about the time she — it? got up to about eighty thousand miles.”

Bongg. “I was using oil, and Bobby’s no mechanic. Good with numbers like I said, but — anyway, he got frustrated and yelled at me. ‘I wish you could tell me why the hell you’re using oil all the time,’ he said, so I told him to check the front seals. He was so surprised, he nearly drove right into a tree.”

“Yeah,” Bobby continued, “and since then Miko tells me when something’s wrong and even tells me how to fix it myself. A hundred and ninety-three thousand miles, and runs like new. I figure I’ll have this car forever, if it doesn’t drive me nuts and I drive it off a cliff.”

Amanda looked goggle-eyed at Bobby again. “You mean it — she —”

Bongg. “Home sweet apartment,” Miko announced. “Run on in and have a good time, kids.” They were both sobered up somewhat, and Amanda was keyed up trying to figure out how Miko could have happened, but Bobby had most of a bottle of rum and a few cans of cola in the refrigerator. They had a good time. A fine time.

Bobby woke up alone at about ten, not hung over enough to not wonder what happened to Amanda. He stumbled into the kitchen/dining nook, and found his answer:

Hey sweetie, had to wrap up a project at work.
Would have left you some breakfast but you don’t
have nothing but cereal. Typical bachelor (ha ha).

My place tonight. Supper, whatever, breakfast.


I'll be ready about 5-ish.
Call me for directions. 555-6124 after about 1.

Say hi to Miko for me!
XXX, Amanda

Bobby reached for the cereal, then thought about Amanda’s comment. Throwing on the first clean clothes he found on the bedroom floor, he headed out to Miko, staggering a bit in the bright sunshine.

Bongg. “Where to on a late Saturday morning? Amanda’s place?” Miko sounded not a bit surly for once — rather friendly, in fact.

“Later on, this evening,” Bobby smiled. “Right now, we’re off to the Breakfast House.” He squinted at the reflections off Miko and the other cars. “Whoosh, it’s bright this morning. You mind driving?”

Bongg. “Not at all. I saw her leave this morning; she said ‘see you later.’ I hoped you got her phone number. You need to hang on to this one, I think.”

That evening, Bobby and Miko pulled up to Amanda’s place, to be greeted with a kiss for Bobby and a cheery hello for Miko. As they went inside, Bobby shook his head, “Miko really likes you, and I finally think I’m starting to like her too. It. Whatever.”

“I like her too. But if I ever find out you programmed her, I’ll break your fingers.” Amanda grinned. “Well, maybe nine.”

“Well, I’m safe then,” Bobby grinned, flexing his fingers a little nervously. “But I’m still amazed by it all. How did you get off on the right foot with her?”

“Me too,” Amanda gave Bobby that lopsided grin he liked so much, throwing her arms around him. “But I remembered something about my dad. He had this old Chevy, and I swear he was the only one who could get it started. He used to say you just had to know how to talk to a temperamental car.”

---

The Empty Chair Campaign

I saw this on Street Prophets, and thought it worth passing on.

Woohoo!

A piece of the carpet we pulled out of the living room is going in my outbuilding. This, of course, entails clearing the floor of all furniture and detritus. As I was moving things out little by little, the renter came by to drop off the car ramps I let him borrow a while back — he offered to help me get the rest of the stuff out, and I gratefully accepted his help.

While stacking some loose papers, I came across two short stories I wrote ’way back in the 80s. I was looking for one of them in particular; it was going to be the first story I posted on the blog. Now I just have to type ’em in.

My back’s a little sore from moving furniture and trying to kick the wrinkles out of the carpet, so no happy dance right now. I guess I’ll drop by the chiro-cracker on the way to work tomorrow morning.

Off to type in a couple of stories...

More hot water for Sony

Sony/BMG says they are “re-evaluating its current methods” with regard to copy protection. Another copy-protection method, used on about 32 CDs distributed in the US, turned up security holes — and the patch sent out just made things worse.

Note that they didn’t say “having second thoughts” — it’s just a re-evaluation. No doubt they want something harder to detect and defeat. Remember, the goal is pay-to-play, and they’re not going to give up easily.

December funk

Current music: Creation Steppin’ Radio
Sheesh. Not only is it December, it’s mid-December. Hey, at this rate I’ll wake up and it will be spring! (now that’s a happy thought)

Like most early winters, I wrestle with light deprivation and my disgust at the commercialist orgy that Christmas has become (if that O’reilly whackjob on Faux wanted to “save” Christmas, he should have started about 40 years ago). Unlike most early winters, this time it’s getting the better of me. The choir’s annual caroling & food basket delivery was this afternoon, and participating did more to boost my spirits than anything else has so far.

Another wrestling move I’m trying this year is been to throw myself into working over the technical writing chimeras called structure and metadata. Perhaps I didn’t dig deep enough, but most of the literature on metadata that I found in a Google search is geared more toward libraries and museums than technical writing.

The blob here is a mind-map of what I’ve come up with so far; I’m almost ready to start turning it into a paper (click the pic for something almost readable). The muddled state of the mind-map perhaps reflects the muddle in my own mind, but nothing I’ve run across so far has challenged my belief that most people involved are making things far more complex than need be. If I don’t write more about it on the blog, I’ll stash the paper somewhere and point to it.


But speaking of muddling, I’ll muddle through, like I always do. It’s nice that Christmas falls on a Sunday this year. Not being a member of a mega-church, we’re having a service on Christmas, although the pastor told me he’s thinking of just reading the story and letting it stand as such — not a bad idea, really. It will be nice to light that big white candle in the Advent wreath on the day it should be lit.

A funk isn’t much of a problem, in the grand scheme of things. A friend of The Boy’s spent last night at our house, and he and Lobster headed out about 10 this morning. About a mile down the road, he went off the road and literally flew over Lobster’s truck before rolling. Thank God he was wearing his seatbelt; the car is totaled but he has a split lip and needs a trip to the chiro-cracker. Lobster called 911 and waited until the first responders got there before leaving.

So later in the morning, Lobster calls from work in a near-panic. You see, he was supposed to hang around until the cops got there and give a statement; the cop who called him told him he needed to come down to the station to give his statement “and then we’ll decide if we should charge you with anything.” He was nearly freaked out, to the point where Mrs. Fetched agreed to go with him. He got off with a lecture, and a lot of teasing from everyone else, in the end.

Yes, there are things far worse than a simple funk. And the tinnitus has been mostly gone for two days, hallelujah!

Friday Night Cinema

You kiddin’? It’s too cold to get out!

I have to thank one of the bobs for reminding me of this gem.

Dubya: the Movie (QuickTime)

Chamber Chorus Doings

I’ve mentioned that Daughter Dearest is in her high school’s Chamber Chorus, a high-talent group that competes on a national level. They get rather busy this time of year. First, they opened the tree-lighting event in town Friday night.

Sunday evening, they sang at the Governor’s Mansion open-house — they were in the ballroom, the prime location (even though the local TV stations taped the chorus that sang outside). The kids got a fair amount of face time with Planetary Governor Bok-Bok as well. A couple of photos:

Gov. Perdue and the choir. I want a yellow sweater like his!


Daughter Dearest and the gov. I got shots of several of the other kids as well, since they couldn’t bring their parents and were told to leave their cameras inside. Fortunately for them, I thought to do another white-balance; I had been shooting with ambient light & switched to flash for the close-ups. I have got to get a white card from the camera shop so we don’t have to worry about finding a white wall or tablecloth or something...


We were there to tape and photograph; I’ll post some Google Video links once I comb through what we took of both events. Now that I’m back at work, I hope I’ll have it ready for Friday Night Cinema — but if I get it done earlier, I’ll post earlier.

New Addition

Mrs. Fetched used to have a dog that she’d trained to help her in the chicken houses — it would pick up dead birds, put them in the bucket, and “do everything but count ’em.” One day, I came out to find the dog dead in the pen for no obvious reason.

After a couple of years, she picked up a replacement puppy — same mom, different litter. Cute little furball, but noisy as all get-out (as in, “get-out of my house you loudmouth mutt!”). In less than two days, she has managed to: lay a minefield in the kitchen (and naturally, I stepped on the mine); drive M.A.E. nearly bat$#!+ with the incessant whining & howling; fascinate the cats (on the other side of a window); keep me up another hour wanting to play (pouncing on my hand like a cat, she has that much class anyway).

I’m not a dog person. But if the furball can help out Mrs. Fetched, fine. At least she’s starting to settle in and get used to not having seven brothers to dogpile with. Training should start soon.

Overnight Boom

A cold rainy Friday afternoon led to a cold rainy night. A warm front then came in overnight, and things went BOOM at about 5 a.m. We jumped up and unplugged all the computers. Thunderstorms continued pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday; cautious me kept the in-house network shut down & disconnected to preserve delicate hardware.

One heck of a warm front: the temp went up nearly 20 degrees (F) Friday night/Saturday morning. Now it’s cold again. The Boy has a whopper of a cold, and the whipsaw weather isn’t doing much to help it.

And now I’m getting zaps off my iBook. Time to look for the anti-static spray.

December bites.

XML for books: Simple is enough!

Many technical writers have been looking long and hard at working with XML, for a variety of reasons — ranging from a resume bullet-point to a genuine hope that it could improve productivity and help us better maintain our documentation. The problem is, vendors and consultants are the primary cheerleaders for XML solutions; they’re are all too ready to roll out six-figure systems to the few companies that have documentation departments with sufficient budgets and ignore all the rest of us. I’ve ranted in the Yahoo XML-doc mailing list about this topic, warning that XML is poised to sink into obscurity like its predecessor SGML, and for the same reasons. I truly believe that if XML is to gain widespread acceptance by technical writers, there needs to be a simple (cheap, easy to learn, no consultants required) XML-based system that can produce real documentation. Something no more complex than HTML, for example.

As it turns out, standard HTML may be all that’s needed. Printing a Book with CSS: Boom! describes how the authors created a published (to paper) book using HTML to mark up the text, and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to provide the formatting. The trick is to use a commercial CSS-based formatter that supports the proposed functionality in CSS3 (a future standard), which provides page layout necessities like headers and footers.

My hat is off to the authors. We now know that HTML/CSS is adequate for book publishing; knowing that it’s feasible is half the battle.

M.A.E. with PITA

M.A.E. and The Boy were goofing around a few nights back, and he tried to pick her up. What he actually did was drop her on her can. It didn’t take long before she was in serious hurt. Mrs. Fetched ended up staying up with her and giving her Advil until they could get to the chiro-cracker.

Dr. Chiro X-rayed her and yep, she had a compressed disk and some shifting down there. He did what he could to re-align it, and told her to use ice, help it out by pulling her knees to her chest, and avoid hot baths. Things started getting better, until M.A.E. forgot about the hot bath part and took one. Baaaaaaaaad move. Worse, Dr. Chiro had a continuing education seminar in Orlando, so he couldn’t do anything about it. He did refer her to a guy in the next town down, who worked on her for about an hour and only charged her $25 (very important, as she doesn’t have a lot of extra moolah).

Meanwhile, The Boy, who’s like half responsible for all this, is kind of ignoring the whole situation. For example, he called us while Daughter Dearest and I were running errands, and asked us to bring them home some lunch — but when we got there, he fixed his own plate and left it to M.A.E. to hobble out and get her own. Needless to say, she is getting more than a little cheesed.

The one bright spot: I apparently guessed right about the problem being inflammation. I have some good old aspirin (can’t seem to convince Mrs. Fetched that it does many things better than Tylenol or Advil). After we got M.A.E. to eat something, we gave her a couple of aspirin and it seems to have helped. Dr. Chiro will be back in tomorrow evening and will see her then — maybe he can do something else for her.

Yay

I got my driver’s license renewed today, only six days after it expired. It wasn’t too horrible of an experience; a neighbor needed a ride in that direction anyway so I got to talk to someone on the way down. After dropping her off, I grabbed an Arby’s turkey “Reuben” (hey, it ain’t a real Reuben anyway, on that swirly bread) and scarfed it on the way to the bureau.

As usual, there were a fair number of people waiting for their turn. I followed a younger couple in; the guy at the counter handed them a ticket (A110) and told them it would be about 45 minutes. “I don’t want to wait that long!” the woman exclaimed, then handed the ticket back and left. I’ve been to this place before; she has no idea that she will likely never get so lucky again.

“I’ll take that,” I told the counter guy.
He just looked at me, then said, “What are you here for?”
“Renewal.”

“Oh, okay.” He handed me the ticket, and I hopped back out to the car to get my copy of Motorcycle Consumer News, as I’m trying to catch up on some back issues. I’m down to the last few. Finding a plastic chair in the corner, I settled in to read.

I only got about eight pages read when my number came up. I went to the designated counter, handed the lady my old license (if she noticed it was expired, she didn’t say so), and told her I wanted the 10-year term (I figure by that time, we’ll be out of oil and I won’t have to worry about driving anymore, heh). As I went to get my picture taken, a woman cut in front of me and said, “What’s going on? Three people have gone ahead of me now!” I have no idea what system glitch was bedeviling this poor woman, but she was still waiting for something to happen when I left.

It might have taken 45 minutes from the time I stepped in to the time I left. And my picture doesn’t suck too badly.

Friday Night Cinema

Because you’re broke and exhausted from Christmas shopping.

’Tis the season, and this week’s feature is seasonal... in a “cock your head, raise one eyebrow, then go wubba-wubba-wubba” kind of way.

Simone Isaacs & George Isaacs: Black Jesus & Baby Buddha

Your stress test results...

... are normal. So the doc told Daughter Dearest this afternoon.

Happy dance Happy dance Happy dance Happy dance Happy dance Happy dance Happy dance Happy dance .....

Ugly Sunday around here

I woke to sirens going by the house about 3:30 last night. Everyone else slept right through it like it they’d grown up in the metropolis.

Coming to church this morning, this was what the back door looked like. Click the picture to get a bigger image if you want, but in the end it’s some kid’s nasty idea of a practical joke. I cautioned other church members to not get too worked up about it, because that’s what the prankster wanted.



Then they told me Wesley Chapel, a church about a mile north of FAR Manor, had burned down last night. I thought maybe the tale had grown in the telling, but going over there this afternoon showed me different. Now I know what the sirens last night were about.

A lot of people, including myself at first, linked the two — although the fire department says a furnace problem caused the fire. It’s just an odd coincidence, how one church could get a door defaced and another burn down on the same night.

But thinking about it, I think it might be just a coincidence. The spray paint is only on the door, and should be fairly easy to clean off — we have some spray-on paint remover, and I would have given that a try today if I’d had a can of white spray paint to finish the job.

Needless to say, it was a rather somber day at church.

Fiction: A Bloodless Coup

I’ve been planning to start putting some short stories, and perhaps a novel or two, online for a while now. What has held me up is debating on whether to post them here or on a new blog. For now, I guess I’ll put them here.

The first story is one of redemption, found by the most unlikely people, in the most unlikely place, on the eve of...

---

A Bloodless Coup

Voices broke the prisoner’s fitful sleep. A quiet conversation would not usually waken William, even from the uncomfortable slumber afforded by being shackled to a prison wall — but this particular voice brought him fully awake at once. So this is it, he thought. A thrill of apprehension — bah, call it what it is, fright — ran up his spine, but he resolved to show none of it to the Despot.

The sound of footsteps, echoing through the empty cells, reached him first. Time stretched to the breaking point; it seemed like years before two men finally stood before him. He recognized them both; one wore a dark travel-worn cloak, the other a guard’s uniform. The first said, “I wish to speak with the prisoner in private. Take the hidden exit and prepare two mounts for us.” It was widely rumored that Evard would at times ride through the realms in disguise, listening for dissent among the people. This explained the battered pack he carried; it would contain some plain clothes and other necessities. As for the first — William resigned himself to the inevitable. One secret he had, and he would likely carry it to his grave. With some luck, Evard, Overlord of the Three Realms, would shortly join him there.

The Overlord stood quietly for a moment, watching the prisoner, as the guard continued down the cell block. He saw a young man of medium build and dark brown hair, a somewhat younger-looking version of Evard himself. (There was much grey among the brown in Evard’s mane these days, however.) Like most of Evard’s prisoners, he looked somewhat the worse for wear but had no serious injuries. Unlike any other prisoner, he met Evard’s eyes boldly. “The Despot comes to gloat,” he said.

“Good evening, William of Oaktree,” the Overlord said. “I hope you are enjoying your stay; you won’t be here much longer.” The prisoner said nothing but watched the Overlord smile sadly. “I suppose you were wondering how I caught on to your plan to overthrow me,” he continued after a moment. “I must say, it was a very clever plan, but it had a fatal flaw that you could not have known about.

“You see, it was the exact same plan I used to topple Charles the Tyrant, twenty-seven years ago! Intriguing, eh?” William stared, then nodded reluctantly. “You’re clever — how could I say different? We’re much alike — or at least you are much like I was at your age. So it’s nothing you did that brought you here, just bad luck.”

“And some day, your luck will run out as well,” William growled defiantly.

“So true,” Evard agreed. William gave him a puzzled frown. “I’ve known that since the day you were born.”

“I?”

“Twenty-one years ago, the Prophet informed me that I would not — rather, the realm would not see old age remove me from my Seat. One must be careful when quoting prophecy, you know. You have undoubtedly heard the prophecy; Marie is a woman whose word cannot be suppressed.

“You were born on April twenty-eighth, no? That is the very day Marie stood before me and announced her prophecy against me. An amazing coincidence, don’t you think?” Evard put down his pack, then sat on the floor with his back against the bars of the empty cell opposite William’s. “There, now we speak eye to eye.

“So when I caught on to your plan, it became clear to me who you are. I summoned Marie this morning and asked her to tell me my fortune, now that you were in my hands. ‘By noon tomorrow,’ she said, ‘God will take the Three Realms from your hand and give them to another whom He has chosen.’ So you see, my luck truly has run out.”

“Then it’s over, or all but,” said William, smiling for the first time. “Whatever happens to me, at least I know it was worth it.”

“You understand, I was concerned,” Evard smiled back. “Marie once was a dear friend of mine — you find that surprising? I give you another surprise: she anointed me Lord of the Realms, the week before I overthrew Lord Charles. I suppose she has done the same for you? — no need to answer; your face tells all. In all the time I’ve known Marie, she has never prophesied wrong.

“When Marie left this morning, I went to my chambers and thought a great deal. I even prayed. That was difficult; I’ve been out of the habit for too long. I’d like to share some of my thoughts with you, but first —” Evard removed a scroll from his cloak — “can you guess what this is?”

William fought down the apprehension. “My death sentence, I suppose,” he replied dryly.

Evard laughed — not the cruel or maniacial laughter that William expected, but a hearty, even joyous laughter of a man enjoying a good joke. William thought — for a moment — that he could come to like a man who could laugh like this.

“No, not your death sentence, William,” chuckled Evard at last. “You live or die, it makes no difference to my fate. Tomorrow I am no longer the Overlord; Marie made that clear enough. What this is, you may come to think of as something worse than death.” He opened the scroll. “Judge for yourself:

“Lord Evard, Overlord of Sand Hill and the Three Realms, to all subjects of the Realms. Listen well to this proclamation.

“In accordance with prophecy, I do as of noon on August Fourth, renounce my Seat and all claim to the Lordship of the Three Realms.

“The prophet Marie has anointed as my successor William of Oaktree, whom I name Lord William. I charge all officials of the Realms to pledge your loyalty to your new Lord.

“May God bless the Three Realms and its new ruler.

“Affirmed this August Third, with God as my witness, Lord Evard.”

The silence stretched between them for several moments, until William broke it. “Is — is this some kind of twisted joke?”

“Sadly, no,” sighed Evard. Marie’s prophecy will be fulfilled, in a way that I suspect will surprise even her. God takes the realm from my hand — an open hand that now offers Him what has always been His — and you take my place.”

“And you, what becomes of you?” William asked. “Do you expect me to simply let you go free?”

“I’m rather hoping you will,” Evard replied frankly. “But to make sure, I’m leaving it for your friends to release you.” The Overlord rolled up the scroll and tossed it through the bars into William’s cell, just out of reach. “When they come to set you free, they will find you here, with your proclamation. Marie knows my handwriting; she will confirm that I wrote it.

“So, tomorrow at noon, you become Overlord. The Three Rings are in my chambers, with a copy of the proclamation — and a list of those in the government whom you should... let’s say, offer honorable retirement. I’ve left strict orders with the staff that no one is to enter my chambers before noon tomorrow. In celebration of your capture, I have given the Sand Hill garrison three days’ leave, which should allow your friends to walk right in and free you — your jailer is also on his way home for an extended holiday. Marie will catch on to what is happening soon enough, and the people certainly will not rise up against you.

“Neat and orderly: no blood is shed. The garrison will be too hung over and confused to mount effective resistance, you have the approval of the Prophet, the people will regard you as a hero.”

“But why?”

“Which ‘why’ do you mean? Why you should let me go to find my fate? Why I’m stealing away? Why you? Which is it?”

William rubbed the back of his head on the rough wall of his cell. “All of it, I suppose. You’ve said why you’re leaving the Seat — I suppose you will take the wealth of the Realms with you?”

“You disappoint me, lad. What kind of repentance would it be, that I lay down the Three Rings and become a thief? No, you may have heard it said that I live as simply as one can in a palace and I will not hereafter live in luxury. I admit, I will not leave penniless, but I will take no more than the pension due a soldier who has served the Realms for nearly thirty years. Perhaps enough to buy a small croft in a faraway land.”

William let it pass. “Marie — you called her a friend?”

“Once upon a time, I railed against the Injustice of Charles. I must have had the favor of God, and I certainly had the good advice and friendship of a Lady who speaks His Word. Can you believe, the first few years of my reign were thought of as a kind of golden age? People prospered, they spoke without fear, and they hailed me as the Deliverer. Believe it or not, but tonight I will speak no lies.”

“Then... I remember hearing... what happened?” William hated himself for stammering in front of the Despot, but God! what was happening here? How could anyone expect this?

“I don’t rightly know.” Evard sighed and buried his head between his knees for a few moments, scratching the back of his scalp. Finally, he looked up and stared at the ceiling as he continued. “I can say this: the road to Evil is travelled one step at a time. You do something you ought not, justifying it as being good for the Realms. The next time, it becomes easier, and perhaps you go a little farther. Eventually, you begin to see your position as something other than a gift of God, you begin to see it as something that was rightly yours of birth. You see your deeds as Right, whether or not they truly are... then you do not hold the Seat so much as the Seat holds you.

“This is my warning to you, Lord William,” Evard looked directly at his prisoner and spoke sternly now. “I myself hung Charles the Tyrant in the Plaza, the day I took the Seat. I told myself, and all who would listen, that I was ending the Injustice with Justice. I could have given Charles an honest trial, and the result may well have been the same. But when you drink from that cup called Power, it’s so hard to put it down. You begin to listen only to that which you want to hear, and the prophets speak to you less and less and then one day they speak against you. You silence those who criticize you, first by threats and then by blood and fire. To make a long story short, in ten years’ time I was no better than the man I’d hung.”

Evard looked into the eyes of his prisoner, silent for a few moments. “It is said a death sentence focuses the mind,” he said at last. “Today, I realized I had a choice: put down the Three Rings and perhaps live, or let you or another worthy soul take them from my dead hand. Remember this, Lord William: God always gives you a choice, even at the very end. Perhaps especially at the very end. Tomorrow, Marie puts the Three Rings on your right hand, places the Staff of Office in your left, and leads you to your Seat. Perhaps it is in your mind to make hunting me down your first act of office. The people would likely applaud you for it. But unless I am dragged back by force, the sun will never shine upon Evard in the Three Realms again.”

A noise from the far end of the cell block told of the guard climbing the stairs: he no doubt had the horses ready. Evard stood and retrieved his pack. “Think on what I have said tonight, Lord William. Ask Marie, and she will speak truly. You may not like what you hear, but what she says you always need to know.”

“Milord?” the guard spoke through a door slightly ajar, giving the Overlord his privacy. “The horses are ready.”

“Good,” Evard called. “Go down and I will join you in a moment.” To William he said, “And now I bid you good-bye and good luck. Listen to your people, listen to your prophet, and above all listen to God. I can guarantee that we would not be having this conversation if I’d taken that advice myself.” And without another word, Evard bowed to the prisoner, grinned, shouldered his pack, and walked briskly toward the end of the cell block. To William, it was the stride of a much younger man — perhaps a young man who had found the mate of his dreams.

Near dawn, a lone figure watched from the shadows of a tavern stoop, as two men on horseback reached the Tri Via near the eastern border of the Three Realms. They spoke for a few minutes, then one of the men saluted, mounted up and rode back the way he came. The other stood and watched until he was out of sight, then turned back and tacked a paper to the trivia post. He looked around him, staring intently toward where the watcher hid unmoving, then mounted up and rode south toward Fenn Vale. Once the second rider had gone, the watcher walked hesitantly to the trivia post to see what had been left. If yet another had been there to watch the watcher, he would have seen the prophet Marie raise her hands heavenward and laugh, as if God had told her a very funny joke.

---

Friday Night Cinema - double feature!

Hey, I know. You’re exhausted from Christmas shopping on Black Friday. You blew all your money... and besides, you’re too exhausted to pay attention to a two-hour movie. Never fear, Friday Night Cinema is here! We bring you short flicks that won't strain your attention span or your wallet.

Just in case you have enough energy to sit through two shorts tonight, here they are. Both are comedy of a sort. One is the kind of weird thing that you have to laugh at because you don’t know how else to react. The other is a laugh with a bit of satirical edge.

OK, enough preview. Time to watch some flicks.

Meg Reichart with Kurt Hoffman: Il m’a vu nue

Buzzflash: Deekbold Voting Machines (QuickTime) Large | Small

Thanksgiving, and giving thanks

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving where such is celebrated. We did pretty well today; lots of chow and laughter. My contributions to the spread at the in-laws were challah bread (using this recipe, and a sardine spread which I threw together. If anyone else wants to try it, here’s a recipe:

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Sardine spread
1 tin sardines, drained
3 oz. cream cheese (approx)
1 large basil leaf (I used two, which made it kind of strong)
3 oregano leaves
1 sprig of parsley
pinch of thyme & rosemary
(substitute herbs as needed for availability and taste)

Remove the stems from the herb leaves. Chop finely (food processor works great for this). Add the cream cheese. Remove backbones from sardines and add the sardines (not the backbones... but you knew that). Blend/process until completely mixed. Serve with crackers.

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What am I thankful for this year?

As with every year (day) this millennium so far, I’m thankful for having a job. These last two years I’ve been thankful that the job, as crazy as it drives me sometimes, provides good medical insurance and meets at least our basic needs.

I’m thankful for having a family and friends, both local and online, who care.

I’m thankful for having an imagination and a place to let it run.

I’m thankful for living in America. Bush-league has damaged it, but hasn’t broken it. Better times are coming.

Update

Current music: DI.fm Deep House
I had the stress test today. The doc said there was a wiggle in the EKG that shouldn’t have been there, but she didn’t think it was serious. They emailed that and the CT scans to a cardiologist and told me I’d hear from them today if there was a problem — “no news is good news.”

No phone call, so things are looking better. I’m holding out some hope that I can lose weight, exercise, put the hydrogarble up for good, and remind myself why I can’t sit on me arse and blog all the time. Or work. The happy dances should give me some good exercise, anyway!

Everyone else took off to see the Harry Potter movie. I’ve been kind of tired all day, so I stayed home. I have a couple of things I want to finish up on this manual (from work), and I got the challah bread started for tomorrow. I’ll probably stay up until about 10 or so, then sack it.

Holy Moly

I’ve heard that smoking can kill you, but I don’t think this was what they meant.

No argument with the closer: “the hapless Madame had no memory whatsoever of the incident. We’re pretty sure a couple of hundred other passengers are wishing they could erase the incident from their memories too.”

Lobster Stew(ed)

The ding-a-ling came home with another ticket — this one for 72 in a 45 zone. Baaaaaad news.

Seeing that it’s his second ticket within 30 days (he got another one Hallowe’en night), he’s probably going to get his license suspended. I assume they’ll give him a special ticket to drive to work and school... but that second ticket was while he was going to work.

He’s going to learn a whole new meaning of the word, “fine.”

Stormy

Current music: CMradio - Celtic
The wind is pretty strong tonight — the NWS says 15 to 25mph, gusting to 30. Well, that should pull down the rest of the leaves.

Meanwhile, I’m trying not to obsess about my blood pressure; that’s sure to drive it up. I’ve been having something like anxiety attacks, though, which doesn’t help (although the one on the way home felt more like excitement, like I was about to do something I’d been looking forward to doing). I just have to keep remembering, “Fear Not,” and I go in for tests tomorrow. I had one heck of a leg cramp Saturday morning, which has left the calf muscle a bit sore — as I’ll be on the treadmill, I hope it won’t act up on me.

Feh. Good news? The drains aren’t backed up anymore. There was some kind of brickwork in the drain system that was catching toilet paper. The plumbers removed both the clog and the brickwork (since none of them could figure out what it was for).

Happy Dance Time

Two (much larger) competitors of the company I work at find it too much of a struggle to compete, so they’re joining forces. Our stock got hammered on the news, but those things are temporary. We’ll continue doing what we do best while they’re sorting things out.

The real winners, though, are Scientific-Atlanta employees. I was a contractor there for 3½ years before moving to where I am now, and have stayed for eight years. Cisco’s modus operandi with new companies is to provide a thorough corporate culture enema, and no company I’ve been at — or heard of — needs one more than S-A.

S-A’s corporate culture still somehow reflects its roots as a McCarthy-era defense contractor. Employees are simply cogs in the machine, to be paid as little as possible and discarded at whim. I’m hunting for an email address for Cisco’s CEO (or at least HR department) and suggest they simply can everyone at S-A above the supervisor level, and a third to a half of the sup’s.

So on behalf of people I used to work with and still think of as friends, I do the happy dance. If it were a bit warmer, I’d dance naked around FAR Manor to celebrate.

BP update

And I don’t mean British Petroleum.

The stuff I’m taking now is hydrochlorothiozid (gesundheit!), 25mg, once a day.

It occurred to me that I’m having to treat this similarly to how The Boy should treat his diabetes — monitor the vital sign in question, take medication, eat better & exercise. I just get a squeeze rather than a poke.

My mother-in-law happened to have a BP meter in her closet, so I didn’t have to go buy one. My brother-in-law and his family left an exercise bike in our garage with a bunch of other equipment, so I think that’s going to come into the house. It’s fairly quiet; I think everyone will be able to watch TV while I’m going nowhere fast.

Turns out that lots of other folks at work are also on BP medication. What does that tell you?

Friday Night Cinema

...when you don’t have time or money to run to the theater or rental store.

Tonight’s feature suddenly got a little dated — but never fear, it will be back in vogue all too soon.

Dominic Tocci: I Can’t Afford My Gasoline (Flash)

BlueHippo rip-off

M.A.E. was looking to get The Boy a laptop for Christmas. She got suckered by this outfit calling itself BlueHippo. To make a long story short, they told her she could get a laptop for $600, then sold her a $300 desktop system for $2000. She called and cancelled the order, and they started taking money out of her account anyway.

Mrs. Fetched went with her to the bank, and they’re going to formally dispute the charges to get her money back. I’ll have to see if Apple has any refurb iBooks....