Stray Bullets

Creeped the Fuck Out

2011-06-16T01:03:00.003-05:00

I don't know if you're like me and watch a variety of news programs. In particular, I'm a fan of Robin Meade and her Morning Express show on HLN, because she's nice and charming (and very attractive), and I can get my news items in easily digestible bits. They do, however, linger on the Casey Anthony trial quite a bit. I was actually unfamiliar with the case until three or four weeks ago when I started catching their everyday coverage.

It's kind of a grisly thing, what she's accused of, and it's creepy ... but the more I started watching the coverage, the more creeped out I got. There's just something that strikes me a little weird about the whole deal.

Um ....

Uh ....

You ever have that thing where two random things collide in your head and suddenly there's a connection so obvious that you can't believe you never noticed it before? That's kind of how I ended up with my modern take on the Nice Lady and all that. Well, I was listening to the details of the trial, and ....

Well, it's just unmistakeable. It's worth noting that my mom and my dad, both, independantly of me AND of each other made this same connection.

I'll pause here while I feel a little sick to my stomach.

Now, if there's ever any kind of doubt whatsoever that I did the right thing in going to Florida and bringing Sky (and Allison) back with me, let's take a look at the two people represented in those pictures. There's really a hair's difference between them. I could only use pictures from the limited supply available to me, but they even look alike for god's sake. There are pictures in my head, that I've seen, of my ex within the past couple months, and they could pass as sisters.

When I first got to Florida, and Sky woke up and saw me, she was not only very very happy, but I would say she was even relieved to see me. I was there to save her, and she knew that. Yes, this is just conjecture in hindsight ... but I can remember the look in her eye as clear as if it was this morning.

If I hadn't gone after her, something like what happened to Caylee Anthony could have happened. If not to the one, then definitely to the other.

Something like that could have happened.

I believe this in my bones. You can not tell me otherwise.

Something like that would have happened.

Love, Georgia Style

2011-04-29T20:35:00.003-05:00

The following post is a little bit self-serving, but as this is my blog I suppose I'm entitled. I'm going to transcribe a conversation I had with Jen this afternoon through text messaging. While the subject matter may seem vile and gross to the rest of you, it is something that I will be chuckling over for a good long time. I don't have the space in my phone to save all these texts, but I do have this handy blog.

Yes, by the way, this is the same Jen who was heavily featured in the early days of this blog. In retrospect, I believe I was a little too harsh with her overall in my posts. Since then, she and I have worked out our old differences to the point where she is now one of the best friends I have (in the top 5). After all, it's not like she Myszkowsied me after the fact. Not to mention that Amy set the bar so high on SCREWING ME OVER that it's forced me to re-evaluate *everything* that's come before, up to and including my first ex-wife -- She Who Will Not Be Named. I've had some bad ones, yes, it's true. But Amy turned it up to 11.

Ok, speaking of her ...

Me: Wait. Who fucked who now?

Jen: Jasper may have possibly FUCKED, HAD SEX WITH HIS SISTER BY BLOOD. LMAO. I guess even his mom asked him.

Me: LOL. Now Amy can get her threesome.

Jen: Oh she got that before Jasper with two guys and again with that Gary guy and his wife. She admitted being a whore the other day.

Me: Well, we knew that anyway.

Jen: Yeah. Guess Amy noticed that his sis kept grabbing his dink and rubbing her ass on him and yeah OMG that was the funniest shit ever when she told me.

Jen: She goes IDK why his sis doesn't like me. I told her to stop fucking her boyfriend.

Me: Ahahahaha.

Jen: I knew that girl was fucked in the head but wow that blew my mind. She goes IDK how I feel about sharing my man with his sister. WTF?

Me: I'm all kinds of creeped out now.

Jen: You're creeped out? I had to hear it.

Me: She's a blue ribbon prize all right.

Jen: She calls me crying. I think Jasper cheated on me, so I'm ready with the he's an ass speech. Then she says yeah, his sister. I didn't know what to say so I busted out laughing. I couldn't help it. It was that or vomit and I'd lose service if I ran to the bathroom.

Jen: Haven't heard from her since.

Me: This is some epic twisted shit.

Jen: Dude what's twisted is I said leave him, she goes I love him!

Jen: I'll admit I'm somewhat forgiving with cheaters, but family members, mine or theirs, is a deal breaker.

Me: Oh she does not want me to know about this.

Jen: I wouldn't have told ANYONE. I would have just said it didn't work out. How hard up do you have to be?

Me: Yeah, she could come back and beg me, but I'm just repulsed by her now.

From here is got back to regular gossiping about her whorishness. This was the good stuff, over which I'll be chuckling for years to come.

Stormwatch

2011-04-29T20:20:00.002-05:00

While watching the news lately I couldn't help but notice that a shitload of really big scary tornadoes are ripping up the south, actually not all that far away from where I would have been living. As far as I know, they haven't really hit the Florida panhandle, which is where I almost got stuck, but they would have been just close enough to make me really worried and a little panicky. I like watching the fury of nature as much as anyone, but I prefer it to be from the safety of my television set.*

*except for that one time Dan and I foolishly went storm chasing, although nothing really happened then either.

Those twisters, though, are destroying Alabama and hit Georgia pretty hard, too. At least parts of Georgia. While watching the news on this I couldn't help but wonder ...

why couldn't they have come through about 100 miles further south?

What? Like she doesn't deserve to have a house dropped on her.

Planningses

2011-04-13T17:01:00.002-05:00

So I was chatting with my bud Becky on Facebook, and we were talking about writing and other creative meanderings, which inspired me enough to come dig this blog up and poke around in its innards a bit. Some thoughts:

--Of course, I immediately got sucked right into these old posts. This is not surprising as I'm a huge mark for my own writing sometimes. It's really pretty shameless.

--I also came across some cringe-worthy moments inside of a few posts that are horribly ironic in hindsight. Given that they were written in 2008 (pre-Amy), I'm sure there's a lot more where that came from.

--I came in specifically to look for the Kudoverse posts. I'm very happy that some of the ones I was hoping to find were here. I'm more than a little pissed that some of the ones I was hoping to find are lost forever.

I really miss blogging. I'm not sure if I'm going to do it here or elsewhere, but I have to do it somewhere.

The Writing Blues

2010-07-05T23:48:00.002-05:00

I want to do more with my life.

This is, of course, about the writing. I want to be a writer. I want to have things published. I want other people to read my stuff. It's not all just about the one thing you've all heard about ad nauseum, though.

Yes, it is in part about the book. I've been working on the damn thing for so long that I'm afraid now that it'll never be finished. Then again, it's been shelved for quite a while, too. It doesn't have anything to do with not prioritizing it due to my being in a relationship, before anyone thinks that, because the truth is I haven't worked on it steadily since before Amy and I got together. In fact, if you rememeber back to when my other laptop fizzled out on me, that's pretty much when the juice ran out. I have worked on it since, but it's just been herky jerky here and there stuff.

I'm not sure if my committment to THAT book is waning or what. The reasons that I felt were so important to write that book that way and have it come out to that conclusion are nowhere near as compelling to me as they used to be, and haven't been for years. As someone once said: Living in the past; there's no future in it. And for many many varied reasons I'm going to decline to talk about, I'm not feeling all of the story nearly like I used to. I love the characters and the basic plotline, but a good chunk of the thing is leaving me cold. And that's no way to write a novel.

You are not going to want to hear this, but I have to try and alter things so that I am once again writing a book that I give a shit about. What that means .... we'll see.

However, there are other things I'd like to do as well. I would love to have a job writing about either wrestling or comic books online and get paid to do so. I have gone so far as to look into how I can do this. I applied at Examiner.com, and got a good response to my writing, but they want me to somehow tie in my writing to some kind of "local angle" or such, and I haven't quite wrapped my head around how to do that yet. And that has led to me feeling somewhat discouraged. I know that gig is something I could do well and often, but I have to get hired first.

There's another site, too, where I think I could do well, but when filling out the application I got to the part where they want two writing samples of about 600 words or so ... and I blanked. Complete writer's block. And when I get to the point where I can't even pull 600 words out of my ass on a subject I enjoy so much, I know I'm in some deep trouble. Maybe it's because I haven't done jack shit for actual writing in so long that I've gotten rusty, or maybe I'm just putting too much pressure on myself, but I got stuck and stuck hard, and it pretty much destroyed my confidence.

This is not to say I've given up, by the way. I'm just doing the typical SB thing of using this blog to exorcise the crap out of my system.

The alternative is to wind up a bitter old man full of regrets.

Now Then

2010-07-03T18:38:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow, on the 4th of July, Skyler is one month old. While I have made the most of the first month and spent as much time with the baby as possible, it still does feel as though it flew by. I'm sure the next month, and the next year, and so forth will fly on by just as quick. That's what everybody says anyway. Well, whatever. I waited 20 years to meet this child, and I'm going to absorb every ounce of enjoyment I can out of her, and I'm not going to miss any opportunities either. Yeah, there are guys out there who don't give a shit about spending a lot of time with their kids, even if they just pay lip service to loving them oh so much (and I know a few of these guys), but I'm not one of them, and I'll never be one of them. I do expect my future to be a litte more crowded and busy with writing related stuff, but I'll be damned if I'm going to miss a school play or anything like that if I don't have to.

It's that damn Cat in the Cradle song, you know. The message behind it has been stuck in my mind forever. I listened. I get it.

So far, I've done good on this score. During the pregnancy I was there for everything all along the way. I went to every pre-natal visit, even if I had to ditch work for a few hours, every ultrasound (including the awesome 3D ones we did in Keene), every near-miss hospital visit, ... everything. The thought of missing even one of those visits never crossed my mind. I *had* to be involved. The only worry I had was missing too much work and getting into trouble, which could have happened if I didn't work for the supervisor that I do work for, because he's pretty awesome as bosses go. And I was concerned about missing time and not getting paid. Usually I nickel and dime all my vacation time usage throughout the year, taking two hours there and three hours here. Long vacations are usually not in the budget anyway. Case in point, I'm here in NH now instead of in NY with the family (although that also has to do with not wanting to drag Skyler on a six hour trip to nowhere at her age; and the fact that while Amy does get along well with my family, it's better to keep it at smaller doses, because my beautiful wife does get aggravated easily).

Money, and the job thing, are really the only things left for me to figure out. Of course I don't want to stay at my Current Place of Employment for the rest of my life, nor am I eager to replace that job with a similar job doing monkey work for less money than I'm worth. I'm pursuing some writing options (yes, including the book), and while I've been a bit frustrated to start, I'm not going to give up.

Ever since I hit the reset button in 2007 (with Jen's help), I've done some amazing things that honestly I thought might never happen ever in my life, including getting married to Amy and having a baby. Figuring out this job/writing thing is just the next logical step. And if I can do those first two "scary" things, I should be able to work this out, too.

I just need Calliope to get her butt back from the Bahamas.

The New Stuff

2010-06-28T19:46:00.003-05:00

So there have been some changes since last we spoke here on the blog:

Here you see my greatest creation, Miss Skyler Jade. She was born on June 4th, which made her about a week early, which was fine enough as her mother was pretty impatient to be done with this whole pregnancy deal.

She is without a doubt the best thing I have ever had a part of.

By Popular Demand

2010-01-11T18:44:00.003-05:00

Which is to say... demanded by one person. However, since that one person is pretty cool, that's all that matters.

Anyway, I'm back, and unlike last time I may actually be able to sustain the return blogging experience, now that Amy and I are back in our own place and using our own internet, instead of living with three crabasses and using a computer and internet that should have died out with the dinosaurs. Well, there's lots to talk about, so what I'm prolly going to have to do is break it up into bite-sized chunks, otherwise I'm never going to get through it all.

What I want to talk about first is the baby. Amy and I are having one. During the blogging hiatus last spring we were going to have one, but it ended up being a tubular pregnancy, and therefore no baby resulted. This time, however, it stuck, and the baby is due in June--somewhere around the 14th or so, which puts it just about a week after our one year wedding anniversary. Suffice to say, we are excited.

In the early going Amy was hoping for a boy and I was hoping for a girl (like duh), but we would of course be happy either way, because you know it's our kid and you just can't help loving it either way. It really doesn't matter. Nevertheless, we've been leaning girl for the past few weeks. We had an ultrasound done this afternoon and while it isn't definitively certain ... the tech seemed to believe it was in fact a girl. I can't confirm that 100%, but that's what we are tentatively going with for now. If we end up with a bunch of pink elephants and such and then a winkie shows up on future ultrasounds, we promised not to be disappointed, and we'll just save the girly girl stuff for the next one, if in fact there is to be a next one.

We have also already picked names (we did this ages ago). The boy name was set early on, like last February, but the girl name was trickier. We had about 20 names in contention, narrowed it down to a final seven, selected a good middle name for each, but it was Skyler Jade that just stuck with us for whatever reason. That's the name Allison likes the best, too. She's absolutely convinced it's going to be a girl and won't even hear any argument that she isn't going to get a sister.

So that's where we are right now with the Endgame.

In progress.

The Big Return

2009-08-23T15:45:00.002-05:00

Yeah, so here I am again. In what will possibly make up to three(3) people happy, Stray Bullets is back on the air. And as you can imagine, after a nine month absence which also happened to be the busiest and eventful nine months of my life, there is a whole lot of catching up to do with y'all. I won't try to eat the whole elephant with this one post, though, like I might have tried to do in the past, but I guess I can hit the highlights. Here we go.

Amy and I worked out. When we last spoke, she and I had just gotten together, and here we are all this time later still together, and not only that ... we got married. Yes. I'm married to Amy. That happened back on June 5th, and there are a whole lot of stories to be told related to that, which I'll get to some other time. But my lovelife is good and stable for the first time in ... well .... ever.

I'm also a step-dad to a really cute almost 4 year old named Allison. That's going very well, too.

Still at the same job.

Still working on the same book, but seeing as I more or less shelved it for a year (or longer due to the laptop issue), you should be happy that I'm working on it at all again.

Ok, I'm a little rusty at this blogging stuff after such a long layoff. Let's call it good for now, huh?

You see, there's this girl ....

2008-12-15T17:00:00.003-05:00

I was going to write out the whole story for y'all here, but as it's a really long and complicated story, and I'm tired, and I don't have the four hours I would need to do it full justice, and I still have to do a little e-mail after ... I'm just going to hit the highlights and get everyone up to date on the situation. Now, this may be the post where I alienate some of my audience (those I haven't already, that is), and depending on how this all goes it may be my last blog post for a little while. Seeing as I haven't seemed to have the time or inclination to regularly update this thing since like September, I doubt you'll be missing much. But for those few of you interested in reading, let's carry on.

Long story short, I have a girlfriend again. Her name is Amy. You might remember her from the 65 or so blog posts during the last year in which she was a featured character. Yes, it's that girl. The same Amy who told me about 12 months ago that she liked me. The same Amy I had a crush on that drove me crackers. The same Amy who spent a night on my couch while I struggled with trying to do the right thing. The same Amy who I've been sweet on ever since, and unbeknownst to me, continued to like me all along.

She and I are going out. There's a whole story to this, and it's a good story, too, one I could probably use as part of a book later on down the road.

But I'm not going to do it here.

I'm just going to say that it's been great so far. I don't know if it'll last two weeks or two months or two years, but I'm going to enjoy it while it's here. If anyone doesn't like it, or doesn't agree with it, or is for whatever reason mad at me because of it, well I'm sorry. But I'm going to see this one through.

And with that, Stray Bullets is closed for now. Toodles.

No Longer a Dry County

2008-12-10T23:05:00.002-05:00

Tonight ended a dry streak that has been going on since the dawn of time. To put it another way, I have a sex life again for the first time in eight years. And it is with who you think it is. And it was worth the wait. Good god, was it worth the wait. On the subject of something that I was starting to believe would never again occur in my lifetime, it was frikking amazing ...

all seven times.

There, Brit. How do YOU like it for a god damned change.

(full story tomorrow.)

Virgorama

2008-12-03T19:10:00.002-05:00

In 1952, renowned modern composer John Cage created the infamous "4'33"." It's a "song" that consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of pure silence. Recently a San Francisco performance artist, Jonathon Keats, did a remix of that tune and made it available as a ring-tone. I'd love for you to be inspired by those two geniuses in the coming week, Virgo. It'll be an excellent time for you to come to a perfect stop, fill yourself with stillness, and bask in the healing power of undiluted nothingness.

Sadly, I don't see this happening for a little while.

It's the Same Old Thing as Yesterday

2008-12-02T17:44:00.003-05:00

So last night I was feeling the pressure. As things tend to do with me, it built to a crisis point where all I could feel was the weight of the world on my shoulders, crushing me underneath it. And while I can't say today that the weight of things or the pressure is all the way off of me, I have gotten to the point where I can start to plan and counterplan and devise how I'm going to go about tackling the problem, for good if that's possible.

Two weeks ago Cooter and Amy broke up. This is their third break-up just since I've known him, but this time it's pretty serious, and there's a very good chance that they are done and over. Now, it's those two we're talkin about, so who the fuck really knows if it'll ever really be done and over with, but just the same ... it seems pretty final this time around.

People who were around reading this blog last winter surely already have a guess where this is headed, and guess what? You're right! It was pretty quiet on the Amy front for the first week and a half of the split. She moved back up to her mom's house up on the mountain, and I didn't hear from her. I knew inevitably that I would, but I didn't know when. Meanwhile, I heard most of Cooter's side of things, because I work with him, but because I don't work right next to him anymore, I only got sketchy details -- she left, took kid, very angry. I did the sympathetic listener thing that I always do, while trying to share the benefit of my experience with relationships gone off the rails, and he listened to that (and to advice from others) about as well as he ever does, which is not at all.

And then came Saturday. She called. I talked to her. And she's coming after me. Oh yeah. She's coming after me, no doubt about it, no beating around the bush, and she's bringing her A-game along with her. Now, we can go through all the arguments about how this could become a huge disaster that'll lead to a whole lot of fighting and violence and anger and hatred, but nevermind. I know. I know. I know. I do know this.

Yeah, she does have that effect on me. She always has. You know, the Becky Effect. The thing that causes me to lose perspective and my common sense. Any intellectual thought about right or wrong goes out the window, and it's not just a lust thing. And don't make any mistake, there is lust in my soul for that girl. I thought it was gone, because I didn't know she was even still interested in me, but it was lurking. I beat it back before. I could probably do it again. But it's hard. So hard.

Because I'm talking to the both of them, I'm in the unenviable position of knowing more about the situation than either one of them, so every day I walk a tightrope of functional neutrality. They're getting into a custody battle over Allison, and it's set to get ugly -- real ugly. I know things that are going to happen, things that one or the other do not know about, and at some point the shit is going hit the fan, and when it does I don't want to be within 100 miles. So maybe I'll be in Massachusetts that weekend. Meanwhile, I'm in my own sort of custody battle with the both of them. They both want equal time, and it's driving me crazy, man. One or the other or both calls me every day. Sigh.... And if you don't already know which side of things I'm way more sympathetic to then you just haven't been paying attention to the blog for the last eleven months.

Today at work I was wound up. Last night I was crashing under the stress, but today I channelled it into straight hostility, mostly for Matt's and Jim's entertainment, due to a unprecedented ruthlessnes with my sarcastic remarks. I just decided to be angry, and I made sure Cooter realized I was angry due to being completely frikking stressed from the two of them. They are making me nuts.

And she isn't making it easy on me. To borrow a phrase from my best friend, she just puts it right out there. There is a very clear invitation right there on the table on a silver platter. Yeah. Oh yeah. I've spent most of a year imagining it, though, and thinking about all the horrible things I want to do to that girl. And in case you don't remember, it's been a very very long time for me. Jen and I never got to that point, and she was my first girlfriend in a godforsaken long time.

At the end of that conversation we decided that we are in fact going out. Yes, we are boyfriend/girlfriend just like that, lickety split, no beating around the bush. I was *so* nervous that I almost fucked the whole thing up, but yeah. I have a girlfriend again, and it's Amy, the girl I've had this horrifying crush on that y'all have been reading about. It's everything I wanted ... and I'm scared to death. I don't want to screw this up. I screw it up, I might as well just retire forever to a life of loneliness and isolation.

I'm not going to screw it up. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

Let's do it.

There's a Little Black Spot on the Sun Today

2008-12-01T23:02:00.002-05:00

Oh, I'm stressed. God damn am I stressed out. And it was all starting to go so well again, too. I don't have the time to discuss it all right now, but it involves some old business (within the timespan of this blog, not the OLD old stuff) that's really bugging me. I'll get into it tomorrow.

:(

Oh, and computers FUCKING SUCK. Except for this laptop. This laptop is great.

Bleh.

I Can Haz Weekend?

2008-11-14T22:53:00.002-05:00

So you're aware that we had an election a couple of weeks ago, of course, and that this Obama guy won it. Because he is to be our next president, my Place of Employment has gone batshit crazy. Everywhere there are Chicken Littles running about proclaiming the sky is falling, which is to say, these people believe that Obama is going to come and shut us down ... or at least the parts of us that make semi-automatic weaponry, and I am part of one of those parts of us. As a consequence, orders for the guns in my line have gone through the roof, into the sky, up past the clouds, and are currently circling the moon.

Since the election orders have been placed for approximately 16,000 of the rifles that I happen to work on. We sold 6000 in one day alone. That's a lot of firepower being let out into the world, but of course ... we have to make most of them first. To accomplish this, the Powers That Be (who are among the Chicken Littles already mentioned) have bumped up our daily numbers. We were at 125, which we were easily making back when I was on bolt-fit. Now they want between 250 and 300 every day from now until infinity until the madness dies down.

Yeah, and we haven't done that. On our best day ever since I've worked there we did 220, and we were hauling ass, man. I bolt-fit my little heart out, and at the time ther was a second bolt-fitter (I believe it was Brad). Now I'm on trigger housings, which I'm pretty good at, yes, but it's really hectic keeping up with the sub-assemblies for even the numbers we're making. I'm supposed to get another person over there to build those subs, but so far it's only been here and there. Bolt-fit, with Cooter over there, is also struggling.

And so we're getting a lot of overtime. I've been working six day weeks (five 10 hour days and 5 hours Saturdays) for what now seems like years, even though it's really only been maybe a month or so. And I'm tired. By Thursday I've totally lost track of where I am in the week and have to stop and figure out what actual day it is. It feels like I've been there every day since sometime in September without break. The weekends fly by, and I don't get nearly anything I want to do accomplished.

But the machine shop is having a hard time keeping ahead of us. They've had some problems, and we've been stuck waiting for parts, and so on. So they're working mandatory Saturdays (8 hours last week, 10 this week). the PTB decided to shut us down and save what barrels are ready for Monday. So today I worked an 8 hour day building up triggers and mag-latches, and hammer struts, and doing miscellaneous other things. Jim and Brad worked, too, doing similar. Cooter wasn't there. If he doesn't *have* to work, he doesn't work. There are reasons that I often hold him in contempt, and this is one of them.

And we're off tomorrow. I have a full weekend to myself, to do whatever I want. So in preparation for the big push next week, you might think I'd want to take it easy and rest up, and the truth is I am pretty exhausted. But no ... I'm going to empty the fuel tanks. Everything that I've had to push back, everything that I've wanted to do -- it's all on the docket. I'm going to cram as much stuff in here as humanly possible, including a good chunk of writing time, and I'm going to live life to the fullest.

Because as things look, I might not get too many more weekends like this for a good long time.

Virgorama

2008-11-13T23:01:00.001-05:00

For many people, 10:30 a.m. is the single best time of day to come up with fresh insights and new ideas. But that won't exactly be true for you in the coming week. I mean, 10:30 will be a time when you're likely to be really smart, but then so will 11:30, 1:05, 2:37, 3:46, and 4:20. For that matter, 6:35 may also bring a gush of high intelligence, as well as 7:27, 8:19, and the last ten minutes before bedtime. What I'm trying to tell you, Virgo, is that you're in a phase when being brilliant should come pretty naturally.

In support of this supposed brilliance, Stray Bullets returns to your local stations tomorrow afternoon.

yes, really.

Triggered

2008-10-31T01:21:00.001-05:00

So at work I'm doing a new gig. I was a bolt-fitter for a solid year, and while that is one of the hardest jobs on the line, I will say that I enjoyed my time over there. Of course, I was really frikken awesome at it, so that helps. It started out me and Brad, then me and Cooter, and then just me doing it alone. That was hard, but with my work ethic I toughed it out and could make the numbers by myself.

A few weeks ago they moved Brad over to work on Mergie's line and Cassie took a job in the office, leaving just the four of us (me, Cooter, Jim, and Fred). And with just the four of us on the line the numbers became very very hard to hit, and we have consistently not made the numbers over the past few weeks. Well, they raised us from 125 to 150, too, so there's that.

Meanwhile, Fred has been hurting. He has a herniated disk, which he's going to have operated on, but in the meantime he's had some pretty hard days in there. He finally called the doctor because his leg was just killing him (it's connected to the back problem), and the doc told him to stay home. His operation is on November the 4th, so he's going to be out for at least the next nine weeks or so.

Fred did final build, which along with bolt-fit can be a pretty grueling job. Jim knows how to do that, so he shifted over there. And he recommended me to Barney for learning how to build trigger-housings. That and final build are the only remaining things on the line I don't know, and I was a little trepidacious about going over there. I'm so used to being competant and awesome that I didn't want to drag down the line by being slow.

I have worked on housings a little bit before. Christy showed me how to do them once, but she put it together in about 22 seconds while showing me, and yeah .... not so helpful. Then Amanda showed me a little bit weeks later. Then Jim showed me a little bit a few months ago (he's been working on getting me there for a while). But it didn't all click until last Thursday when I finally got a few hours to work on them.

Housings are complicated. There's 19 different pieces that make them up. Many of those are sub-assemblies, like hammer struts, triggers, and mag-latches that are sub-assembled before the housing is made, but during the course of the job I do all those, too. Even with all that, putting a housing together is comprised of eleven parts in a sequence, and it took me several shots at it before I could remember how to do it in what order. Suffice to say, I was pretty slow.

But I picked up speed. I spent all this week making them, and by the end of the day today I was able to do a little more than twenty of them an hour. The assembly part isn't that hard; it's just tricky at first. The real hard part is keeping up with the three sub-assemblies. It really really sucks when you run out of triggers and have to stop and make some up so that you can get back to putting the housing together. At various times both Jim and Barney have stopped by and done some up for me so I could keep going, but eventually I should be able to get it all myself.

I am trying so hard. By the end of today I was completely wiped out. I do think, however, that I've acquited myself well at that station. I will not fail.

As a side-effect of my moving to housings, Cooter got stuck with bolt-fit. That's kind of funny for me because 1) he sucks at it, and 2) he *hates* it. When it was him and me over there both doing it, it was mostly me. I was doing five guns for every one that he did, and that kinda pissed me off. Now I get to be amused by it.

Take that, you little fucker.

Virgorama

2008-10-31T00:38:00.000-05:00

If you and I were members of the French Resistance during the German occupation of our country in World War II, I'd want you to serve as the communication hub for our community. With understated ferocity, you would gather data about what's going on behind the scenes. You'd be precise and economical in relaying messages between your comrades and allies, accurately representing the information people entrusted you with. You would be alert without being overwrought, and discerning without getting distracted by inefficient rage. In that dire setting, Virgo, I bet you'd be indispensable. I challenge you to bring those same skills to bear in the relatively benign circumstances you're now in the midst of. Halloween costume suggestion: French Resistance leader.

Viva la resistance~!

The Story of Jade

2008-10-30T22:50:00.002-05:00

So I've had car trouble. It all started with the incident on the highway, in which I had to have my poor car towed back to Newport, which set off a chain reaction of money issues, of which I've almost made it out the other side. But I don't know how much longer I can hang onto this car. She's showing her age. I might have to trade her in.

Two weeks ago I took her in for inspection. I was already running late, because the sticker expired in September, so the pressure was on. I took her to the local place where she got fixed after the towing. Going in, I knew she wasn't in perfect shape, but still hoped for the best. And she failed. The girl at the counter came back with a whole list of what they failed her for, and then priced out the fixes for me:

-- Both front tires; below wear bars; have secondary rubber showing. $73 each.
-- Exhaust manifold cracked; spring bolt and flange at I pipe rusted. $535 for the manifold; if have to replace the bolt and flange $635.
-- Rust hole in front of right rear tire. $70-$105.
-- Unsecure and broken right front bumper. $70-$105.

Which comes to a grand total of between $748 on the low end and $918 on the high end. And I'm already pushed to the limit of what my money can do for me right now, and that's a lot of fucking money right there even in the best of times. So I left there deflated and depressed, came home and did nothing. I think I took a nap.

And then I didn't do anything about the car for two weeks, except plot and plan. I discussed it all with Cooter, who is something of an amateur car-phile. I discussed the possibility that I might give her up for something else, and he's looking around for me to see what's out there in used car land. And he looked at the car, too. He agreed one of the tires isn't in the best of shape (they never are with my cars), but otherwise didn't see what they saw. He couldn't find the crack in the exhaust or anything. Now, yeah, consider the source, but this is the one area where he has a pretty good head on his shoulders. He also taped up the front bumper for me, which was cracked pretty good from me hitting a snow bank last year while trying to navigate into my parking spot out back.

And he said he knew a guy who could probably inspect it.

I wasn't sure I wanted to get into some black market inspection deal, but at the same time I'm out there driving on a bad sticker, and last year I got stopped for the sticker, and the year before that, too, so I gave it much thought.

Yesterday I went to see the guy. Cooter was supposed to set up the appointment for me. He's like, "Just call him." I was like, "What am I supposed to say? Hey, my car flunked inspection and my friend told me you'll pass it for me anyway." Yeah, I can't do that. So yesterday Cooter called me and said he could get me in. I didn't know where the place was, so he was going to come along. When I got there, though, he sent Amy with me instead. I was a little pissed. Not that I don't like Amy, because I do, but it was the feeling that he was letting me down. And I don't know the guy either, and he does, so it was like what the fuck. Luckily, Amy knows him, too.

So we get there and the guy is all right, maybe a little grumpy, and I was a little uncomfortable, thinking that this guy is looking at me and doesn't know me and why the fuck should he do anything for me. But he looked the car over, thought the tires were fine, gave a glance at the rust hole, looked at the tape on the bumper, and never looked under the hood at all .... and passed me. So I have a good sticker again, which means I have some time to play with as far as looking around for a replacement car. When I got Jade in the first place I was dealing from a place of complete desperation, because Bessie was almost dead, and that's a bad place to be dealing from.

On the drive back Amy told me that when I went back out to get the car he asked her about me and if I was a good guy that wouldn't screw him over, and she backed me up. So she did me a solid there. If I'd gone alone, I might not have the sticker.

Yup. I owe her one.

Virgorama

2008-10-22T22:08:00.001-05:00

When the planet Uranus comes into play, as it is now, it's a good time to initiate experiments that will expedite the arrival of future blessings. Pushing beyond comforting habits, you thrive by going in quest of bracing truths, unfashionable beauty, and wild justice. The symbolic nature of Saturn is different. It invites you to creatively limit and discipline yourself so that fate isn't forced to limit and discipline you in unpleasant ways. It so happens, Virgo, that Uranus and Saturn are now poised in opposition to each other. Will they work at cross-purposes, spawning a sticky mess? Or is there a way for you to get them to work together? More than you imagine, you have the power to affect how they interact in your personal sphere.

And we're back to having to decipher the arcane meaning of the weekly horoscope. I'll have to noodle this one.

*****

Yeah, so today kinda got away from me. There will be posts tomorrow instead.

Honest to Eris

2008-10-21T22:18:00.002-05:00

Ok, I have like seven full posts I want to write for this thing, and it's no longer a case of being bored with Stray Bullets. It's totally a time and energy thing right now.

Work has been pretty brutal.

I'm more than a little stressed out for various reasons.

And I've been tired as hell.

Nevertheless, tomorrow I'm going to try and get this thing back on track. I'll do as many of those posts as I can get out before I pass out (like I did earlier, which is why I missed your call. Who? The one person I *know* is going to read this tonight), and we'll just see how it goes. Deal?

Deal.

Antisocial

2008-10-18T22:24:00.004-05:00

I realize I've been antisocial lately. It isn't because I don't like anyone, it isn't because I'm pissy and in a bad mood, it isn't because I'm bitter and blah blah blah. I've just been really busy and distracted with other things. Really. That's why.

Although, I have been ducking Dan's calls the last few days for reasons of my own. He's putting the pressure on me to come down again, and while that's fun, it sucks up my entire weekend. It isn't like I can just go over, hang out for a few hours, and then go back to whatever I was doing. It's a long trip down there, so a quickie visit is just kind of dumb. Plus, if I don't stay to the last possible minute I can stay before going back, he acts all insulted and such. I like him, he's a good guy and all, but sheesh. That's annoying.

Plus, I'm tired of the Amanda thing. They had some static, she went back to her cocktease ways (well, she is a Crafts, and that's what they do, and I tried to warn him), and while he claims that he's "over her" and wants to only use her as a kind of fucktoy (as charming as that is), I don't believe it. She has her claws in him, and he still likes her like that, and I can tell. I can always tell. So when I do talk to him, he steers the conversation mostly towards the Amanda thing, and while I do have some comments to make on that--and I'm probably a lot more of a hardass on the subject than he expects--I get bored by that. I try to steer the conversation towards my own life here and there, but it never sticks. Many of my friends are this way, as it happens. If we aren't talking about them, they aren't listening. So thank goodness for Guin, who is one of the few people out there not like that.

Plus, I worked like 55 hours this week, and I need a goddam break. If I go down there I've used up the whole weekend, I haven't written, or done any of my own things, and then it's right back to work again. Yes, I write during the week, too, but I need weekend time. I can't committ to every weekend to anybody (unless you're the Gwen Stacy I'm looking for, in which case I'm willing to be a little more flexible).

It isn't just him, though. I've pretty much frozen Amanda out altogether. And the last few days I've been blowing off Cooter and Amy, too. I'm just tired of them and their dysfunction. He's been better at work, but once work is over I just don't want to deal with him. And I've almost given up on waiting for the two of them to break up, and I'll never get a shot to do a better job at the boyfriend thing than he ever could. And if she comes over, even though I do so enjoy her company, I'm just going to be all wound up about it all again.

And I've spotted Jen's number on my caller ID lately, too, and I haven't called her back.

I have looked for that certain someone on AIM here and there, and admittedly I've been going to bed earlier, so that makes connecting difficult, but that's the one person I don't want to duck.

I've just been overworked and overstressed (there's more, but that's next post), and blah. I just need some time alone.

Back to the hardass thing. Yeah. Some of the things I say to him are pretty brutal, as far as my assessment of the Amanda deal goes, but screw it. He needs to hear it, and there's no point in sugarcoating it. Back when we used to hang out all the time it was different, sure, and chicks like her would bend either of us around their fingers at will, but I'm not in my twenties anymore, I've grown up a lot in the meantime, and the same old bullshit just doesn't impress me the way it used to. Say what you will about Jen, but at least she a) didn't screw me over that I know of, and b) was the catalyst for intensive positive change in my life. The crush I have on Amy is less defensible considering she's with a friend of mine, but she's never screwed me over either.

Maybe other people need to grow up a little, too.

Virgorama

2008-10-17T21:55:00.001-05:00

"If you could ask everyone you met one question, what would it be?" A reader named Ty Sassaman emailed me with that query. As I thought about what my response would be, I considered questions like "What's the one thing you most want to accomplish before you die many years from now?" or "What could you do to bring more intelligence into the way you love?" But ultimately I decided on "What is your soul's code?" How about you, Virgo? What would be your prime question? I suggest that in the coming days you ask it of everyone you encounter. You're in a phase in your astrological cycle when focused curiosity is a kind of superpower.

I don't know what that question would be .... yet.

*****

There will be new posts tomorrow. This I promise. I have a few things I want to talk about.

Readjustment

2008-10-12T20:53:00.002-05:00

So I didn't even realize to what degree the death of my old laptop had crippled me. That was back in May, and without it I haven't gotten any serious work done since. I tried and tried and tried again to get something done on this damn computer, but it never worked out, for whatever reason. But now that I have a shiny new (well, used, but new to me) laptop I am back in the game. Of course, there has been a period of readjustment.

I like it. I like it a lot. All told, the new one is probably a better laptop than my old one was. It boots up faster, seems to run better, and that makes everything smoother. And if there's anything I like, it's when things go smooth. So much in my life right now is the opposite of smooth, so this purchase working out seems all the more like a major victory.

It's a little different, though, from my old laptop and from this thing, so there's a learning curve involved. I can't, for instance, hit the 'right shift' or 'enter' keys yet without looking at them, because neither of them are where I expect them to be. And the mouse is a little hard to get used to. The old one had the little roller ball in the middle, and this one is a pad near the front, so I have a hard time controlling it like I want to. If that's all I have to adjust to, though, I think this is going to be a fruitful partnership.

So thank you, thank you, THANK YOU Guin and M for making this available to me at such a good price. I owe you both bigtime.

The hardest part, naturally, was getting the files I wanted off of this and onto a disk. This is because my brain is not wired to do things like that easily. The first disk got fucked up somehow in the formatting, then I figured out my error and the second disk went as easy as pie. Loading them into the 'top was no problem at all.

And now we're back in business.

And I've been working oh so very hard.

It feels really good to be working again.

Really good.

Virgorama

2008-10-08T16:11:00.001-05:00

With the help of a Norwegian space facility, the Frito-Lay company has used radar to beam a commercial for its Doritos tortilla chips to 47 Ursae Majoris, a star 42 light years away. Astronomers believe that habitable planets circle the star, so any creatures living there will eventually get an invitation to enjoy the crunchy corn goodness that so many earthlings have sampled. I'm making this vignette your metaphor of the week, Virgo. May it inspire you to formulate an "advertisement" for yourself and your specialties that will spread far and wide, reaching a new audience and activating your future potentials.

In a shocking turn of events, I actually understand what the horoscope wants me to do.

Hey, Rocky, Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Out of My Hat

2008-10-06T21:15:00.002-05:00

So the car repair wackiness put me behind on a few things. Most of the money I spent on the towing and the repairs came directly out of the money I had saved for my rent, which is due on the first of every month. Since that put me back at zero, I had to scramble to get the rent back together, but I did it ... just barely. The money was all there, after I checked and rechecked and rechecked again, and I drove up to New London to drop the envelope off so that it would reach my landlords sooner. I thought it was especially important to get this month in as close to on time as possible, as my lease is up at the end of this month, and I really want to get renewed. Now I just have to catch up to the phone bill, and the electric bill, and ...

All right. I'll admit it. I've been bored with Stray Bullets lately, which explains my startling lack of posts here. Well, September's drought was for another reason -- I was sick to the point where I didn't leave the couch for most of the month -- but the current lack of posting is due to boredom. I'm not bored with life or anything, no, because I've kept myself interested with many other things lately, like getting my writing career back on track, doing a lot of housekeeping, reading, and watching things on dvd that I enjoy, among other things. But I haven't been inspired to write posts.

Some of that has to do with a lack of inspiration. Anything that's come to mind lately sounds like stuff I've hashed over and rehashed a hundred times already, and I'm probably as sick of writing about those things as you are of reading them. I haven't had anything especially new to talk about. Sure, there's the occassional wacky adventure involving Amy, like last week when we went to Lebanon after she kinda hijacked me into it, and then picked up one of her wackier friends, who Cooter hates, and we agreed not to tell him that she was with us. I could write about that. Or I could write about my last conversation with Dan, which was last night, where we talked about how Amanda more or less "broke his heart" (huh, didn't see that coming from five miles away, did we?). Or I could talk about how after my last visit there, and the things that went on while I was sick, that caused me to look at Amanda in a less than shining light, to the point that I'm not actually sure I like the girl all that much (and to be clear, this is before she and Dan had the troubles). Or the fact that he wants more of my time than I'm currently willing to give up. Or the fact that the solutions that worked in 1993 or 1998 just don't seem very satisfying to me anymore now that I don't hate the world and myself.

But bleh. I just don't feel like getting into any of that.

So when times like this would occur during the Joyride days, I'd just dig into some comic book talk, or wrestling talk, or movie talk, but I had a different audience there than I do here, which is to say in that blog people reading had some interest in those topics, and it would spark interesting conversations on AIM, which would then lead to more posts, and so on. But I don't have that audience, and I know that my best friend says I should just do whatever I want in here and who cares, but the fact is, if I know people aren't reading those sorts of posts and don't have an interest in those things, I start to see that there's no point. And if I don't do that sort of thing here, and I don't feel like writing about real life stuff, then there's really no Stray Bullets. I made my decision, and I stick with it, but sometimes I really miss Libby and I miss the Joyride.

Because right now I'm just bored.

Virgorama

2008-10-01T21:53:00.000-05:00

Talk back to those annoying voices in your head, Virgo -- I mean those nagging little chatterers who are second-guessing you ten times a day, who are trying to undermine your faith in what you started in recent weeks. And as you respond to their agitation, do so with poise and grace -- not with defensiveness, not with bitter complaint, but with a quietly aggressive confidence that the lucid intuitions you relied on to launch your new projects were basically sound. The annoying little voices are trying to convince you that you should go back to square one, when in fact you're on the right track but merely need to do some tinkering.

If EVER a horoscope was written specifically to me ....

New Toy

2008-09-29T20:28:00.003-05:00

My new laptop has arrived. I've been laptopless since May, and it just hasn't been the same around here since my old laptop died it's horrible death. I've tried writing on this, but for whatever reason it just doesn't work out the same. Anyway, I have a new toy to play with, thanks to my friends Guin and M.

I got home and there it was -- a big box leaning against my door. I wondered what the post office was going to do with it, like if I'd have to go pick it up or what, but this local office does have a tendency to leave things by my door in the inside hallway. In Lebanon that probably would have been a problem, but I can get away with that here because this is a better building with better people living here.

I haven't had a chance to fire it up yet (hectic afternoon), but I did rip the box open so I could look at it and bask in the glow, and boy it sure does look swell. Tomorrow afternoon I'm setting aside everything else so that I can get to work on transferring files from here to there. I expect that to be a hassle (on this computer's end of it, at least), so I want a good few hours to deal with the potential problems. I might also have to buy some disks, because I don't think the one I have is going to cover it all.

It also looks like I might have Friday off, so I already have plans. I'm going to get up early, get to Borders for their opening, set up by the windows, and work all day long on my stuff. That sounds like the best Friday I could possibly plan.

If all goes well, we're going to make some serious progress now.

Thanks y'all!

Loose Ends (Reprise)

2008-09-26T19:55:00.002-05:00

So I know I left a few plot threads dangling here in my last long post, so let's get back to what we were talking about, eh?

*****

The Car.

I got her back on Tuesday. The problem with her was the "ignition coil", and while that was not a huge and expensive fix, it did cost me enough that between this and having her towed from the highway, it ate up pretty much all the rent money I'd saved up for this month. So that's a pain in the ass, and it means a couple of weeks of living on the cheap while I break my ass to make that rent money back up.

But the car had to be fixed. There was no choice. I can't depend on other people to cart me around. That's just no good.

But she is getting less and less reliable. Once I get caught up to things, I'm going to have to look into trading her in. That will be sad, because we've been through a lot, but she deserves some rest, too.

*****

The Sick.

So I was just not getting better. This week was an improvement over last week, but I've still been coughing. It's generally not as bad, but still every night at some point I'll fade out and devolve into a massive coughing fit. I bombed it with Day-Quil, cough drops, and chicken soup, but it just would not go away. And it's been off and on for a month now. I finally gave in and went to the doctor.

I called my last doc, out in Enfield, but the earliest they could get me in was next Tuesday. I thought maybe I could do better, so I called the local center here, the place where I had my physical for my current job, and they could get me in the next day (Thursday). Much better.

I saw the lady doc they gave me an appointment with, and she and the nurse ran all the tests and whatnot, and she decided I had a something that was like a virus, but not quite, but my nose is a little inflamed, and so is my throat, and the guck is all mostly down in my chest now, I guess. I have a phlebotinum. She gave me a prescription for some anti-biotics, which I started taking last night. I think they're working, although I am still coughing right now. I can just kind of tell a difference in the way I feel. Hopefully, by the time these pills run out, I'll be all right.

Because I'm sick of the phlebotinum.

*****
The smokes.

No cigs in eleven days.

Don't even miss them.

*****
That's all for now. See you later. I have to be up early.

Virgorama

2008-09-24T15:37:00.001-05:00

Many people who pray don't limit their conversations with God to purely spiritual and ethical matters. In fact, money is one of the main subjects the Divine Wow is asked to address. If you've never had the chutzpah to do this yourself, I suggest you try it soon. Higher powers of all kinds, from your boss to the loan officer at the bank to the Creator Herself, may be unusually receptive to your pleas. I'm guessing you'll be able to tap into financial help "from above," or that you will make a connection with an elevated source of wealth that has previously been out of your reach.

I don't know sometimes if they're talking literally or metaphorically, but I really hope this is a case of literal interpretation.

*****

And for "no reason", I'm throwing this pic in, too.

Final War

2008-09-22T20:38:00.002-05:00

So. I go to Massachusetts a few times. I come back. I get sick. Then I get sick on my own, due to a rapid temperature drop that screws up my nose, which then clogs up my throat, and then dogs me for near to two weeks. In the middle of that I decide to quit smoking cigarettes cold turkey, a decision that almost finishes me off for good. Then some other stuff happened. It's been a rough patch.

Last week, on my birthday, I actually felt good, even though that day fell in the middle of all the rest of this crap. I felt good. However, playing golf set me back a little, and by the end of the night I started to fade somewhat. After my folks left I took a drive out to the store, and had three cigarettes along the way. As it would turn out, they were my last three.

I didn't plan it that way. There was no thought that I was having my farewell cigarette or anything. I woke up Tuesday morning, didn't feel well, decided at all the various times that I would normally light up ... not to light up, and I didn't have one all day. And I did the same thing Wednesday. And it was either Wednesday or Thursday afternoon that I decided I'd quit. I don't remember which day it was, but it was whichever day that Amy was over here and I gave her my pack with the remaining four cigarettes in it, along with my lighter. That's when I decided I was done for good.

Meanwhile, I've been coughing my guts out. Some of it is due to the cold or whatever I picked up, but I'm positive that some of it is due to giving up the smokes, because the last two times I tried to cut down and quit, my lungs objected this same way -- so much so that I finally relented and lit up a cigarette just to make myself feel better, at which point the cycle began all over again. But not this time. I'm determined to tough it out.

And I have. I haven't had a smoke since about 8PM last Monday evening. It's been a week. And yet I'm still somewhat miserable. It isn't as bad as the middle and end of last week, when if felt as though someone was actually standing on my lungs, but it's still in there, and I still cough. Today, though, was a pretty good day. I felt like shit waking up, but at work I was reasonably fine. I still coughed here and there, but it was nothing like it had been, and I went all day without having to use a single cough drop. Last Thursday or Friday that would have been impossible.

I'm also still pounding the Day-Quil, chicken soup, Vitamin C (which isn't the right one I've discovered, but whatever), and Zinc pills in an effort to destroy whatever is in there. I should go to the doctor, but there have been other complications this past weekend which make that difficult, but I'll get to those in a minute. The combination of shit that I'm taking seems to help, but it hasn't yet stomped it all out. I guess I should get a prescription.

Meanwhile, it's been depressing. Usually when I start to get sick I can willpower my way through it, and almost force myself to feel better. But I've been getting sick on and off for what? A month? And it's sapping my positive attitude. And this cough hangs on and on, and I start to get that paranoia that it's never going to go away, and I'll be coughing the rest of my life, and that thought is enough to make me go crazy. No. I have to get better.

Today was more reassuring. I did feel better. Right now, though, I've faded out a bit, and I'm coughing a little more. That might be due to walking into town earlier, even though I felt fine then. Actually, minus the cough I feel great, and have more energy than I have in a couple weeks. Yesterday I could barely make it to Rite-Aid and back without feeling dead. Today I went almost twice as far, and was good, until right now where I'm not feeling so hot.

Saturday I felt pretty good, too, and this is where the story gets really unfair. I was feeling good, and was on my way to Lebanon to see my dad's show (he sings in a barbershop chorus). For whatever reason I went through Claremont to I-91 instead of going up to 89, like usual. I was on the highway for like five minutes when the car started violently shaking. So I pulled her over, I turned her off, and she would not start back up. Period. And there I was, for the second time this year, stranded by my little Honda on the side of the highway. This time, though, I had to leave her behind.

There was nothing else to do. I put the flashers on, grabbed my backpack, and started walking back south towards Ascutney. I went about a mile and a half on the Interstate before coming to an overpass, and figuring that was safer, I climbed up there, hopped the fence, and followed a backroad down to Route 5, and then followed 5 into Ascutney. My car was now about six miles behind me, so where I was feeling pretty good earlier, this was no longer the case, and I was still about 15 miles from home. I went to a Gulf station and found a pay phone. First I called my mom's cell to explain why I didn't arrive for the show. I left a message then, and another when I got home, only to find out later that they'd changed phones, and while I knew that I still had the old number written down instead of the new one. So they never found out what happened to me until my dad called me here during the intermission and I explained the story.

My second call was to Cooter. Out of all the people I know around here, and this is sad but true, he was the only one I could think of who might actually show up to pick me up if I called. And he did, him and Amy. I called from that Gulf in Ascutney, but instead of waiting I started trudging towards Claremont. I was just feeling so stressed and such that I had to get some forward momentum. Of course, by now it was getting darker by the second, so it was harder and harder to tell if any of the oncoming cars were Cooter's Bronco, and then it got really dark and I realized that my walking out there on the side of the road was really probably a stupid fucking idea. But what can I say? I haven't had the brain this week.

I made good progress, too, by the time they arrived and picked me up. So I told them the whole story, and he and I kinda brainstormed ideas about how to retrieve my car, but I knew it would come down to me having it towed somewhere at great expense. And that's what happened. Ok, it wasn't *that* expensive, for a tow truck, across that many miles, but it made a pretty big dent, and now I have to see about getting whatever's wrong with the darn thing fixed, and all of this is coming out of the rent money I had all saved up, and I'm stressed OUT. Oh yeah.

But on top of that, I just want to feel better. Because I haven't been feeling well I've been avoiding everyone. It isn't like I can have a decent phone conversation with anyone in this condition. I'm not going to spend the whole time coughing in someone's ear, and not hearing what they said, and having to have them repeat it. Fuck that. I'm way too grouchy when I'm sick, and I just want to be left alone. I don't want anyone fussing over me. I don't want to be waited on, or babied, or anything. Just leave me be. So of course, nobody understands this, and people think I'm just ignoring them. Like the Massachusetts coalition. And I got an e-mail via Myspace from Amanda asking if I was mad at her and yadda yadda yadda, so I wrote back a long letter explaining everything in detail, and how I quit smoking, and haven't been feeling well, and can't really talk without coughing my brains out, and so forth. And not two minutes after I saw that the letter had been read, the phone rang. I didn't answer, naturally, but I looked on the ID and it was her. What did I just say? Did you read it?

COME ON.

Seriously. What the fuck? They all might not be so happy with me in the future anyway, because I've been thinking about stuff, and I'm tired of doing everything everybody else's way to suit everyone else, and I'm going to be a little more selfish and take care of myself first for a fucking change. And if anybody doesn't like it, well, then maybe my very valuable free time would be better spent doing something else. But I'll tell you a few things. Cigarettes are out. Other people can smoke all they want, I don't care. I'm done. Pot smoke, too. I don't care how often you ask me, or what sad faces you make when I turn it down, or if you call me a lightweight, or what you do. That shit kills me worse than anything else, I know it, and I'm done there, too. And all the stupid little manipulative games that people have played on me all my life, from these people (whether they mean it or not), to some of my ex-girlfriends, to my cousin Brad when we were little, to whoever else .... don't bother. I'm not playing. Not anymore.

If I need to be more of a dick, fine. I'll be a dick. But I'm tired of being sick. I'm tired of getting pushed around. I'm tired of getting passed over. I'm tired of not getting what I want. And I'm tired of everyone else's stupid fucking agendas. There is shit that I need to do, which always gets pushed back because everybody else needs fucking something from me. Well, there's only so much of me to go around, and I don't have anymore time to waste.

Once I get that laptop (the money order is in the mail as of yesterday, btw), a lot of people may never see me again. I have a lot of work to do.

Mua ha ha ha ha ha *cough cough cough*

God dammit.

Shaun vs. Hot Chick: Who Wins?

2008-09-17T18:36:00.005-05:00

Today, or at least this afternoon, there was a small bit of business that kind of struck me as a metaphor for something else. Those of you who have been around for a while know that, in the past, the Hot Chick always won. Always. Given the choice between what you see here and what the Joyride was, I would always go Joyride. Why?

It was fun, perhaps more fun most of the time than being myself. Because in the timeframe we're talking about here (1996-spring 2007), I did not like myself very much at all.

It was easy. I'm talented at a few things, and I can create flawless alter egos with complicated and detailed backstories, as well as a large supporting cast, and roll with it for years to come ... pretty much in my sleep by this point.

It was EASY. I like this blog, but I realize my audience is limited. I'm really writing to 3-6 people. And, given the nature of this blog, I can't expand the audience. Doing so hampers my ability to write the kind of posts I write. I can't write about an existential crisis involving the various people pulling me in every different direction if I think any of them are reading this thing. My alter-ego could write about anything that came to mind, no questions asked, no problem.

It got over. Let's face it, a hot chick is going to be popular. While the Joyride, and other things, got over mostly on the strength of my writing and strong point-of-view ... and my sarcastic attitude ... it was immeasurably helped by the fact that the person thought to be behind it all was an attractive female. I could pick up from scratch, with a new identity, try it again, and it would get over. Fact.

If I tried it myself, it might get over, but it would be a long uphill struggle in comparison. Fact.

Which brings me to today. You all know about the little cat, Ariel, by now, yes? Every afternoon we do the same thing. I get home from work, pull into my parking spot, Ariel emerges from the bushes or wherever she's been, and she'll wait for me in front of the car, and then she'll follow me to the door.

Today I was pulling in, and I saw Brittany, looking all hot and such, walking from the parking lot to the building. I pulled in, backed into my spot, and Ariel emerged from the bushes. Brittany had only just pulled in, and Ariel had not come out, and this was *her cat*. Granted, she may have ceded the cat to me in her impending departure from the building, but I pretty much stole the cat away from her months ago.

In the end, Stray Bullets is alive and well. The Joyride is dead and buried.

Shaun vs. hot chick. Who wins?

I do.

Virgorama

2008-09-17T18:36:00.000-05:00

I hate to lay a sports metaphor on you, Virgo, let alone one articulated by a hockey player. But it's such an apt description of the approach that will work best for you in the coming week, I had to bring it to your attention. "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been," quoth Wayne Gretzky. Apple CEO Steve Jobs liked those words so much, he made them his own when he introduced the iPhone to the public back in January 2007. Now I hope you will find a way to apply the idea in your own sphere.

Hmmmm. I like that. I like that a lot.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-09-15T21:40:00.002-05:00

I'll keep this brief, if only because I have to go to work tomorrow and need sleep, and I'm already pretty darn tired. Ok.

Yes. I am now officially 38. And I'm fine with that. Thirty-eight sounds like a good age to be. Next year, and especially the year after, the number change might be a more bitter pill to swallow, depending on where I am with my various long-range plans, but this year is easy.

My mom and dad came up. Dad and I went and played golf at the Newport course, which was new for both of us. He did pretty well. Aside from a few good hits, generally very good chipping, and one outstanding putt .... I was rubbish. Of course, I'm always rubbish, so I pretty much take that with a grain of salt. Going out there and playing awesome golf is not the point of the exercise for me anyway. The point is to hang out with my dad.

Then we all went to dinner at Salt Hill, and that was nice, too. I opened a few gifts, they went home, I watched about two hours of dvd while cozy on my couch, and now here I am.

Thanks to everyone who wished well on this holiday season. It was greatly appreciated.

I'll see you again tomorrow for the start of the new year.

So Then

2008-09-14T22:26:00.003-05:00

Ok, it isn't like I've been avoiding the blog on purpose. I started a post Friday night, but I wasn't feeling it, and I abandoned it. Same thing happened last night. I've just been a little out of sorts, maybe a little sad, and perhaps a little depressed. This isn't related to the birthday thing, because in fact my mom and dad are coming up tomorrow and we're going out to dinner. No, it's kind of a more general thing. And I could get into it, and I could discuss the whys and wherefores of it, but I don't want to. I'm just going to let it pass.

I also haven't been feeling great. Somewhere around the middle of last week the temperature took a sudden drop and my nose got all screwed up. Then the phlegm went and settled back in my throat again, and I've been coughing. And yesterday I just felt so tired. I didn't do much today either. So much for my big three-day weekend and all the things I wanted to do. Well, I did get a good amount of stuff done anyway, so it wasn't a total loss.

Yesterday was kind of a Hall of Fame day as far as my phone ringing. I got calls from Amy, Dan, Amanda, Lynne, my dad, and Jen. And except for my dad, who I called back this afternoon (I was out when he called last evening anyway), I blew everybody off. Amy called multiple times, and even showed up and knocked on the door, but I was half-dead and asleep. I had a dream that someone was ringing my doorbell only to half wake up and realize that someone actually was ringing my doorbell. I figured I knew who it was, and I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Nothing against her, because I like it when she comes over, but I felt like shit on a stick and just wasn't in a mood for company.

I'll snap out of it.

Birthday Plans

2008-09-11T21:57:00.003-05:00

Yeah. I don't have any.

Well, that isn't entirely true. I requested Monday off (the actual day) and was approved for it, restarting my tradition of not working on my birthday -- a 20 year tradition that came to a screeching halt last year. And we're not working Saturday this week, so that means I have a three day weekend with which I can do anything I want. So what do I want to do?

I know that for some of it, at least, I'll be holed up somewhere working on the book. I'm making arrangements to purchase a replacement laptop from my good friends in Florida, but I kinda wish I'd had that extra money weeks ago, because then I'd just lurk at Borders all day working on my stuff. Even so, there's enough for me to do in notebook work to keep me very busy for a while yet. There's always a Plan B.

I've been unusually popular lately. I'll probably try to slip under the Amy and/or Jen radar if possible, not that either of them would realize or remember that it's my birthday. Well, Amy might know. Jen won't. And one of them is my ex-girlfriend who drives me bananas, and the other is my not-girlfriend even though I wish that was different, and I don't want to be depressed about that. Not on my birthday.

I know, because she told me, that Lynne wants me to come down and see her, but I don't think this is the weekend to do that. I know that Dan and Amanda (Damanda?) will want to do something, and her brother Jason, my nephew, is back from Arkansas, so that's extra pressure. But I'll be honest, I'm not really feeling like that's what I want to do either.

There's still the family. Something could cook up there yet. It is early still. But people are understandably busy with other things right now, so it isn't a huge deal if we can't all get together this particular weekend. But I'll wait and see what happens.

I don't think this will happen, but even if *everyone* else in the world forgot, I'd still make a big deal out of my birthday, because that's just what I do. And I have many many tricks up my sleeve towards making this weekend completely awesome.

I just haven't decided what I want to do yet.

Fly on the Wall

2008-09-10T21:34:00.004-05:00

My apartment was invaded this evening, and the list of people who have been inside here has increased by one. Amy stopped by, along with her friends Natalia and Natasha. Natalia is the gangsta Mass chick who I've met before, has been here before, and who I went and picked up at the hospital one night a few weeks ago at Amy's special request. Natasha is new, although I've heard the name before. And that's where it gets interesting.

Natasha's father is this guy named Don. This Don guy is the guy who Jen was, and is currently, living with. The house where I went to see Jen a couple months back belongs to him, but he wasn't there then. Anyway, the two of them do not like each other. At all. So last week, as Amy was telling me, she and Natasha were over there, and Jen was there. And of course Amy and Jen didn't get along well either. I always wondered how the two of them would get on, and apparently my suspicions were confirmed. Girls of a feather do not always flock together.

My name came up, too, it seems. Jen, I guess, recognized Amy's name from the last time I talked to her ("Any action?" "No. Just one near miss."). "Aren't you friends with Shaun?" Jen asked. And Amy said, "Yeah. He's a good friend of mine. He's a real sweet guy." And this answer provoked a look that could kill, so I'm told. Boy, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for all that. Heh, and with a little coaching from me, Amy could get Jen all wound up really easily. I'd get some amusement out of that.

This Natasha girl is also someone that Cooter used to have a big crush on, and thought that once rid of Amy would go out with him. But apparently, and this is a *huge* shock to me, that is not so. She ended up on a cell phone call with him sometime last week during an Amy vs. Cooter debate, and again this is Amy telling me the story, but Natasha said, "You're just pissed because I wouldn't let you stick your little winkie where you wanted to." And that set Cooter off, and he started yelling into the phone, and when he yells he gets all high-pitched and squeaky (I've witnessed this at work), and MAN I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that, on either end of it.

Cooter's been pissing me off lately anyway. Last week he took a day off (his birthday; gee, I wonder where he got that idea) and then didn't show up the next day, and not only that, he didn't call in. So that afternoon Amy called me from McDonalds, where she was working, and asked if I could give her a lift home. It's only a six minute round trip for me, so I said sure. When I picked her up I asked, "So where's your worthless scumfuck boyfriend?" And she told me that he overslept and then just decided not to go in. And I almost lost it, and said he'd be lucky to have a fucking job the next day. So the next day when he showed up, he claimed to be sick, and said he called the guard shack and they must not have relayed the message and blah blah blah. Yeah, big fat lies. But what I'd said to Amy must have put a scare into him, so I may have inadvertantly helped save his job.

Damn it.

He's been better this week, though. Last week he was worthless and really pissed me off. The last couple days, though, he's been more helpful. I don't know why. It isn't like him.

I'd say I had something to do with it, but I don't know what.

Virgorama

2008-09-10T20:31:00.001-05:00

Surprise! You're not as fragile as you imagine. Now and then -- like the phase you're going through this September, for instance -- your health thrives if you push and stretch and test yourself harder than usual. So for the time being, Virgo, I urge you to proceed on the assumption that the most likely way to feel your best is to try things you've previously considered to be beyond your capacity.

Well, I think I can do that.

Ariel

2008-09-08T21:36:00.002-05:00

I got home last night and ran into the guy who's living with Brittany upstairs. When I pulled in, as usual, Ariel came out of the bushes and waited for me in front of my car, then followed me across the parking lot. When she saw whatshisname, though, she hung back. He mentioned to me that he and Brit are going to be moving at the end of the month, and then asked me about Ariel. He said that she hardly ever comes in, and that he can't get her to come near him, and they were thinking of leaving her behind, and thought maybe I'd like to have her. "Yeah," I said, playing it coy, "she does kinda follow me around." He mentioned that Brit's seen her with me and thought I would want her. So I said I'd have no problem looking after her.

Yeah, so my upstairs neighbors are going to be gone. No more Donkey Porno Girl and her Pistol Toting Thug making wild noise and shaking my ceiling. I think I might actually miss that a bit.

So it looks like the little cat might officially become mine. This is besides the point that Ariel pretty much adopted me four or five months ago, and she's pretty much been my de facto cat since the spring. Sure, I'll take her. I am pretty attached to the little girl, after all.

But this means I have to think through a few things. I don't have the back-up of her not "really" being my cat anymore, like when I take off for the weekends. I have to figure out what I'm going to do there. I can't just leave her out for a day or two, but she likes going outside so much that I can't just leave her locked in here for days either. I'ma have to think this out.

I also need to find out some other stuff, like how old she is, if she's been fixed, if she has her shots, and all that.

The thing I'm concerned about now is getting busted with her here with her actually belonging to me. My lease is up for renewel on November 1, and I'd really like to keep the place without any hassles.

But I couldn't say no either.

Nora

2008-09-07T21:53:00.003-05:00

So I went down to Colleen and Ian's yesterday and came back today. In the middle of that I met my brand new niece, Nora, and she is absolutely frikking adorable. I held her for a while, several times, most of which she slept through, and it was all just awesome. I could do that all day, I tell you.

She actually sleeps a lot, even for a baby. Most of the time we had to wake her up (or try to) so she could eat, and then it was back to sleep for her. She was awake for a good while this morning, and was alert and very well-behaved. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of fuss in her, at least not yet. The crying that there was didn't last all too long.

I really enjoyed myself.

This afternoon Colleen was busy upstairs for a while and Ian was grocery shopping, so grandma and I watched Nora for a few hours. During that I even floated the hypothetical bubble out there, saying "I should get myself one of these." And my mom agreed that yeah I should. So there's that. Now I just have to find a potential mother who isn't a complete sociopath, which isn't as easy as it sounds, sadly.

Anyway, this weekend was time very well spent.

Quickie Bits

2008-09-05T21:25:00.002-05:00

I'm getting a later start than planned, so again the anecdotal stuff will have to be pushed back to a later post. Instead I'm just going to hit a few notes tonight.

-- Tomorrow I'm heading over to Colleen's to visit, and to meet my brand new niece for the first time. My mom is over there already. My dad is home, having other obligations to tend to. I know how that is.

-- I had another blast from the past tonight. I answered the phone, somewhat late tonight, thinking it could be any one of four or five possible callers, but it was a new one into the mix: Lynne. Amanda asked last week if it was all right if she gave her mom my number, and I said it was. We talked for about half an hour. It was a pretty nice conversation overall.

-- Cooter is a scumfuck. Remind me to get into that more next time.

-- I can't stay late because we're working tomorrow morning. It's my first Saturday in ... hell, it's been so long I can't even remember. They cut our hours way back months ago, but it looks as though things are picking up again. We've already been told to expect to work Fridays from here out. I was wondering when Saturdays might get thrown back into the mix, and here's the first one.

-- Today I earned a shitload of respect through my complete badassery at work while bolt-fitting extremely difficult guns -- guns that were way more difficult than they needed to be, due to a machining error. I'll talk about that more next time, but I just wanted to throw that in, because I'm a badass.

-- I also wanted to add that Guinevere is completely kick-ass. Your comment in response to last night's navel-gazing post was very highly appreciated.

Ok. Off to bed with me!

52 Pick-Up

2008-09-04T21:55:00.003-05:00

Ever have one of those posts where there's so many things on your mind to talk about that you're afraid you're going to forget some of the threads along the way? This one is kind of like that. It's going to be a post made up out of a lot of small things, many of which are connected in strange ways, and we'll see where it goes.

Ok then.

*****

It's no secret to those who know me that somwhere in the early 90's I spun out into a self-destructive cycle that lasted, well, until last year. For fifteen years, even in the "good times" I was never far away from slipping completely off the cracker my cheese was precariously balanced upon. No matter what I did, I could not pull it together, and to be honest ... most of the time I wasn't even trying.

What caused that downward spiral and continuous circling of the drain to come to a stop is also well-worn territory in this blog, so I won't rehash any of that now, and that isn't really the point anyway. The point is, though, that last year I broke the cycle and started to get better. It wasn't a quick fix by any means, and I'm still working on it to this day. But I believe I have reached a point where, for the most part, people in the know aren't as worried about me as maybe they used to have to be.

But, through no doing of my own, the world has irrevocably changed once again, and this time for the better. On September 2nd of this year there was a beautiful new addition to the world, one who changes everything from here on out. I haven't met her yet, but I've seen pictures, and they just leave me speechless. Sometimes the universe at large is fair and just.

I have to be worthy of my place in this new arrangement.

So it's lucky that I had a year's headstart to get me where I need to be.

*****

There's always a fragile house of cards as far as the things that go through my mind, and right now is no exception.

I haven't met my new niece yet, and in fact I haven't even connected up with Colleen yet since the day. She did call here that night, but I was on the couch dead to the world after bombing myself with some medicine, after returning from Massachusetts feeling under the weather *yet again*. She was at the hospital then. She came home, I think, today, and I'll most likely call her tomorrow. But the bizarre telephone phobia glitch in my brain is screwing me up.

I never think I'm any good on the phone. Maybe it's the number of dead calls I've had when I'm the caller that causes the glitch, because I'm usually good when the call is incoming. I always think that if I'm calling someone I have to have some point to it or I'm just wasting their time, which is ridiculous considering I'm talking about my own sister here, who probably thinks more of me than just about nearly anyone on the planet. But I don't want to crowd her either. She's got this whole new situation going on, there's a lot to deal with, other people are probably all over her all the time, and I just don't want to be in the way.

That's a key idea here, and applied across the board it explains a lot about me. I don't want to be in the way. I don't want to be an imposition ... to anyone. Ever. That's been true since I was five years old and was over my friend Brian's house in Agawam. Him mom asked if I wanted to stay for dinner, and I responded -- and this is really a direct quote -- "I don't want to impose". Of course, she thought that was silly, like most people do, but it's never gone away, and I'm not even sure where it came from in the first place. But it's always there.

As far as the baby goes, of course I want to see her, and of course I want to be as involved as possible, but I'm willing to be patient and wait my turn. I'm not going to be a nuisance about it. But I'm also afraid of being pushed to the wayside -- not by my sister -- by forces beyond my control. I don't even know how to explain this one really so that it makes any sense. I'm afraid of not being able to establish the close niece-uncle connection that I desire to have. You know, I want to be the 'cool' uncle that's always there when she needs me, who maybe she calls when she's in a jam and doesn't know who else to talk to about it, who can help influence her interests in ... well ... whatever she's interested in. I mean, just because she's a girl, that doesn't mean she's going to be all Barbie dolls or whatever kids like these days. I'm going to really pay attention and try to encourage her in whatever things she decides she likes, whatever they are. That's what I want to be.

I just have to figure out how to not get in my own way.

*****

I kind of lost my train of thought here.

There was a whole thing about my place in the family at large and how I think other people perceive me, and how that perception affects how I see myself, and how that affects how much or how little I'm able to fit in with people, but I'm not sure where it was going, so I think that little summary is sufficient. I have a hard time fitting in *anywhere*. That's always been true. As much as I hate to be alone, I am generally more comfortable by myself, possibly because I can control the environment without other people trying to control it for me. I'm usually the outsider in any gathering, not always by my choice, but that tends to be my default setting. And I'm not insinuating that other people cause this to happen (although sometimes they do). I'm saying that I cause it to happen by being shy or awkward, or not knowing what to say or do in social situations. It's a pain in the ass.

It's easier with my friends, because those are relationships that I've established on my own. It's always been harder in the larger family setting. My small core family group isn't a problem. It's when the others, outside of the six of us now, come into play. And it's when I start to feel a bit black-sheepish. Sure, there are other cousins of mine that are much further along the black sheep path than I am, but the long downward spiral took a big toll on my psyche, and even though I am much improved compared to where I used to be, I still feel invisible to most of them. I'm just sort of there.

Is anybody actually reading this part? I'm not even sure why I'm including this along with the rest of the post. I guess I just feel like chewing my toenails for a bit. There isn't really a point I'm working towards or anything.

Anyway, you can probably see that delicate house of cards that's set up in my brain, and how little it takes for one of those cards to fall over and cause a chain reaction that doesn't leave me feeling very well.

You know what one of my biggest fears is? That if or when I'm able to pull off the Endgame that I so desperately want to happen, all the people that were so happy about Colleen's announcement earlier this year (and anytime one of the cousins has a similar announcement) won't feel the same way if or when it's my turn. This is not anything to do with my sis, because I honestly believe she's the greatest among all the cousins on either side of the family (and that isn't just bias talking; I can prove that with algebra). No, it isn't anything to do with her.

It's to do with me. Colleen's proven herself time and again. I feel that I will face much greater scrutiny. And because of that long period of drain-circling, that's probably fair. I haven't proven myself the way she has, and even though my mom and dad both have seen and remarked on the vast improvements in my attitudes and moods over the past year, I really don't know how they would react to that kind of news from me. And that does worry me a bit. Because I fully intend to try and make it happen come hell or high water.

*****

Ok, so this post went in an entirely different direction than I expected it would when I started it. I have a shitload of other anecdotal stuff that was supposed to work it's way in here, but I guess that'll be tomorrow's post.

In the meantime, I have some work to do.

Virgorama

2008-09-03T21:34:00.002-05:00

Pregnant giraffes give birth standing up. Babies arrive in their new environment with a jolt, hitting the ground after plummeting six feet. Although they were fairly safe before, upon leaving the womb they are in danger of being preyed upon by animals like leopards and hyenas, which wouldn't dare attack their giant mothers. I'm thinking there's a resemblance between the newborn giraffes and a new project you're working on, Virgo. Its initial splash into the world may be a bit rocky and fraught with dicey challenges. But I'm here to say that if you're a vigilant caretaker in the early going, it will grow to maturity.

Huh.

Strange timing on the metaphor they used.

Now, I could take that as a literal new project I'm going to work on ... whatever that may be.

Or I could take that as meaning a longterm project I intend to get deadly serious about in the coming year.

I don't know which.

It's a Girl

2008-09-02T23:28:00.002-05:00

So Colleen had her baby this morning. It was a girl. Her name is Nora Catharine. And apparently, according to grandma, she is beautiful.

Sis went into the hospital sometime around 3AM, because y'know kids are like that. I got a call from my mom at 4:30 AM, but I was in the shower and didn't hear the phone, and had no reason to think the phone would have rang after I got out, so I went to work. I would have had to go to work anyway today, because if I didn't I wouldn't get paid for yesterday, and I really need to get paid for yesterday. Stupid responsibilities.

So when I got home this afternoon I discovered the pair of messages. I guess Nora arrived sometime around 10:30 or 11:00ish, and everybody's doing fine. I talked to my dad for a bit. My mom was zonked out on the couch, and Colleen and Ian were at the hospital (obviously). I was somewhat exhausted and not feeling great (again!), so I zonked out on my own couch until about half an hour ago.

I can't wait to see my little niece.

She wasn't due until like the 10th. It isn't like Colleen to be early. My guess is that Nora, being a Virgo, decided to show up early.

Uncle Shaun. That will just never get old.

Unplanned Side Trips

2008-09-01T20:55:00.003-05:00

So here we are in September again, which begins my favorite time of the year (now through Halloween). Traditionally, the fall is a good time of rebirth and redirection for me, and I'm hoping that proves true this year because I am in need of just that. That isn't to say that things are going badly -- they aren't -- but I need more. I want more. And I'm going to get more.

All right. Let's talk about the weekend. I started this three-day weekend not really knowing what I wanted to do with it. There were pressures from the near-South to come down there, and I never committed to it one way or the other. I spent Friday night hanging around here, then went out for a bit, got in a bit late, and watched some Samurai Jack until I passed out on the couch. That doesn't sound like much, but in my book that's a pretty good Friday night.

On Saturday morning I went down to Keene. There's a decent comic store there, and since my the LCS (local comic store) in Claremont is no more, I have to do a little travelling now to get things I want. But I was out of luck. They didn't have what I was looking for. They already have one thing on order for me that should come in now or whenever (seriously, I never have good luck with a LCS ordering me shit), and instead of going that way again, I decided to head to Modern Myths in Noho, and yes they did have what I wanted. Then I found the made for TV Teen Titans movie at Barnes & Noble, which caps off my recent Titans marathon, so it was success all around.

Then what? I was already in Mass, so I debated whether or not to stop and see Dan, knowing if I did that I'd get sucked in at least until Sunday. But if I didn't, the pressure would be even bigger to go down next weekend, and I'm already thinking I want next weekend left open. So I drove all the way from Hadley to Greenfield still debating it, and I almost didn't stop, but then I did.

He wasn't there, but his mom was, and she let me in. Dan was out with Amanda on a cigarette run to NH and would be back. Apparently, the two of them have been hanging out a lot lately, and are also apparently circling into being an item. Who else saw that coming? Is it just me? Maybe because Dan liking a girl he comes into contact with is almost a given. I don't know if that sounds cynical, but it shouldn't -- it just happens. That, however, is complicated by this guy Dave, who lives at that house as Amanda's "best friend". He's fairly protective of her in some ways, but was also present during the recent attack by Amanda's now ex-fiance, and doesn't seem to have done a great job of protecting her. Like I was saying to Guin last week, if I'd been there for that I would have definitely gotten in the way. Not that I'm a super-badass or anything, but he'd have had to go through me first to get to her, and I would have done my best to put him out. And Dan? Shit, there wouldn't be anything left of that guy but the fillings in his teeth.

So anyway, I forsee some complications. During our first recent conversation, when I was asking Dan what he knew about Amanda, he described her as "a cock-tease". His words, not mine. I know she isn't perfect, I know what family she comes from, and I know she's had a shitty life, but those aren't words I would ever use to describe the girl. Whether or not they're accurate is another story. But the real complication is this Dave guy. He does like Amanda. That's obvious. The notion of who is using who in that household for what is another subject I'm not going to delve into. I like Dan, I like Amanda, and what they do is fine with me. I'm indifferent towards Dave (I don't know him, and he's annoying), so if my old buddy needs advice from his tag-team partner how to get around this obstacle, I can put my evil brain to work. I have nothing against this kid, but I know from experience that it is a cold hard fact that the whole three-person band thing will only lead to misery ... and especially if two of the three components are guys. I've seen it go down with two chicks liking the same guy, too, but when two guys are after the same girl it is always much more disasterous.

So they got back and we hung out at Dan's mom's for a while and then went down to Amanda's house, which is really the Old Crafts Family Home, which I'm oh so familiar with, which Amanda is renting off of her mom. She and Lynne aren't getting along, at all, and I could probably add some commentary to the whys and wherefores, but that's a subject for another time. Anyway, we all hung out there all night, drinking and such, and it was pretty fun ...

...
...
...
...but as much as I like those two, *just* hanging out isn't really my thing. I'm trying to figure out if that's a more recent thing due to how ferociously independant I've become since the Jude disaster, or if I've always been that way. I kind of think I was also that way in the old days, but it's less glaring if I have a relationship partner in the mix. I think that's true. I mean, when I was with Jen I could *just* hang out with her no problem, and I wasn't thinking about the million other things I wanted to do, because I enjoyed her company. And while I do enjoy their company down there, I can't stop thinking about all the million other things I want to do.

Although, there is one difference. With Jen I kind of had to enjoy whatever time was available to me. Those two want me to be there all the time. If it was up to them, I'd be down there every weekend. And Amanda mentioned to me that she wants me to move back down there, and would even make room for me in that house if I needed it. That's sweet, but I just can't do that. The forces of the universe have deposited me here in Newport, and there's a reason for it, and I'm going to figure out what it is. Going back to Mass at this point would be a regression on all the progress I've made with myself, too, and I just can't do that either.

I did have fun. I can't do it all the time. People just have to understand that, or at least respect it. Because I'm going to be stubborn on that point.

Which is why I was adamant about going back on Sunday. They wanted me to stay over until today, but I insisted I had to come back because "I have some things I have to do". I didn't really specify what they were. It was really more of an escape hatch for me to get out of there.

As complicated as this is, when I do find Little Miss Right, she's going to end up throwing a huge monkey wrench into the works. A lot of people right now are trying to pull me every-which-a-way, but the introduction of my next girlfriend is going to change everything.

See if she doesn't.

That Personality Test Thing

2008-08-30T07:10:00.002-05:00

So Guinevere sent me this four question personality test via e-mail, and I took it. The results were fairly interesting, at least to me, and so I'm going to write it up here. If you haven't taken the test yet, don't read this post first because it'll spoil it, and if you're going to take the test it should be done clean. I know that because the test itself told me that about 40 freaking times before I could get to the first question, to the point where I thought they were testing how many times I'd sit through the same instruction before I went batshit crazy. Anyway, I'll put up the results without further comment from me, and y'all can interpret them as you wish.

(Also, sorry I missed your call last night. Judging from the called ID, I stepped out about four minutes before the phone rang, and got back late.)

*****

Question One: Arrange these animals in order of importance.
--Tiger (represents pride)
--Sheep (represents love)
--Horse (represents family)
--Pig (represents money)
--Cow (represents career)

Question Two: Choose a word that describes your feelings on the following words.
--Dog = loyal (represents your own personality)
--Cat = friend (represents the personality of your partner)
--Rat = dirty (represents the personality of your enemies)
--Coffee = hot (how you interpret sex)
--Sea = scary (how you interpret your own life)

Question Three: Associate a name with the following colors.
--Yellow = Jen (someone you will never forget)
--Orange = Guinevere (someone you consider a true friend)
--Red = Dan (someone you really love)
--White = Colleen(your twin soul)
--Green = Amy (someone you will remember the rest of your life)

And then question four was just favorite number (5) and favorite day of the week (Friday), which only tie in to the chain-letter aspect of the test.

Some of those were kind of leading (how many different things can you really say for Coffee?), but I find my answer for Sea extremely telling.

Gosh.

What's in a Name Anyway?

2008-08-28T20:57:00.003-05:00

I've probably covered this first part already, but I don't care because I feel like writing about it. That's how it goes here, y'know?

Miranda didn't have a name for three years, not until the fall of 1995 when I decided she really ought to have a proper name. Because, you know, imaginary ghost babies should have names. It was some night in September. Dan, Candy, and I were at the Big E. She was extremely pregnant, so much so that she went into labor pains while we were there. An ambulance was called, and she was taken to Baystate. Dan and I followed at high speed soon after. It turned out to be false labor, but I still ended up cooling my heels in the waiting area for a few hours in the wee hours of the night. And my mind turned to "the baby", and it struck me that she really deserved to have a name. I found a piece of paper and I started brainstorming names that I really liked, names that I believed Erin would have liked, and played around with several combinations before narrowing it down to a short list of my favorite names, and then deciding on Miranda. The double middle name thing happened because I couldn't decide between two, so I made it Miranda Jane Kristen. Jane because I like it; Kristen because it's my sister's middle name.

Ally and Evie named themselves. They appeared to me in a dream several years ago, already named such. I'm guessing those names are short for Allison and Evelyn, but I don't have all the information there. Given what I've come to believe about the twins, I decided that those names have to remain cannonical.

Nova, the hypothetical "ghost of Christmas yet to come" (so to speak), came about because my thoughts frequently travel to this girl who may yet come to exist, and I have to call her something. And Nova works, if only because it's fairly unlikely that I'll name the actual girl that. And so she remains the idea.

I've been thinking about names lately. One thing that I firmly believe in, and will not be swayed away from, is that she needs to have a good name, and on top of that a name that is easily spelled ... by others. Last X-mas my sister was talking about how people frequently screw up her last name on things (it's our same last name; she retained it when she married). So I replied, "I know what you mean. Try having two names like that."

I like my name, yes, but there is a degree of difficulty in having a first and last name that no one -- and I mean, no one -- can ever manage to spell correctly unless they've known me for approximately five years, and even then it's still dicey. The correct spelling of my first name is never higher than third on the list of options, if people have heard of it at all. I have had several occassions when after 'Sean' and 'Shawn' are rejected that I just get a blank stare, as if those were the only two possible guesses at that name. In elementary school, when everybody would pass around Valentines to everybody else, I used to get amazing mutant spelling attempts at my name. The last name is a little easier, but everyone -- EVERYONE -- wants to add that pesky 'a' to it. It's gotten to the point where when I apply for something in person or over the phone, I say my name and then automatically start to spell it for them. It just saves time.

So in naming my future child, all of this is foremost on my mind. It's going to be a 'classic' name, like Miranda, simple and easy to spell. No Jennifer with a G. No Amy with an ie. No Melissa with a y. She's already going to have the last name issue. There's no need to make it more difficult.

Right now Erica is the top contender.

Sarah is not far behind.

I also really like Emily.

I haven't even started on the middle name combination thing. Going with the double middle name, however, remains a strong possibility.

Virgorama

2008-08-27T21:10:00.000-05:00

"I have dreamed in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas," wrote Emily Bronte in Wuthering Heights. "They have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind." One of your main assignments in the coming week, Virgo, is to identify a dream that can work that kind of magic on you. If there is no such dream currently seeded in your imagination, find a new one to plant there.

I know what it is.

Yes. I do.

To be (sick) or not to be (sick)

2008-08-27T19:02:00.003-05:00

Well, long story short, I was once again feeling under the weather Monday and Tuesday for reasons unknown. It wasn't as bad as last week, but I was still tired and down and out, and not in the mood to do much of anything at all. And so, once again, I didn't do anything at all. Today, though, I felt much better at work. So rejuvenated was I that I bolt-fit like a motherfucker and crushed the numbers hard. My plan for after work was to catch up on a whole bunch of stuff, especially internet related, but you know how my best laid plans tend to go, huh?

First, Amy stopped over so she could check her mail, and she ended up staying for about two hours, so that threw my timetable off. But, get this: no Becky Effect. That's right. I even realized it wasn't happening while she was here, and I tried to figure out why not, but it just wasn't. Huh. I guess when I'm sick it screws up the whole insatiable crush chip in my brain. It'll be back.

Then later on Dan called, and since I hadn't talked to him in about four days I picked up. And I talked to him for a while, then Amanda, then him again, and then Amanda (she was over there). And now here we are, approaching bedtime, and once again this blog kinda gets left behind in all the craziness. Well, I tried.

More tomorrow.

Shaun of the (not quite) Dead

2008-08-24T16:17:00.004-05:00

So there I was not feeling well last week, and even though I started turning the corner on that Thursday, my will to do just about anything was still drained from me like I was a dying car battery. But having now pulled myself together, let's try to catch up to as many of the dangling threads I've left in this blog as I possibly can. Ok, here we go.

Let's go back to last weekend. I did make a return visit to Massachusetts, even though I had a few reservations stemming from the first visit. There was a WWE PPV scheduled for Sunday night, and I'd already agreed to attend even before my first visit south. So I went down to Dan's on Friday night. We got out early that Friday, but I wasted the afternoon napping and got off to a later start than planned. There was still stuff I needed to do here before I left, and by the time I got out the door it was already almost 8 PM. I got there around 10ish. The nap probably did me well, as we stayed up past 4 in the morning watching wrestling dvds and playing X-Box. All in all, though, I felt more relaxed this time. I think the first weekend was somewhat mitigated by the years it had been since I'd last seen Dan, and not knowing what to expect, and so forth. Even so, I couldn't help but think about the things here that I wanted to do, and I couldn't help but worry about the slippery slope of him wanting me to come down every weekend, and what I was going to do about that.

Saturday I broke off for a while to go play golf with my dad. It was my usual decent but not spectacular game. But the point of it is not to kill myself over how lousy my golfing can be at times (like I used to do), but to hang out with my dad. Looking at it from that perspective, the outing was a success. After that we met my mom at Taylor's for dinner. They mentioned that they were going to Colleen's on Sunday, and I would have gone along, but I'd already committed myself to the PPV. Those kinds of choices used to kill me, but going by the Rule of Previous Committment gets me by without excess mental stress. I guess I'm getting somewhere with myself and my random foibles, huh?

On Sunday we went back to visit Amanda again. It was a nice visit, like the first one, and I spent a lot of time making goo-goo faces at her little baby. The boyfriend Mark, like the first time, spent the whole time out of sight. Since then there's been big developments to this story, but we'll get back to that.

So we got back to Dan's, his mom made dinner, and we watched Summerslam. It was a pretty good, if not outstanding, show, and I really enjoyed it. That was my first WWE ppv since that night Adam and I went and watched Wrestlemania 19 up at the Lebanon airport bar back five years ago. This could turn into a regular thing, but I don't know that yet. As I had to be at work the next morning, I took off right after the ppv. This was kind of a trial run for this. I didn't know if I was going to just stay up and go to work or try to crash for a few hours, and if this didn't work out ... future pay per views for me were probably not going to happen. I burned home quick and was in the door by 12:30, earlier than I anticipated. So I crashed and got some sleep. Good plan, because I was wiped.

When I left I told Dan I had to leave the next weekend open, depending on numerous factors, even though I already knew by then that I was going to take the next weekend off. He's just very eager to hang out, and I do feel guilty about there being such a long gap (even though that guilt won't last forever), and deep down I just really hate disappointing people. Of course, I didn't count on getting sick either.

I already covered that pretty much. I still don't know what sparked it, but by mid-Monday morning I was really feeling low. I turned the corner on it sometime Thursday, but I'm still not 100%. My focus on things, for instance, is still fuzzy at best. Thursday night, even though I was feeling better, I still didn't feel like doing anything, including posting in here, and I just browsed the Rama boards for a while, watched some dvds, and went to bed.

Friday we worked. It seems as though they're trying to work Fridays back in as a regular thing, and while I'd gotten accustomed to having that extra day off, I really really want the money. So no complaints about that. Hell, I'd come in Saturday mornings again, too, if they offered them. And what a slow day Friday was. Mike decided not to run our line, so I spent the entire day working on repairs for the 10/22 line. But wait, you say, I don't know anything about that line. True. But after a shaky start I started to pick up on switching out the bolts and/or guide rods, and got fairly decent at it. Still, though, very very boring day.

That night I felt so good that I just had to go out. I went over to Lebanon and enjoyed myself for several hours, got home very late, and went to bed.

I'd been incommunicado all week. On Thursday I think it was, I was out of it and missed Amy knocking on my door. I dimly remember there being knocking, but there was no way I was getting up to answer it. Sorry.

Saturday. I mostly kept to myself. I went out for a little while, did a lot of my own stuff, and tried to get myself back into the swing of things. While I've been mostly successful in that, the book has not come back into it yet. It's there in my brain, wanting to be worked on, but my focus hasn't sharpened up enough. Yet. I'm determined to hit it really hard this coming week, though.

That evening I broke the incommunicado via telephone thing when I called Dan back. Even though he knew I was sick, he had called several times during the week and I just never got back to him, because 1) I was sick, and 2) if he made me laugh anytime between Monday and Thursday I would have coughed myself to an early grave. There was something from one of his messages, though, that I really did want to have some conversation on. It concerned Amanda.

She and Mark are quits. On Thursday (I think; the week has all swirled together in my brain now) he got violent and beat the crap out of her. I'm talking like black eye, bruised arms, broken finger kind of assholery. She did fight back, though, because she's hardcore. If you can try and take on my ex-wife at seven years old, chances are you're going to grow up to be pretty tough. Anyway, he's in jail now and she has a restraining order on him. That girl just has shit luck with guys, I tell you, and it pisses me off. And she's a girl that I put up on a pedestal pretty close to where my sister is, so if that had happened when I'd been there I think I would have tried my best to put him in the hospital (and Dan ... Jesus Christ, there might have been nothing left but the fillings in Mark's teeth).

When I called, Amanda was out shopping with Dan's mom. They've started to get kinda close, which I think is good. Her relationship with her own mom is somewhat strained, and Dan's mom is just straight up awesome all the time. And it's good that she has people around to turn to. They came in and Amanda got on the phone with me. She sounded pretty good, considering, and we talked for about fifteen minutes. I wish I could do more for her, but I don't know what to do. If I can be like the one person she never has to worry about screwing her over, maybe that's what I can do. It's kind of like what Jen said once when we were summarizing our relationship before the first split: "Maybe you were there to prove to me that nice guys actually *do* exist." Without getting into a whole Jen thing, again, if that's what my part was in it, that isn't so bad.

Anyway, we're all the way around back to today. I'm posting in here again, talking to Guinevere on chat, and while the book hasn't yet come back ... that's more than enough for me today.

Things are almost back to normal.

A Couple Things

2008-08-20T20:24:00.002-05:00

1. Guin, I read your awesome e-mail, and I'm going to write back ... probably tomorrow, when my brain isn't quite so overloaded and tired. You deserve a better response than I could write right now.

2. There is still a last Weekend Update post coming, but see #1 as to why that hasn't been written yet.

3. This little obsession I have with dragging my ass to work even when I feel like crap might be the death of me someday. Yesterday on the way home from work I spotted a guy on skis following me. And I spotted a pale, pretty goth looking chick hanging around in the backyard. So I was a little worried for a bit. Damn you, Lori Morningstar. Stop making me feel guilty.

4. My general unavailability via phone or instant messenger is due to my recent under-the-weatherness, if only because I'm a bit unpleasant to be around right now. Also, I'm going to bed in about 4 minutes. I expect (demand!) to be better tomorrow.

Um, that's it.

Not Little Guy

2008-08-20T20:12:00.003-05:00

Also, my faith in humanity has been somewhat restored.

You've heard the story of the little cat who comes to visit me, even though he belongs to the girl upstairs. And you know that I let the cat stay as long as he wants, that I feed the cat, and that I've been concealing this fact as best as possible from the same girl upstairs. And for weeks now I've grown more and more convinced that the little guy was out there on his own, and would be ... if not for me. I convinced myself that she wasn't taking care of the cat and didn't care about it, and the circumstantial evidence was there. The cat is almost always outside when I get here, day or night, and he was such a skinny, scrawny thing that it's hard to believe anyone was feeding it.

Late Sunday night I looked for the little cat in case it was out there somewhere. I opened the door and he came down from up the stairs, and was still chewing up some food. I thought that was odd, but didn't investigate. The next afternoon he also followed me in, but when leaving he turned and went up the stairs. Now I was curious. I walked halfway up the stairs and saw a little pink dish with some catfood and water outside of Brittany's door. I have to say, that did please me.

So Monday night I'm getting back from the store. As I walk up to the sidewalk, Brittany is there smoking a butt, and the little cat is sitting perched on the railing. I figured there was no time better than the present to find out a couple things.

I asked her if that was her cat. She said it was.

I asked his name. She said it was 'Ariel'. It's a girl cat.

Then she said, "I do feed her, I swear. She just likes to be outside. She eats and then scratches at the door to leave." Then she added something about Ariel coming to visit me often (perhaps that other neighbor lady who saw the cat come in that afternoon said something?) and apologized. I told her that was no problem at all. I didn't specify how often Ariel visits me or how long she tends to stay ... or that she has her own food dish in my apartment, though.

But it was good to find out that Brittany does care about the little cat after all, and that she isn't the douchebag I was starting to believe she was.

Once in a while my faith in people is rewarded.

Virgorama

2008-08-20T20:11:00.001-05:00

"The advantage of the incomprehensible is that it never loses its freshness," wrote French poet Paul Valery. From that perspective, Virgo, I bet you'll be sparkling and brisk in the coming days. You will be cheeky and saucy, crisp and rosy, bright and well-ventilated. There'll be so much delightfully hard-to-understand novelty flowing your way that you will be awakened again and again and again, rising to a higher level of awareness each time.

I hope this corresponds with some feeling better.

Sick Day +1

2008-08-20T20:02:00.003-05:00

So the next day I felt even worse. I woke up all right, except for some indigestion, but I got gradually worse over the course of the morning. I was coughing still and I felt weak, especially in the arms. It was such that I considered ditching and going home early. I managed to stick it out, but by god was that idea tempting. After lunch I felt reasonably better, but even so I kept my eye on the goal: get home and camp out on the couch with my good friends Dr. Who, Samurai Jack, and the Teen Titans. And that's all I did.

I crashed there for a while. Then I went to the store, came home, and crashed again until sometime in the middle of the night. There was no visible clock from the couch, so I was afraid it might be really late into the morning, and I really really wanted to get more sleep. I was even considering calling in. Believe me, if we were still talking about LSI I'd have called out in a frikking heartbeat without even thinking about it.

It was only 1:50 in the morning, meaning I had plenty of time to crawl in here and get some more shut-eye. But first I chugged some Day-Quil (I was afraid to use Ny at that time of the morning for fear I wouldn't get up on time), and it seemed to do the trick as I woke up later on covered in sweat .... but feeling much much better. And at work I was feeling better, too. I still have a nagging cough, but it's going away.

These symptoms and such here are exactly like what I had last February that kicked my ass (except no sore throat this time). That corresponds to the last time I tried to kick that dirty little habit of mine. In fact, the only time I felt better yesterday was when I experimented and had one ... and it cleared me up. That is just the definition of unfair.

Although, I've only had three in the past 48 hours, so if I can get through this without them, I should be good.

Let's hope so.

Sick Day

2008-08-18T21:47:00.002-05:00

So I owe this thing a few posts, and we will get caught up, but not today. Today I'm taking a sick day. The big weekend wrap-up will come tomorrow.

I felt fine when I woke up, if not a little tired, but that's no biggie. Then I started getting a small headache around 6, and it kept on until it grew into quite a sizeable headache. Added to that, I started feeling a little dizzy and then my stomach started doing flip-flops. During most of the afternoon I thought I might throw up, but I never did. And of course I kept on at work, like always, because I do not take sick time unless it's absolutely necessary. It was, however, a very very long day. My only goal was to get out of there, come home, and crash on the couch with some dvds. And that's what I did.

I didn't even make it through a whole Teen Titans episode before my eyelids were so heavy I couldn't even attempt to keep them open. So I blanked out there. Then I came in there and blanked out further. While I was out I missed a call from Amy. Aw shucks. The rest of the world will have to fend for themselves today -- I'm under the weather.

I feel much better now, though.

Tidbits

2008-08-14T22:38:00.004-05:00

In getting back in touch with some of my in-laws, Amanda and Terri in particular, I've found out some things.

Let's start with X. First of all, it's getting increasingly hard to refer to her with that single initial. When I'm talking about her with Dan, Terri, or Amanda, using her real name is just unavoidable. There's no way around it. But I'm still not going to use it here.

Anyway, she's apparently back in North Carolina. I'd learned from Amanda that she was living with Terri not two years ago, and fearing an accidental run-in while down there sometime, I asked Terri what she knew. I guess X had worn out her welcome, you know, like she tends to do, was a pain in the ass, and according to Terri said some "horrible things" to her son. I don't doubt that for a second. While Lynne might be a little "conceited" (that's Terri's words, not mine), Troy can be a leech, and Terri is a nuisance at worst, the Other One is pure evil and not to be trusted. Now granted, she's my ex-wife and I'm biased on the subject, but if you don't believe me, ask *anyone*. Ask anyone who's met her. Ask her own freaking family. To a person, they will back up my opinion.

Apparently, she's also lost a lot of weight, but Terri says that's mostly due to the crack usage. That also doesn't surprise me at all. She never let me see her using hard drugs, but I did suspect. I suspected when the money I gave her to pay bills ended up paying nothing. I really suspected this one afternoon after she and Crystal had a big fight, Crystal threw her out, and X came home and was completely apeshit bananas over it. And I mean completely apeshit bonkers compared to how she usually was. I was so sketched out by that I abandoned ship and went up to Shannon's apartment and hung out there as late as I could (I'd known Shannon maybe two weeks at this point). My theory then was: she's desperate for a fix and having a total fucking meltdown. I bet I was right.

I am curious to see what the smaller version of X looks like, however. Not curious enough to seek her out. Maybe somebody has a picture of this.

She's down in NC with some guy. Terri mentioned a name, but I don't remember it. It wasn't a name name, though. It was some kind of redneck hillbilly nickname kind of thing. Terri says that he's an asshole and beats her, but she goes back again and again to him. Now, I don't condone this sort of thing, but in this one case *only*, I find there to be some sort of ironic justice at work in the universe. In my eyes, she deserves whatever she gets.

Meanwhile, Troy is living in Pennsylvania, has cancer, and it sounds bad. That sucks. He isn't really a bad guy. He's actually very charming and personable ... when he isn't on cocaine or out of his mind drunk. I've had to deal with him that way a couple times, and it wasn't fun. This one night he showed up drunk at his mom's house while X and me were living there. It was like the middle of the night. He got into it with his mom, X went down to try and sort it out, and I tried to sit it out while listening in the doorway. But he got abusive, so I had to intervene, and it ended up with me putting him on the floor and holding him in a headlock until he promised to behave .... oh, and I made him apologize to his mother, too. Other than that, though, I never had a problem with the guy.

Terri mentioned to her mom that she'd been in touch with me. Lois then went on about how she always liked me and that I was the best thing that happened to X, and that she was stupid for screwing it up. I always liked Lois. Best mother-in-law ever.

While visiting with Amanda she brought up a story that I'd forgotten all about. This goes back to 1992, not long after I'd met Lynne and Amanda, and almost directly after the Bad Thing happened, so suffice to say I was a walking trainwreck. Anyway, we were over at Lynne's, and X had one of her blow-ups. I don't remember what it was about, and I only have vague memories of it, but it was big. It kind of erupted into a scene where X got violent towards me, throwing punches and whatnot, because she could be like that, and Amanda -- all of 7 years old -- jumped in and tried to pull X off. "You leave my uncle alone RIGHT NOW!" Remember that Amanda was a tiny girl, and X was a monster. I'd forgotten this completely, but listening to Amanda tell the story brought it back clear as day. That girl is my motherfucking hero.

Naturally, back in those days, I had opportunities to return the favor. There was a week where Jason and Amanda were staying with us in Greenfield. Again, I don't know what sparked it, but X went off the deep end and was *pissed* at the both of them over some stupid thing, and it was clear to me that she intended some violence. And I got in her way and made it clear in no uncertain terms that she was going to touch them over my dead body. And that time she backed down.

So that's one Crowning Moment of Awesome for Amanda, one for me. Unfortunately, I couldn't help her with Charlie, but that sonofabitch's day will come. Karma is one bad motherfucker, and I know that for certain.

I guess my ex-wife knows that, too.

Dilemna

2008-08-13T21:52:00.002-05:00

There is an issue at work that has all my friends divided. As usual, I can see both sides of the issue, and they both have a good point to be made.

Some of my friends at work think Cooter is an annoying jackass.

Other of my friends at work think Cooter is a lazy worthless fuck.

How are we ever going to work this out?

Brothers! Sisters! COME TOGETHER.

Can't we just agree, perhaps, that Cooter is an annoying worthless fuckass?

It seems easy enough, doesn't it?

----
with apologies to the late Bill Hicks.

Virgorama

2008-08-13T20:45:00.002-05:00

Do you believe in invisible things? No? You say you only trust information that comes to you through your five senses? Then what's your position on radio waves, infrared light, electricity, and X-rays? Do you believe in them, even though your senses have no contact with them whatsoever? It's true that scientists have developed instruments that detect those invisible things. But what if there are other hidden forces and secret energies the scientists have yet to develop instruments to find? Let these thoughts be the starting point for your meditations in the coming week, Virgo. It's prime time for you to recognize, engage with, and benefit from what has been concealed from you up until now.

Of course I believe in invisible things -- ghosts, spirits, a Nice Lady -- so in one respect I'm way ahead of this horoscope.

Or are they trying to tell me something else?

A Dickens Analogy

2008-08-12T19:34:00.004-05:00

In the interest of pursuing and idea I had today that would serve to make Stray Bullets a little more new-reader friendly (for any theoretical new readers), I am going to write out a small equation by means of an analogy. Don't worry about it now, but it will be more important later.

Miranda = The Ghost of Christmas Past.
Ally and Evie = The Ghosts of Christmas Present.
Nova = The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Now you may be saying "Huh?", but it'll make more sense in a day or two. You'll see.

Good Grief

2008-08-12T19:30:00.002-05:00

Is it really Tuesday evening already? Honestly, I spent all day today thinking it was Monday. Maybe it's because I crashed so hard yesterday. I went to work, came home, laid down on my bed, and blammo ... it's almost 9:00. I got up long enough to have some cole slaw for dinner (really), go to the store for my morning chocolate milk, check the Newsarama boards, check my Myspace page, write a post, and talk to Guinevere. Then I went back to bed.

Today was a more normal type day. Work wasn't so bad. I wasn't in a crappy mood (not in a great mood either, but I'll take what I can get). I came home and did some stuff, and even though I didn't do all the stuff I intended (like that ever happens), it was good enough.

For now, it's good enough.

Reunions and Such

2008-08-11T21:22:00.002-05:00

As you know, I went to Massachusetts. I got back last night, but was too tired and fried to post anything, even though I wanted to, so here I am now.

I went down Friday afternoon. Dan was down there waiting for me when I pulled in. He looked much like I remembered, except even more like his dad. I already knew this from the phone conversations, but our old chemistry was intact, even if I couldn't quite remember some of the dynamics of our relationship. I don't even know if that makes sense, but if you were in my head you'd know it's a minefield of psychological hiccups that go on in there. It's just been so long. Like I'm comfortable busting on Cooter, but I can't remember if Dan and I used to do that so much, and the programs are somewhat overwriting each other in my brain. I need some time to readjust.

We mostly hung out and talked over old times and dwelled on our shared interests. He hurt his back a few years ago on the job, so he's mostly a homebody, and can't get up to all the wacky hijinks we used to. That doesn't bother me, though. Our main forte was being somewhat dickish through conversational means anyway. There was video games played, dvds watched, some internet surfing, and so on. I like hanging out, yes, but I like to be more active, too. There were other things we wanted to do, like go to a movie, that didn't end up happening for one reason or another, but there's always next time.

His mom was out grocery shopping when I got there. She gave me a big hug when she got back. According to Dan, she missed me almost as much as he did. She's always been cool to me, always treated me like one of the family, always makes me eat dinner with them if I'm around, and gives me leftovers and such to bring home. She went on vacation with one of her daughters for the week. They left on Saturday for ... I forget where. I'm glad I got to see her, though.

So the weekend wasn't quite the Roman orgy I thought might be in store, but Friday night we did get decently fucked up. We went out to the liquor store and picked up some goodies to go with the movies we wanted to watch. My tolerance isn't what it used to be, like during the Barneypalooza days, but I can hold my own. He drank a lot more than I did, though, without seeming too drunk. Of course, there was some pot on top of that as well. I can always take or leave pot. It's always more important to whoever I'm smoking with than it is to me, but once in a while won't kill me. I'm not going to make a habit of it, though, so don't worry.

On Sunday we went over to see Amanda. I almost chickened out. Despite the warm message I got from her last week, I came down with a large case of the nerves. She was 7 when I met her and 16 the last time I saw her. I'd never seen her as an adult, and it had been so long, and my brain came up with so many reasons for me to back out. But I was screwing around online Saturday night and she sent me another message asking if I was coming down that weekend and if I was coming over, and I thought about it for a while, and it bugged me and bugged me and bugged me until I went back and wrote back that I was in town already and I could stop by on Sunday. If I didn't, it would bug me all week long.

I practically had to drag Dan along. He wasn't sure he wanted to go, but I was adamant that he should. The two of them have been in contact here and there over the years, and she did say he could come along. But above that, I was going to be a whole lot more comfortable with back-up than I would be if I went alone.

And it was a very nice time. I was happy to see her, she was happy to see me, we talked about all manner of things, and I met my ... what is it?... great niece Zoe, who at five months is adorable. She has two other kids, too, but they're both living with Lynne at the moment, and apparently Lynne and Amanda aren't getting along. Hmmm. If I'm going to talk to Lynne at all I might have to navigate a new route. Things were left open for future visits, too. If I only reconnect with one person out of that family, Amanda would be the one. Well, I like her brother, too, but he's in Arkansas and a bit out of reach. The others? Not as much. And the one? No fucking way.

I feel like I'm being really vague here with this post, and maybe a little emotionally detatched. I think it's just because I'm tired and fried and burnt out. The nostalgia tour is great and all, and there are a few other stops I want to make along the way (Shannon, for instance), but for whatever reason I'm feeling a little sad about a few things. I'm not sure exactly why either.

I'm going to have to work it out.

Now is the Time

2008-08-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

Well, I'll keep this short as I'm running a bit late already. There was going to be a longer sort of post, but I kind of got hijacked with other things, so I'll try to do it when I get back.

I'm off to Massachusetts to see my long-lost little brother, and possibly a few other people, too.

See y'all later on, folks. Be good.

It Can't Rain All the Time

2008-08-06T21:02:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure how I'm still standing.

Yesterday, after the phone conversation I went out to the store. Shortly after my return here, I crashed hard. I was watching some Teen Titans and just zonked out. Realizing I couldn't fight the tide, I came in here and plopped down, and I was out cold in seconds. I woke up a little after 10 PM. Then, knowing I'd have trouble getting back to sleep that night, and also wanting to accomplish a few things, I just stayed up.

I was a little wobbily this morning at work for the first couple hours, but it wore off, and before long I forgot that I'd stayed up all night and the effects of such went away. Cooter had an idea about coming over and cooking dinner here, and since he was buying the food, I figured fuck it. So we had hot dogs and watched The Crow, and then he checked his mail again and left. And I've been winding down ever since. Right now I'm drowsy and fading fast. But I am glad I came on at least to see Amanda's message, because that really made my day.

But right now I really need teh sleep.

Virgorama

2008-08-06T19:01:00.002-05:00

Jesus. This is like the fourth or fifth week in a row that Free Will Astrology has frikken blown my mind. Read this horoscope keeping in mind the murderer's row of posts I put up Monday, and see if it doesn't also blow your mind.

The light in your eyes looks a little foggy, Virgo. The fire in your belly seems to be smoldering, and your brain has been hiccupping. At least your heart isn't exactly broken. (Though I'm tempted to make suggestions about how to fix it anyway.) Am I worried? Not at all. After the nonstop breakthroughs you enjoyed there for a while, I expected that you would eventually need time to slow down and let everything sink in. So I suggest that you cultivate a state of low-key contentment as your deep mind integrates the transformations you set in motion.

See?

Amanda Update

2008-08-06T18:59:00.001-05:00

So this was the reply I got today from Amanda:

"OMG How are you?????? I am doin very well for myself. I have 3 babies now as you probaly saw!!!!! Some day you should come and visit me and meet my fiance and see the baby. Jay moved to Arkansaw a little while ago. And you are still my uncle no matter what. You should put a pic of you on here so I can see what you look like now. I will ttyl. OK Love ya uncle shaun"

I have nothing really to add to that except ....

:)

I Bet You Could Actually Feel the Presence of Evil Right There in the Room

2008-08-05T22:11:00.002-05:00

I was hoping that perhaps after sleeping on it that I would feel better about things, but the truth is that this morning ... I felt much worse. For the first few hours of work I was a small ball of angry in human form. But it got better throughout the course of the day. Several things are still really really bothering me, but I can deal.

After work Cooter came by to check something out on teh internet. Meanwhile I listened to the various messages in my full phone mailbox. He could overhear some of them, particularly Dan's, and he seemed somewhat horrified. Then, in something I was hoping would happen, the phone rang. I answered it and it was Dan. So then we talked for about an hour while Cooter did his thing, and we hit so many notes of the old days and things we used to get up to, and laughed so hard, and told so many stories that I think Cooter was actually afraid.

Dan and I together are one of the greatest tag teams in modern history. The reign of terror we unleashed on Western Mass between 1992 and 1998 is a thing of legend. While alone I can still be something of a sarcastic troublemaking jerk, it's a much different playing field when I have a tag team partner to bounce ideas off of. And Dan and I have wicked chemistry. Sometimes I'm the idea person that sets him off; sometimes he's the idea person who sets me off. There are so many stories that I could fill this blog with them for weeks to come. What you've heard already is only the part of the glacier that's above the water. There's a whole gigantic thing lurking beneath the surface.

At one point Dan and I were talking about something appalling, and only hearing my half of it, Cooter turned around from the computer and gave me a look of complete astonishment. So I said, "You don't want to know." And he agreed that he really didn't. You should have seen that look. It was like he just watched Samara Morgan crawl up out of the well.

I got off the phone just as Cooter was wrapping up. He said, "Geez, I thought women were bad on the phone." So I replied that the two of us together are an evil force he can't hope to comprehend. He's hung out with me, but he's never seen the Western Massachusetts side of me. I'm sure he went home and told Amy about his experience, too.

Be afraid, Cooter. Be very afraid.

And We're Back

2008-08-04T22:22:00.002-05:00

I had two, by the way. Well worth it.

So, I don't want to go to work tomorrow. I'd rather blow off tomorrow and spend the morning on the couch watching Teen Titans (I'm marathoning all five seasons -- 65 episodes -- out of my personal collection, in between my Netflix stuff) and the afternoon working on that Diner scene, with maybe some reading time squeezed in there somewhere. Of course, I can't blow off work because I need the money and I want to stay in the good graces of the Powers That Be. Besides, Little Miss Responsible would never let me get away with it. So it's off to work I go.

After all, those guns aren't going to bolt-fit themselves, and god knows Cooter can't fucking do it.

This weekend, though, I'm headed to Mass. I'm reconnecting with my old friend Dan. I don't know what we're going to do exactly, but I am sure in the mood to raise a little hell.

I aim to misbehave.

We'll Be Right Back After These Commercial Messages

2008-08-04T21:58:00.003-05:00

If anybody's looking for me, I'll be outside having a goddam cigarette.

Just because I want one. That's why.

I expect I'm going to really enjoy that sucker, too.

Be back in a minute.

Dinner at 10:30

2008-08-04T21:38:00.002-05:00

So I forced myself to go out and make some scrambled eggs, and I'm glad I did because they were really good. Some eggs was about the limit as far as the effort I was willing to put into it, though.

When I opened the carton I noticed there was an egg missing. I almost had a cow.

"Boss, it's just one egg."

Yeah, well, Cal, today nothing is *just* anything. I'm a might tetchy. You know, when I was buying these eggs I would swear I looked in the carton. I looked inside a few and saw cracked eggs and moved on. It's impossible to me that I did not check this one. But unless my small feline friend got up in the middle of last night and helped himself to an egg, I got ripped off.

I've decided to let this one go.

I'm already pissy enough.

Hey, Guinevere

2008-08-04T21:29:00.002-05:00

1. That e-mail you sent me regarding the Nice Lady evidence never arrived. I don't know why.

B. Did we ever decide on which laptop to go with? I just may have some extra money Real Soon Now to spend on such a luxury.

Talk to you soon.

Violence is Sometimes the Answer, and Besides ... It's Fun

2008-08-04T21:04:00.002-05:00

There was almost a Cootericide at work today. The annoying, fat, stupid little fuckwit was really getting on my nerves. Sure, this happens all the time, but today I was almost inspired to sudden and bloody violence, and it was thisclose to happening.

Cooler heads prevailed.

He's still a little asshole, though.

Too Lazy to Give a Shit

2008-08-04T20:46:00.003-05:00

I'm being lazy. I can tell already I don't have the concentration to write out a real post, so you'll have to settle for these.

I haven't even made myself dinner yet. That's how lazy I am.

All day long I couldn't wait to get home and work on stuff. No stuff was worked on.

I should call Dan. He'd make me laugh and feel better. Too lazy to even do that.

I should sign on AIM and hopefully talk to Guinevere. I might just do that.

I can't even get out of my own way tonight. Jesus.

Fuck. I guess I should eat something.

Rrrr

2008-08-04T20:40:00.003-05:00

I don't know if it's an imbalance in the cosmos or what, but why does it seem like all the cool chicks are already with some douchebag? Doesn't it seem that way? I'm not being cynical, or bitter, this is pure observation. And it's pissing me off. I'm not talking necessarily about any chick that I would feel like taking off of their hands for my very own or anything. It's just bothering me on the conceptual level. And many times these same chicks will talk to me and discuss the douchebaggery that they have to put up with. "Oh, he doesn't appreciate me. He doesn't pay attention to me." Etc.

It seems clear to me, though.

STOP GOING OUT WITH THE DOUCHEBAGS.

I mean, come on.

*****

There was going to be a funny picture or two to go along with this post, but due to some stupid fucking internal error this won't let me load them up.

Double rrrrrrr.

The Writing Thing

2008-08-03T20:40:00.002-05:00

Today was a good day. It was also a day out of the ordinary as I pretty much did almost everything I wanted to do today. I'll never do *everything* I want to do in a day, because I have a tendency to load up too many things on the to-do list and then get disappointed because I only get through maybe half of them, if that. There's no hope that'll ever get better, because I've been like this since I was ten years old. So, a day where I do 'almost everything' tends to be a very good day indeed.

The highlight, of course, was getting some quality writing done. I just wrapped a scene that's been dogging me for quite a while now, and that's a good thing. It's a complicated Kelly, Emma, Alyssa scene that not only plays out what's happening right then, but jumps back a few days to revisit the first scene of the chapter between Kelly and Emma, and also jumps back a few weeks to show an important conversation between Kelly and Alyssa. Well, it's important in that it sets up what happens in the next chapter ... when everything starts to hit the wall.

The next scene is one I'm eager to get into. It's another Kelly and Ben at the Diner scene, which also brings back Leah, introduces Kelsie, and does a whole bunch of business as well. It also serves to set up what happens both in the final scene of the chapter and the next chapter, too. There's a lot of tension in it between Kelly and Ben, as Ben might know something that he doesn't want to tell Kelly, and Kelly tries to pull it out of him anyway. That's on tomorrow's docket.

For today, though, mission accomplished.

The Amanda Thing

2008-08-01T23:17:00.001-05:00

I may have started something foolish tonight. It was a case of it seems like a good idea at the time, but I might regret it tomorrow. We'll see.

So I was talking to Dan again, and in particular Myspace, and he directed me towards some people from the deep dark past that we both know. I went and looked and looked and looked some more. And then I did something potentially foolish and started sending requests to add them.

I started at Crystal's page. She's one of Dan's ex's and was one of X's friends, and I don't care so much about her. But what the heck?

But then we move into actual dangerous territory -- my former in-laws.

I found Terry's page. She's about like I would remember. Whereas Crystal was only ever a minor annoyance, Terry could be a big pest if she figures out who I am. So that might have been dumb.

Then I found Amanda's page. Amanda, if you don't know, is Lynne's daughter, was my niece, and for a long while was my little sweetheart. I met them all when X and me used to spend weekends over at their house in Winchendon. I got along good with Lynne right away, and ended up being the frequent babysitter to Amanda and Jason. In fact, this happened the first time I was ever over there. Lynne and X went grocery shopping, and left me alone with the two of them. So of course the two of them totally wrapped me around their little fingers, and they never lost the ability to do so. Amanda especially.

It certainly didn't hurt that I first met Amanda soon after the Big Bad happened, so I was especially vulnerable to someone like her, but the truth is that I probaby would have taken a shine to her anyway. When I was over there she attached herself to me like glue, and I ate it up. Eventually, that started to really piss off Charlie (her stepfather) and he tried to wipe that out, but it never stuck. Years later I found out another reason why he was so bothered by it, and what he was doing with her, and he's on the short list of people I'd like to beat to death with a sledgehammer. But I digress.

So I sent her a request. That's the one I'm not as leery of. Dan said that a year ago she was asking about me, too, so that's cool. He also warned me that she can be very needy, but that's ok. I know what caused that, and it does upset me that it was happening when I knew her and probably while I was there. There's nothing I can do about that, but given my other background, it's impossible for me not to have a lot of sympathy for her.

She also has three kids, which blows my mind. Yeah, I know she's in her twenties now, but in my mind she's still the same age she used to be.

Lynne didn't have one.

We did search for ... The Other One. Apparently, she's dropped off the face of the world. Good.

I haven't checked back yet to see if any of these requests have hit. I'm a little scared to.

Waystation Newport

2008-07-31T23:05:00.003-05:00

I've been having a lot of company lately. As you may be aware, I'm not the most social of creatures, so a lot of the knocking at my door comes as an interruption of whatever I'm doing. Even so, it's nice to have company now and then. The anti-social and lonely aspects of my personality are at a constant war with each other. Surely there must be some happy medium.

Let's go back to Wednesday. I got home to find a message from Amy on my machine asking if she could come over and check her mail. As I'd run some errands that afternoon, there was a delay in my arrival, so even before I could call her back I saw her coming up the driveway through my living room window. She didn't stay long, though. She checked her mail and then I took her to the store so she could pick up cigarettes, and then I dropped her off at her place. Cooter was outside doing something or other, and I just waved and left. I'd had enough of him that day already. Amy was sure that she was bothering me, but she really wasn't, and she's welcome here anytime. Being here alone with her, however, does produce a certain side-effect that takes me about 24 hours to divest myself of. I may have given up hope more or less as far as what I was thinking about last winter, but as long as I'm here alone that side-effect is going to happen.

Yesterday afternoon Cooter and Allison stopped by for a visit. They stayed for probably forty-five minutes. I found some small stuffed animals and some beanies for her to occupy herself with, so she had a good time. Not ten minutes after they left there was another knock on the door. This time it was Amy and Natalia (some wacky ass girl from Mass who showed up with Amy here before -- I can't remember if I mentioned her or not), and it was Natalia who wanted to check her mail, which took all of two minutes. Then Amy asked if I could pick her up some cigs using a Rite-Aid gift card she had some money left on, so that she could run home and let Cooter in because she had the only key ... or something like that. So, sure, what the heck.

I dropped off the cigarettes and ended up staying for hamburgers. Hey, free food. Why not? I was over there a little longer than I intended to be, but considering I only intended to drop the cigs and run that's kind of a given.

Yesterday was easily the most visitors I've had here in one day. Here's the list of every combination of people who have been here to date:

Cooter and Eric
Dad
Cooter
Mom and Dad
Colleen and Ian
Cooter and Amy
Amy
Amy and Natalia
Cooter and Allison

I think that's everybody. You'll note the omission of Jen on the list. She's never been here.

I'll update the list as more visitors arrive.

Tales of the Kudoverse: Weapons Directory

2008-07-31T22:37:00.002-05:00

I didn't feel as though this one should exist within the story numberings as it's kind of a different thing altogether. This was written soon after I broke the initial idea of the Dynamite Kudo character, several months before I wrote the first actual story, and I was really still just playing around with the ideas. The actual descriptions of the weaponry were taken from a website I found and were not written by me. The website does not still exist, so I can't credit the source. The name that this letter is written to is a character who may or may not survive the transition into the revamped Kudoverse. After the NHG-inspired characters became a hit at the Joyride, many of my readers wanted characters of their own. While I know Gigi will make the transition, I'm not as sure of the others. We'll see.

*****

To: Mordekai Van Zandt
From: Dynamite Kudo
Ref: Items in New Catalogue
15 December 2003

"Theologians define Evil as a supernatural force vying against God to corrupt mankind. Secular Humanists define Evil as any behavior that enhances an individual's success at the expense of the success of others. And I define Evil as the enjoyment I get from watching thousands of innocents squirm in terror as I destroy the very underpinnings of everything they believe and hold dear in my quest to command supreme domination over all life."

Said by a great man, who I remember fondly. My name is Dynamite Kudo.

Hello, Mordekai, let's do some shopping. In regards to the items listed in your winter brochure, I discovered several new things that I simply must have, and given my plans for 2004 I need to stock up on some important supplies. In addition, the holiday season is approaching and a number of your items caught my eye that would make my girls very happy.

Following is the list of items copied down from your most recent catalogue. Payment arrangements will be made the usual way. Contact GiGi when the order is ready for shipment, if you please.

SHURIKEN
The distinctive Japanese throwing blades popularized by the Ninja assassins of feudal Japan, these are hira shuriken or shaken, the star-shaped blades most commonly associated with Ninjitsu. In the hands of a skilled practitioner, these custom-crafted steel blades will penetrator kevlar armor and can kill with a single blow.*
Our custom set of six handcrafted traditional shuriken comes in a handy leather storage pouch, and will be shipped complete with a certificate of authenticity and sharpening instructions.
Price: US$129.99 for set of six
*In the hands of inexperienced henchmen or dumbass American rednecks who took a "Ninjitsu" class at the local YMCA, shuriken can be counted on to slice fingers, gouge drywall, and probably take somebody's eye out.

These would be excellent for Canary's X-mas stocking.
.....

THE "DESSIE"
Presenting the number one choice of murderous thugs everywhere. The Mark XIX Desert Eagle Pistol offers true interchangeability. Eight different pistols are available - .357 Magnum, .44 Magnum, .440 Cor-Bon Magnum, or .50 A.E., each with a 6-inch or 10-inch barrel. Purchase one pistol and you have the platform to build the other seven with a simple switch of components.
The Mark XIX Desert Eagle provides unmatched accuracy and control.
Price: US$1,199.99; Buy 100 or more for US$899.99 each!

Kitten could always use more guns.
.....

LASER PISTOL MK I
Bullets are crude; the 21st Century villain needs a 21st Century weapon. World Domination Supply, Inc. presents the Laser Pistol MK I, the antipersonnel weapon for the villain on a budget. Fires 20 deadly laser-light blasts, guaranteed to floor a 6', 200 lb. male. And nothing's more accurate than a laser!* Rechargeable energy cartridges extra.
Price: US$2,199.99; energy cartridges US$299 each
*DISCLAIMER: Although laser blasts travel at the speed of light, we have noticed that heroes have the unnerving ability to "dodge" laser blasts. This defies the laws of physics, and we cannot explain it. Villains and henchpersons do not have this ability, unless they are martial artists.

I could use one of these myself.
.....

STUN PISTOL
Mengele Medical presents the Stun Pistol, perfect for apprehending heroes and subduing beautiful femmes fatale. Fires a syringe of sodium polyoxenate, guaranteed to drop a small elephant. Six shot.
Price: US$2,500

Oooh, this would be nice, too.
.....

ACCUKAK SYSTEMS PULSE RIFLE
The perfect weapon for untrained henchmen, the Accukak Systemsâ„¢ Pulse Rifle fires 999 hollow-point titanium shells PER SECOND. There's no way to miss!* Includes Accukak's patented computerized auto-targeting system. Owners of the Accukak Pulse Rifle can purchase shells at bulk discount rates.
Price: US$8,200 each
*DISCLAIMER: In field tests, henchpersons employing automatic weapons actually have hit rates much lower than mathematically predicted, esp. when compared against hit rates for heroes with non-automatic pistols. This phenomenon cannot be explained scientifically.

Kitten would love one of these!
.....

SEBURO 10.375mm-GAUGE ANTI-MECHA RIFLE
A fully-automatic select fire helium-injection propellant rifle firing a medium-to-medium-long range 10.375 (8.6555 caliber ogive) Israeli-gauge CF hollow-point cartridge delivering 1000 foot-pounds of force at 30 meters; features a super-cooled zinc-lined bore with super-conducting qualities; fusion energy from the Podkletnov ring in the stock projects helium atoms as an Einstein-Bose Condensate, propelling the titanium cartridge with only 1.5% expected kickback; muzzle velocity 2653 ft/sec; appr. recoil 15.6 ft/LB; titanium shell will begin to break up at 300 yards, limiting effective range. 100 round cartridge, fires 10 rps in fully automatic mode or controlled bursts. Snazzy black PVC designer casing, leather strap. Not for sale outside Southeast Asia.*
Price: US$16,499.00 ea.
*So buy a plane ticket.

I trip over to Korea wouldn't be too bad this time of year.
.....

DIRTY BOMB
There's not much to it, really; a few sticks of dynamite salted with one gram of powdered Cesium-137 and Thallium. Yet, the "Dirty Bomb" makes the perfect terrorist Weapon of Mass Destruction* for the villain on a budget. Hold cities hostage -- impress your friends!
Price: US$699.99 each; US$499 for each additional gram of radioactive material.

Now I know what to get Jessica for her birthday.
.....

FLAMETHROWER
When it comes to indiscriminate destruction, no weapon beats the flamethrower. A gift to the world passed down by the ancient Greeks and rediscovered in World War I, the flamethrower is the weapon of choice for the infliction of pain and permanent maiming.
Sunny Horizons Weapons Systems Inc., of Austin Texas presents the RPO-theta, the latest advancement in incendiary weapons technology. Fires a high-pressure stream of ignited synthetic napalm, filling a 60' diameter area with 400Â° F of flaming death. Suitable for lair defense, small guerilla operations, and parties.
Price: US$2,499.99.

Wilhemina so loves to watch things burn.
.....

PERSONNEL-BASED ROCKET LAUNCHER
Sunny Horizons Weapons Systems Inc., of Austin Texas, presents the standard for light infantry heavy weaponry; the Rocket Launcher, a.k.a. "bazooka." Fires one round, but boy, does that round pack a punch. Rockets extra.
Price: US$12,200; rockets US$189.95 ea

Well, who wouldn't love to have one of these? I had one of these before. That church blew up like it was made out of matchsticks. Once you've gotten that smell of burning flesh into your nostrils, you always want more.
.....

GIZESUKARISITO MARK I MULTIDIMENSIONAL HANDCANNON
Why is a mere handgun listed on the "Heavy Weapons" page? Read carefully, because we've only got eight of these in stock, and you'll never have a chance to buy one again.
Tekoki God Takiyaki, formerly of Lovely Nippon Villain Kyen Kyen LLC, has gone solo, and is selling off his private weapons stash due to a paternity settlement. He claims he got these guns "from an alternate dimension from our own, of a space and time beyond what mere human men call life" blah blah blah. All we know is, one shot from one of these babies blew an 800 meter diameter crater in the side of a mountain, with the normal kickback of a large-gauge handgun. We're keeping some, but selling off the rest.
Each handcannon comes with a leather* carrying case, 12 bullets, and a guide to manufacturing more bullets.**
Price: US$12,500 ea.
*Don't ask what kind of leather.
**Materials required include a nickel-free tungsten alloy and human souls forged into a metal-like substance through oni demon magic.

I think I've found my weapon of choice.
.....

PERSONNEL-BASED ELECTROMAGNETIC RAIL GUN
A personnel-based electromagnetic rail gun? You must be crazy!!!
Well, of course we are. And you would be too, to pass up on this bleeding-edge high-tech beauty. Electromagnetically accelerates steel slugs to 12% of the speed of light. Good for taking out heavy mobile armor, taking down jumbo jets from your patio, and taking pot shots at the lunar lander. Manufactured by the safety-conscious folks at the Weylan-Yutani Corporation.*
Price: US$12,200,000 ea. (bulk discount available)
*This weapon generates an EM field that has been known to disrupt communications, damage and erase electronic media, and destroy computer equipment within a 50 km radius; also causes infertility and microcancers in the operator, and destabilizes all EM activity in the operator's brain, leading to irreversible coma. An asbestos helmet is advised.
**The Weylan-Yutani Corporation is currently paying a large bounty for information leading to the live retrieval of xenomorphic macrofauna. Contact Carter J. Burke, ex. 180286.

Kitten has been hinting around for a rail gun. She's so sweet. She definitely deserves one.
.....

META-EBOLA HAEMORRHAGIC VIRUS TYPE D
Developed by the U.S. Army to "provide research necessary for defense against germ warfare" (ha ha ha), the Meta-Ebola Haemorrhagic Virus Type D is ten times deadlier and 20 times as communicable as the old Type C the Army tested at Jonestown. Once this baby gets into the environment, there will be no stopping it -- ask the recently deceased researchers at Fort Grange Hospital, which had to be firebombed after a nurse thought she might have left a lid open. Causes epidermal hemorrhaging, bloody stool, hardening of the ocular jelly, blackening of the extremities, paralyzation, and death, all in 12 minutes. Communicable by touch, by air, in water, or just by a victim looking at you funny. Dab some of this on some envelopes, mail them to various countries, and we guarantee global human annihilation within 72 hours, or your money back!
Price: US$50,000,000 per ml

Oh, now we're talking. If I soup it up a little bit using Yellow Claw tech. mixed with Zola-tech, I could do some real damage. No offense.
.....

SELF-REPLICATING NANO-VIRUS
Nanotechnology -- the high-tech wave of the future. And like every technological breakthrough before it, the possibilities for global mayhem through "misuse" are as powerful as the so-called "beneficial" applications.
Realizing that global extortion can produce greater profit maximization than curing cancer or creating cheap energy, the forward-thinking folks at the Global Nanotechnology Institute S.A. are making available to the supervillainy market a small supply of self-replicating nanoviruses.
Each nanovirus converts any matter it comes into contact with into more nanoviruses. Introduce just one nanovirus into the environment, and within 33 days the Earth's entire surface will be reduced to an ooze with the color and consistency of photocopier toner. Nothing can stop it -- even a nuclear blast will just fuel the little buggers.
Kit comes with 1x10^15 nanoviruses in a cooled magentic bottle. Do not open it if you're not serious about global annihilation.
Price: US$100,000,000
*nanoviruses can be destroyed by ambient gamma radiation -- store in a cool, dry place.

Sweet Cthulhu, I could have *so* much fun with this.
.....

THE ULTIMATE FORMULA "X"
In 1893, an insane British mathematician named Dr. Leslie Steambender attempted to use algebra, Kabbalah, ancient Mesopotamian texts, and Chartered Accountancy Actuarial Tables to develop a single mathematical formula that would describe all of reality -- The Ultimate Formula "X." To read this formula aloud would DESTROY ALL CREATION, ending the universe and (if you believe in such things) KILLING GOD HIMSELF. Just as Steambender had finished putting the formula to paper, a team of Freemason assassins killed him and stole the document, placing it unread in a vault beneath the Tower of London. This piece of paper has been acquired by a private collector, and is now for sale to the highest bidder. The seller only requests that he have time to retreat to an alternate dimension before it is used. Serious bidders only.
Bidding starts at: US$172,000,000,000,000

That's it? Pocket change for someone with my resources and connections. I bet some of my "friends" are also in the bidding here. I know I can outbid the Skull, and the Headmen. I don't know about Victor. I may have to tap into my Advanced Idea Mechanics Plus account.
.....

HITLER CLONE
Looking to take over the world, but not up to doing the work yourself? Why not let someone with successful experience* take over your cabal, while you sip Mai Tais on the beach? The Arctic Nazi Consortium is now liquidating its entire stock of Adolph Hitler clone zygotes. Raise your own tyrant in the privacy of your own home. Don't miss out on this exciting opportunity! Some assembly required.**
Price: DM10.000.000 per zygote
*depending on your definition of "successful," of course
**requires Carbon Freezing equipment, artificial insemination lab, artificial womb or willing Aryan birth mother (non-Aryan birth mother voids warranty)

I've actually met three of these in my travels. Past a certain age they just don't listen to you. They think they just know it all. I've always wanted to get one young so that I could help mold him to the coming world.
.....

COMPELLED INTERROGATION TOOLKIT
Why suffer with shoddy, homemade torture instruments, when you can cause suffering with these professional stainless steel interrogation instruments from MedievaSurgical Tools LLC, Istanbul, Turkey. From the Epidermal Extruder to the Genital Chafer, each device is hand-crafted from the finest materials. And cleanup is easy!
Price: US$1,899.99

The Red Skull gave me a very nice set in reward for my fine work, but you can never have too many!
.....

BOREWORMS
Any experienced agent shudders at the very word. Whether applied to the limbs, chest, genitals, or brain, boreworms cause more pain and suffering than any other alien lifeform in the same price range. And www.boreworms.com, in association with VillainSupply, is offering high-quality boreworms at a special discount price."*
Price: US$999 ea. (sold in lots of 12)
*special handling tongs and methane containment environment extra; can not be shipped via U.S. airports.

You had me at "pain and suffering".
.....

MYRMELEONTIDAE XENOGENETICA "BRAIN-EATING" BUG
From Monsanto Special Projects Division, the people who brought you Man-eating Corn, comes the latest in torture and mind-control biotechnology. The Myrmeleontidae xenogenetica is a deadly Neuroptera with alien DNA spliced in for good measure. The insect burrows in through the victim's ear, traveling into the brain and laying thousands of eggs. As well as causing horrendous pain, the bug also leaves the victim open to hypnotic suggestion. After 10 days, the victim's head bursts, and you have thousands of new bugs to play with!*
Price: US$12,999 for starter kit
* bugs may attack you and your minions. Well, not "may." "Will."
**bugs require living human brain tissue to eat. Survival not guaranteed without large quantities of living human brain tissue

Oh, there are just so many uses for this! I assume these are similar to the Flies you sold me last time, and were just exceptional, by the way.
.....

CARNIDYNE ROBOTIC TIGER 2000
If you've kept live man-eating Bengal tigers for your man traps, then you know what a hassle they are. Special food, expensive medicine, temperature controls, flea and tick care, a couple of gay Germans to train and look after them -- and that's just the beginning of the unforeseen expenses that real tigers incur. That's why you need the Carnidyne Robotic Tiger 2000. Developed by a firm that produces animatronic animals for amusement parks, the CRT 2000 is an autonomous unit programmed to maul, kill, and consume any human being within 50 feet. But most importantly, you never feed it*, never maintain it**, it works in any environment***, never gets fleas****, and looks after itself*****!
Price: US$1,200,000,000 ea. Battery packs (100 hours) US$250,000.
*requires battery packs
**requires daily lubrication treatment
***relative humidity may not exceed 22%
****the software is kind of buggy, though
*****requires two specially-trained gay German technicians

Canary will be so happy when she gets her new tiger.
.....

UNDERSEA CITY - HIDE WHERE THEY'LL NEVER FIND YOU!
Humanity ignores 70% of this vast planet - the 7/10ths that lies under the sea. Hatch your schemes from EvilTech's UnderSea City 3000, the submarine lair that (practically*) builds itself! Create a habitat for yourself and up to 500 minions in this safe**, reliable*** undersea environment. Includes 3 luxury residences, submarine base, central control module, nuclear energy source, lab space, private suites for up to 12 beautiful bikini women, and convenient, obvious self-destruct mechanism.
Price: US$4,000,000,000 (Save 60%!)
*requires 1200 specially-trained aquatic construction personnel
**as long as no one resets the pressure seals above the red line, from one of many obvious and accessible control panels
***reliability based on computer models; not guaranteed

I know just where to put this! Try to find me now, you SHIELD bastards.
.....

The world is mine.

Enclosed is the itemized invoice for items selected.

Thanks again,

Kudo.

Virgorama

2008-07-30T21:16:00.001-05:00

Could you get access to a crane with a wrecking ball? How about a chainsaw or sledgehammer? Metaphorically speaking, you may need some heavy equipment to do all the demolition work that's necessary right now. Among the structures that could be due for destruction: a mental block you've been preserving out of perverse nostalgia; a prison cell you lock yourself inside on your off days; a half-built bridge you're no longer interested in or capable of completing; a pedestal on which your fallen idol used to stand; and a door you nailed shut in order to seal yourself off from a person with whom you still have unfinished business.

...

I am now freaking out!

Everyone of those points. Every. One.

Bring on teh wrecking ball.

Four Hundred

2008-07-30T20:47:00.003-05:00

And so I've reached another milestone with The Little Blog That Could. 400 posts! I think that's a pretty good achievement, since this was a relaunch of a blog that failed spectacularly the first time around and had all kinds of things working against it when I started. But in my mind Stray Bullets has come out pretty darn good, and it holds up to close scrutiny much better than the Joyride ever did. The original "looking for Gwen Stacy" post was the one where I believe this blog turned itself around and really got going, and that was #200. That's half the blog ago now. As strong as the last couple months have been, I'm really only warming up, so I think the next 400 will be even better.

*****

And now for something different. In conversations with Dan, I've gotten a few updates on people I was curious about.

Lynne. She got remarried. Dan knows the guy, I guess, and doesn't really care for him. She was someone else I was interested in getting back in touch with. Now I'm not sure. Maybe I should let that one rest for now.

Terry. Apparently back in the Greenfield area.

Lois. Moved out of the old family home and is somewhere in Turners Falls.

Amanda. Got married (I knew that) and is on her third kid. I realize that time moved on in my absence, but that's still mind-blowing to me. I knew her when she was nine years old, after all. Oh, I guess the three kids aren't all with the same person, and she's become "quite a little cocktease". I know why that probably is, too, and it makes me very angry. Given that it was apparently happening back when I met her, and during the times when X and me used to spend weekends over there, and back when Amanda stuck to me like glue ... gives me a sick to my stomach feeling. That I couldn't have known it was going on makes it no better.

Jason (Lynne's other kid, not Markwell or Higgins). A pothead.

X. Whereabouts unknown.

Becky. Got married, moved to Florida, returned. Now works over at some clinic in Turners drawing blood. A bloodsucker? That's appropriate.

Shannon. He didn't know.

I wonder how I can track Shannon down.

Ugly as Hell

2008-07-29T21:33:00.002-05:00

So today at work I was in a pretty bad mood. It kind of grew out of the situation organically, and it's a case where the multiple running Stray Bullets plot-threads start to intersect and affect each other. To properly tell the tale, however, I need to back up to yesterday.

Yesterday there was a reoccurance of the continuing Cooter vs. Jim feud, wherein Cooter thinks Jim is an arrogant jackass, and Jim thinks Cooter is a worthless slug. There's some truth in both of those views, but I tend to be more sympathetic towards Jim because he's hilarious when he's giving people shit, and I can take a joke and Cooter cannot. It started because Brad was out, therefore causing us to shift around to cover the cell with fewer people. I ended up on bolt-fit, since it's my default position now. Cooter took over gas-block. And Jim took over bolt-lock, which follows me. Not covered was slide-fitting, which comes between gas-block and bolt-fit. And the predictable occured.

Cooter only gas-blocked, which is to say he piled up a bunch on me and didn't do any slides. Bolt-fit, even though I'm really good at it, isn't easy and it can take me a little longer to bolt-fit a troublesome gun than it takes anyone to put a gas-block on. So I had to do my own slides. Now this is a situation where I'm usually the one to jump on Cooter and tell him he's being a lazy, selfish asshole by burying me and not helping out, but since that usually just leads to him freaking out, I didn't get into it ... then.

Despite having to do my own slides, and bolt-fitting alone, I still pulled out the numbers each hour. Sometimes it was by the skin of my teeth, but I did it. Earlier in the day Cooter had already pissed Jim off. Barney asked Jim some question about some stocks, and Cooter being the buttinsky that he is, jumped in and stuck his nose into the situation, and that always drives Jim berserk. Jim has very little Cooter tolerance to start with, so it doesn't take much to push him over that edge. So he was holding off doing any slides because Cooter should be, and Cooter just didn't do any thinking Jim should do some. Meanwhile, I'm getting really pissy. Notice this is never a problem when Brad is gas-blocking; he and I share the slide-fitting based on who's available and such. Cooter, though, is a selfish prick.

By first break I was starting to boil over. Around then Jim started making anti-Cooter snarks to me when I'd bring him a gun. In truth, I kind of instigated that by casting a disgusted eye at the nine or ten gas-blocked guns Cooter had piled up over there, all without slides. So I added some snark to Jim's snarks. Then Cooter came over to me bitching about Jim and his comments, like he always does, and while I usually don't give a shit, that day I cared even less. "Kind of busy here, and also I DON'T CARE." Cooter did start to get the hint that I was in a ripe mood, if not why. But it wasn't until I chewed him out -- "Yeah. I'm over here busting my ass trying to get the numbers, doing two jobs, so you can fucking bury me with guns, just because the two of you can't get along. AWESOME." Shortly after that Cooter did cave in and do some slides. By that point, however, I was determined to remain pissy.

Last night I had a two hour conversation with Dan on a wide-ranging variety of subjects. During my time at My Current Place of Employment, Cooter has sort of been my best friend there by default, even though he annoys the living shit out of me on a regular basis. Having Dan back in circulation has really illustrated to me, though, how much of a punk-ass Cooter really is. Compare the two and Cooter definitely suffers. I think some of those thoughts held over to today because my own tolerance for Cooter was at an all-time low. And I was mean and snippy towards him to a degree unprecedented in my work history -- even Krysten would agree that she got off pretty easy from me in comparison. He could do nothing, absolutely nothing, today that was going to make me happy in the least. He would come over, ask me one of his trademark stupid questions, and I would deconstruct the question to it's anatomic level to the point where he'd throw up his hands and walk away.

Him: "How are the slides going? Are they going ok? I might do some."

Me: "What's the difference? Straighten one and see if it works. What? If I say they aren't going well you're going to not do some slides? Is that why you're asking?" (he starts to get aggravated) "I'm just trying to figure out the point of the question. There must be some point to it, right?" (even more aggravated) "That was why you wanted to know, right? So I could give you an excuse not to slide-fit? Wasn't that the point?" (He walks away)

It was ten hours of that.

It was glorious.

Elite Sector

2008-07-28T20:16:00.005-05:00

There are a group of people out there who are above criticism, at least in my eyes. They are my favorite people in the world, whom I have nothing at all bad to say about, and whom are just teh awesome. These people are the Elite Sector. It's a small group -- Colleen, Guinevere, Dan, and Amy -- and during my time as a blogger I can't think of a single instance where I've been critical of any of them. Maybe I suffer from Swiss Cheese Memory, but I believe that to be true. Besides which, even if I did have an issue with any of them, you'd never hear about it here in Stray Bullets. This is a holdover from the NHG days, but I believe in a strict Circle The Wagons Policy. Even if we did have an issue, I wouldn't go shooting my mouth off here, but would try to resolve it behind the scenes somehow.

Having said that, I don't have anything to complain about. Colleen is pretty much the definition of awesome. We may not have always gotten along great when we were teens, but there's been a solid twenty years since where we haven't exchanged so much as a cross word. Guinevere is my best trusted friend who is always looking out for my best interests, even when I'm not looking out for my own. Dan, who I've only just reconnected with, is the little brother I never had. I've talked with him twice on the phone now, and we pretty much picked up where we left off without missing a step. And Amy I just really care about a whole lot, and she's been a good friend to me. I have no problems whatsoever with any of these people.

There's a layer just below this Elite Sector, too. People who have come in (and sometimes gone just as quick) and made a difference, and I really have nothing at all bad to say about any of them. People like my brother-in-law Ian, who's always been cool to me, and is without question the perfect match for my little sis. People like Shannon, who saved my life, and was a good friend, and was there when I needed her. People like Milta, who helped inspire me to want to be more than I was, and who added the somewhat spiritual aspect I sometimes apply to things. People like Lynne, who was the best of that particular family and was always good to me. People like Krysten, who was my little buddy, and who I'll always respect for having the guts to confront me about the problems we were having so that we could work them out before they got too far. And people like Jessica and Tina, who broke me out of my isolation early and opened me up to a lot of adventure.

The inverse of this are the people who I have nothing at all good to say about. This is a small group. I tend to be very forgiving. It's true that I let Jen off the hook for things a lot more easily than I probably should, but at the same time she hasn't done me any real harm. To get put in this section, you really need to go above and beyond the call in terms of trying to wreck my shit. Obviously, both X and Jude belong here. Sue also. And so does Jenny M. It's one thing to for her to decide she wasn't interested, and that would have been fine ... if that's as far as it went. But it wasn't. So by taking the opportunity to trash me after the fact, she's earned my eternal hatred. Over the years there have been others who could have ended up in this section, but I am forgiving by nature, and I'd just as soon forget those people. For the most part, I have. But the people who end up in this group get nothing from me.

To the Elite Sector, however, I just want to say ... thank you.

Tales of the Kudoverse #10

2008-07-27T19:17:00.002-05:00

Ok. This one. I guess this one does actually count as part of the Secret Origins cycle, but it's one I have some issues with, and when I get back to these it's the one that'll end up changing the most. I'm putting these in here warts and all for now, though. Fixing comes later. I like the big Info Dump in the first part, except in a rewrite I'd play around with those elements a little more. But the part in the cave definitely needs some retooling. I'm just going to chalk it up as "it seemed a good idea at the time", but my further thoughts on this have lead me elsewhere.

*****

September 15, 2000.

Somewhere in the mountains of Siberia there stands a temple. Only a few in all the world know of it's existence. Fewer still dare to attempt to find the temple. Even fewer than that live to tell the tale. The knowledge is kept secret, hidden. Only the faithful carry the secrets, passing them to she who it has been foretold will come, she who is chosen, she who is the destroyer. On the day of the 23rd year she who is chosen will come to the temple to begin her ascension. So it is foretold.

The cold bites into her flesh. She climbs the mountain alone. She must come alone. The end of the journey is near. Seven years spent becoming the harbinger. Seven years spent learning, training, achieving perfection, all in preparation for this moment. She was seven when it happened, when the hunters found them, when they were taken by the fire. It was no accident. She knew that even then. She knew the murderers had come. It wasn't until the Red Skull came for her and her sister, and took them away that she learned the rest. She learned who she was. She learned why she was born. She learned how to hate. And then she learned how to kill. The teachings began.

The hand of fate reaches far. The Skull was her teacher in the art of murder, and the art of terror, but it wasn't enough. She needed to learn more. And on the day of her 15th year the quest began. From the Mandarin she learned to fight. From Kaizen Gammorra, the dreaded Yellow Claw, she learned to kill with barely a touch. Lessons learned from the Skull combined with the Claw's teachings to transform her into a deadly warrior; she learned the art of chemical warfare; she experimented on herself until she achieved immunity from even the deadliest poisons. She learned new methods of inflicting terror. At Miskatonic University she learned of the dark arts, how to surgically enhance the limits of human ability and endurance--including her own; she learned of mutation and genetic engineering. From Victor Von Doom she learned of power. In every instance she was the perfect student, learning what she needed, establishing powerful contacts and allies, and moving on.

At Miskatonic University she learned the path. Dr. Arthur Nagan helped with the surgery that altered and increased her brain's activity. Dr. Ruby Thursday and Dr. Jerold Morgan assisted with other body modifications. But it was Dr. Harvey Schliemermann, known to the world as Chondu the Mystic, who provided the crucial breakthrough. She practiced meditation, seeking the perfection in spirit she had already attained in body and mind. With Chondu's help she entered the trance and the first vision came. And the voice spoke to her. The destiny first foretold to her by the Red Skull, the destiny also known to the Yellow Claw, and to Victor Von Doom, came to her. She saw the temple in the snow, in the mountains, and the voice told her to seek it out. In the 23rd year your destiny awaits you.

The quest was long and arduous. The information was not easy to come by, but she learned who to see, who to torture, who to kill for what she needed. The temple would arise only for she who was chosen, only on the day of her 23rd year, at a spot deep in the Siberian mountains, and no one else may enter. The quest must be taken alone.

She enters the temple. A voice enters her mind, speaking like thunder.

"Enter thee who seeks the greater destiny. Today is the day of your death and rebirth in the name of your holy cause. For the last time speak thy name."

"Elspeth Miranda Von Zemo."

Before her is an altar. Black smoke drifts in from every direction, slowly assuming a human shape, that of a large male. Her eyes adjust to the blackness. The ghostly form in front of her is tall, and bald except for a long beard that reaches almost to his knees. The woman bends to kneel on one knee in front of the spectral figure, head bowed.

"She who is chosen by the darkness I serve, you know my name."

"Rasputin."

"You know the name of the power I serve."

"That which is known as the Infinite Evil."

"You know the destiny you seek."

"I shall become the harbinger of the evil that predates time."

"You are prepared to face this destiny."

"I know what is necessary."

"Rise then She who is chosen. Rise to become the agent of chaos. Rise to usher in the Age of Darkness and to unleash Hell upon the world. Rise a knight in the holy order of destruction. Rise and speak thy name."

"Dynamite Kudo."

She stands. The ghost starts to dissolve and return to the black smoke from which it came. The smoke surrounds her, it's tendrils encircling her, and then the smoke enters her body. Through her mouth, her eyes, her ears and nose--the smoke chokes her and fills her with the darkness, followed by the pain. She screams and falls to her knees. The screams last for several minutes. Then the smoke leaves her body, the essence of darkness transferred, and She stands again to face the ghost in front of her.

"Leave here now the angel of infinite darkness. Go to fulfill the work of those who have come before. Go to cause the world to tremble before you."

And on this day was the beginning of the End.

The Goddam Dark Knight

2008-07-26T20:45:00.002-05:00

So I took myself to the movies this afternoon. I saw The Dark Knight, the second of the newly revamped Batman series, and it was FRIKKING AWESOME. I really missed going to the movies. Seriously, this is the first time in this calendar year that I've gone. But while hanging out at the Newsarama boards, the praise for this movie was just off the charts, so I couldn't not see it. I figured there was no way possible that this movie could match the hype, but god damn if it wasn't fantastic.

It's pretty dark. It's way dark. It isn't some little kid's movie, man. If all you know about Batman is from the old Adam West tv show, this movie will hit you like a ton of bricks. Batman is a motherfucking asskicking hardass. And the Joker? Holy shit. Heath Ledger's Joker makes Jack Nicholson's look like the fucking Easter Bunny. He's psychotic and downright scary. I can't think of a time in all the various forms and interpretations I've seen of the Joker where he was that scary, and let me tell you, it suits him. He isn't messing around.

It isn't just a big dumb punch-up. The atmosphere is heavy, there are moral ambiguities and shades of gray to burn, and a whole lot of people get killed. There were situations in the story where I had no idea how they were going to be resolved, and when I can't predict what's coming next in a superhero flick, it's got some heft to it. As much as I really enjoyed the Spider-Man movies, there weren't a lot of surprises. The Dark Knight really kept me on the edge. For all the times I've seen cities jeopardized by crazy madmen, this time it genuinely felt like the end of the world right there in Gotham City.

And I am fucking impressed.

My Long Lost Brother

2008-07-25T23:01:00.003-05:00

To update the topic from the other day, it seems to be a WIN. I wasn't sure, even though he added me as a friend, what his state of mind was and if he'd want to be buddies, but things have defnitely moved in a positive direction. If you have the wherewithal to go to my Myspace page, look in the comments section and you'll see for yourself. I can't put it any better than he did.

It definitely gave me a happy.

Tales of the Kudoverse #9

2008-07-24T20:32:00.003-05:00

Having finished up what I wrote of the origin cycle I was unsure what to hit next. The following story is what I decided on. This one brings our characters up to the "present day" (that being 2005), so obviously there's a gap in the middle between the last part of the Kitten origin and where they're all at right now. Don't worry, you haven't missed anything -- I'm going to fill in those gaps later on. This piece features Canary Kudo (how we get from Jillyana Von Zemo to Canary Kudo is another origin related story I have in mind, but haven't written out) and a character you haven't met yet named Wilhemina X.

The story is based on an idea given to me by my friend Matt. He threw the idea at me, and then I had to figure out how to make it work, and to get there I had to play around with some ideas about narration and point of view. I think it's really good. It's definitely me at my most Tarantino.

*****

West Texas. January 2004.

Ever since the incident at the Five Star Diner on Tuesday morning, the state police have kept a guard posted at the bedside of William H Arkle, 62. Mr. Arkle was hospitalized as a result of the incident, and has been in the intensive care unit, although doctors agree that his comatose state is the result of a heart attack brought on by the stress of the incident, not as a result of injuries suffered at the hands of the two young woman who were involved in the attack on the Diner. Mr. Arkle is the only person left from the scene who can provide authorities with any relevant information.

William H Arkle woke from his coma on Friday evening. By this time agents from the FBI, and three SHIELD agents joined the state troopers stationed there. The agent in charge, Sharon Carter, quickly took over the scene. When Mr. Arkle was well enough to talk, Agent Carter conducted the interview. Only the SHIELD agents and the ranking FBI agent were allowed to remain in the room while Mr. Arkle told his story.

"Mr. Arkle, can you tell me what happened at the Five Star Diner that morning?"

'I was there having some breakfast, like I always do. Every morning. Scrambled eggs and toast. And black coffee. Ever since Doris passed on I ain't felt much like cooking, or much else, and now that I'm retired there isn't much for me to do except mosey on down to the Diner and visit with the pretty waitresses for as long as they don't kick me out. Well, I guess I won't be doing as much of that anymore.

It was just like any other Tuesday morning. The interstate crosses right near there, and the Diner was loaded up, like any mid-morning with truckers and the local riff raff. I always sit at the counter, over in the corner, so's I can see everything that's going on. They came in around 10:00. The two girls, I mean. The one's that you want to know about. I ain't never seen the two of them in there before, and that pretty much means they weren't local. Just two pretty girls passing through is what I thought. And the locals being what they are, two little girls looking like them are going to attract some attention. And they did.'

"Can you describe them for me, Mr. Arkle?"

'They were both small little things. Five foot something, tops. Certainly no more than five-five. The one who came in first had long blond hair, practically down to her waist, I'd say. She walked in like she owned the place, and the way the boys were checking her out, she pretty much did. And it was pretty obvious she knew every eye would be on her, like she expected it. I guess looking like that, it prolly happened a lot. She didn't go about making eye contact with anybody. Even when some of the truckers whistled at her she didn't do nothing but smirk about it. She was wearing mostly red, and she was carrying a bundle of something wrapped in a blanket under her arm. I thought that was a might peculiar, but not as much as when I found out what was in there later on.

The other girl was a pretty little thing herself. I'm not saying the blond in red overshadowed her or anything, but she did get the fair share of the attention. This other girl had something of a pale complexion. Not sickly, but like she hasn't gotten too much of the sun, which is right odd for being in West Texas out in the middle of nowheres. She had kind of sandy blondish hair, and these big eyes. They stood right out, but I always had kind of a thing for eyes, you know? This one seemed a little more bothered by the boys and their nonsense. She gave a few of them the evil eye on the way past. With her size she didn't seem more dangerous than a white rose, but that glare she was casting kind of gave me a chill.

They took a booth not more than two deep from where I was sitting at the counter. I don't normally consider myself an eavesdropper now, but it isn't every day that two pretty girls like those two wander in to the Five Star, and I have to admit I was a bit interested. The blond girl had an accent on her, sounded German to me, and her friend had a different one...Australian, I'd say, like in some of the movies. I figured they must be a couple of whaddayacallit.....foreign exchange students from the University. They were about the right age for that. I couldn't really make out much of what they were saying, but I couldn't help but cast an eye on that booth. The second girl, the one with the big eyes, was sitting facing me, and she caught me looking a few times. She flared her nostrils at me, but she didn't glare like at the other boys. I've never been taken as a guy who's too threatening. Vera came by their table and they ordered their food, and everything seemed all right. Then.'

"What happened next?"

'For a while them two girls just ate their breakfast and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The one girl facing me just had some French toast and orange juice. The blond girl had a whole mess of food. There must have been five plates of things there in front of her. She didn't look it, but she sure could put the food away. She had just ordered something else, and Vera went off to fetch it. That's when the trouble started.

Big Bill, one of the regulars, came over to their booth. He kind of has a reputation as somebody who can be crude, especially towards the women, you know? The waitresses all are kind of used to him, and don't pay him no nevermind. But these girls were fresh out of wherever they came from, and they wouldn't know that Ol' Bill is really just a harmless old coot. The mousy one, she kind of cast a withering stare at him, but the blond girl didn't even look up. She just kept eating. Sittin' as close as I was, I could hear some of the conversation. In Bill's defense, I think he was just trying to make them gals feel at home, but sometimes he just doesn't have the smoothest approach. And them two girls, well....

They just weren't right.

Bill was saying something about how if they was new in town that he could show them some of the local sights, and could show them a good time. I'd seen this before and I just rolled my eyes at it. Nobody ever took him up on that. The girl facing me, she said, "I don't think so," and went back to her French toast. The blond girl never looked up at all, not once, like he wasn't there at all. Well, Bill doesn't always know when to quit, and he mentioned how the lake was pretty this time of year, and he could take them over there so they could see it. The girl said again, "I don't think so," and a little more sharply than the time before. I was interested in how this was going to play out, and I noticed the other blond girl look up from her bacon and eggs and look at her friend. She was facing the other way, but I would bet you she was smirking. You could just tell that Bill was starting to get embarrassed, cause most everybody in the Diner was paying attention to that booth. He should have just walked away.

But he was there with his buddies, and they was kind of egging him on. He kind of cleared his throat, looked back at the girl who'd answered him already, and said that she might not get a better offer than that. I could tell the girl I was watching was starting to lose patience with Bill, and she looked at her friend and just shook her head. Bill was still talking. Then the blond girl spoke up and said, "She already told you to FUCK OFF," and just went back to her eggs. The other girl smiled at her friend, and then looked up at Ol' Bill with this look like she was just daring him to say something back. Bill himself, well he looked like he'd been slapped right in the face. His buddies were snickering back at the counter behind him, and there was a different ripple going through the rest of the place. Then he said, "I was just trying to be nice. You don't have to be a cunt about it." I'm not superstitious by nature, but I definitely felt a chill come through the Five Star right then.

The blond girl stopped in mid-bite and put her fork down. Then she slid out of the booth, looked Bill right in the face, and she...how can I put it? She snorted at him, you know, like a pissed off bull might do. She had that bundle of whatever under one arm, and she walked by Bill and started looking around for something. The jukebox I guess it was, cause she focused in on it and her mouth turned up in a smile. Then she started looking around again, and her gaze settled on me over in the corner. Her demeanor weren't quite the same as when she came in. It was all serious now, and them eyes stared a hole right through me, and even in the 80-degree heat they covered my whole body in goosebumps. She stepped right over to me, got real close--closer than I'd be comfortable with even under normal circumstances. Her hand came to rest on my shoulder, and even though she weren't pressing down to hard on me, I could tell she was some strong girl. I felt her hair bump against my cheek, and then she was whispering in my ear. "Do you have a quarter I could borrow?" she asked.

I was dumbstruck for a few seconds, but then I fumbled a quarter out of my pocket for her somehow. She smiled a devil's smile at me, and said, "Thanks, sweetheart. Stay right here. Don't move." I was near to paralyzed as it was, so there weren't no problem in complying with that. Every eye in the place was on her by this point as she blew by Bill and sauntered on over to the jukebox. Bill had gone back to the counter by this time, talking to his buddies, but still casting a look at the blond girl. She took her time picking out a song, like she was deciding between a couple different ones, and then that quarter went in. The song started. It was one of those that the morning crowd doesn't play much at all, but the college kids at night were partial to.'

"What song was it?"

'Sabotage' by the Beastie Boys.

"And that's when it started?"

'The shit started to hit the fan almost before I even knew it. The blonde girl unraveled her bundle, and let the blanket fall to the floor. She turned around holding two swords. I swear to god. Swords. And her face. Her eyes were some angry, but she was smiling like the devil come up from Hell. One of the women on the other side, near the jukebox there, she started up screaming right away. Jack Harner was standing closest to her, and she swung at him without even barely looking his direction. The sword slashed right across his face and he dropped to the floor hollering in pain. A spray of blood coated the counter top. Then everybody panicked. Betty Lou from down at the beauty salon, she ran for the door, but right as she got there she went up in flames. It didn't take more than two seconds before she was completely ablaze, and she fell forward into the door, and then fell back. The smell of that burning flesh was nauseating. Between that and the blood, I could feel what I'd put down of my breakfast coming back up. I looked over at the booth and the other girl was watching Betty Lou burn up alive, and she was giggling about it. I don't know how I knew it, but I knew she'd done it. The other girl caused the fire. I know how crazy this all sounds.'

"It's all right, Mr. Arkle. Please continue."

'Well, the blond girl with the swords just kept cutting everybody anywhere near her. Bob Tarkins, he lost an arm just lickety-split. Joe Miller got run through with one of them blades. And some of the truckers, I don't even know who they were, you know, got cut down just the same. It didn't seem like she was even trying that hard. In the corner booth there was a family--a man, his wife, and two kids. I think he had the idea of trying to defend them, and he picked up a chair to hold her off. She just looked over at her friend there, who was still sitting in the booth, and just gave an amused look, and then kicked the chair right back into that guy's face. He went back first right into the table his family was sitting at, and then she split him right down the middle in front of them. The wife started screaming, but it only lasted for a second cause next thing I know her head came off and bounced against the front window. I couldn't look to see what happened to the two kids.

Around this time, Bill and his two friends had the idea to get the hell out of there before the blond girl got around to them. The front door was an inferno by this point, so they tried to get out the side door over near where I was. I'd have tried it myself if I hadn't been so scared shitless. I ain't ashamed to admit that. The second girl looked over in their direction, and I didn't see her do a thing but Bill's two friends went up afire just like Betty Lou had. She let Bill have an extra few seconds, and he looked at her, and he knew what I knew about her starting them fires, and he started to beg her for his life. She slid out of the booth and walked over to him, nice and slow. Ol' Bill was just a blubbering mess then, and he was down on his knees asking for forgiveness, from her or from the Lord--hell, I don't know. She leaned down to him and this weren't more than four feet from me, and I heard her clearly say, "I forgive you."

Bill seemed relieved and he started thanking her over and over while his two buddies burnt to a cinder right behind him. Then he started touching his chest, like he had some bad indigestion. Bill made some gurgling noises, and then he started to cough and cough and cough. He coughed up a little fireball just before a big hole burnt through his chest. Then it was seconds before the rest of him was burnt out....Jesus. She'd burnt him from the inside out right in front of me. She looked at me, all pleased with herself, and she winked at me, like I was in on the joke with her. I just wanted to scream.

Then the top half of Frank Nettle's head bounced off my plate, and landed on my lap. The blond girl had more than half the Diner hacked to pieces by then. I hadn't seen anything like that since Vietnam. All the bodies and limbs with no bodies attached to them. And I just sat there waiting for my turn, and wondering if they were saving me for last. I looked back into the kitchen, and Freddy the cook had his shotgun, and he pointed it at the blond girl, and I wondered why he didn't just run for it. I guess he thought he had to try and be a hero or something. He never got the chance, cause the other girl was standing right near to me and she saw what I saw, and next thing I remember pretty much the whole kitchen went up like it'd been bombed. It was that girl what did it. She exploded the gas stove, and it incinerated Freddy and anyone else who was still back there.

That's about when the state cops showed up outside. I caught sight of Vera hiding behind the counter, and I hoped neither of the two girls realized she was there. The whole Diner was on fire at that point, and I knew we were gonna be goners one way or the other. The blond girl was all covered in blood that had sprayed back on her, and she noticed the blues outside the same time I did. There was at least seven cruisers out there, making just over a dozen cops, and I knew those boys had handled some nasty shit in their day, but after seeing what I'd just seen, I didn't like their chances much. The girl near me, the firestarter, she told me to go outside. I was just paralyzed, I didn't know what to do. She yelled at me again, "GO", and that was all I needed, and I was up and out of that seat, hopping over the burning bodies between me and that side door, and out into the air.

The troopers were saying something on a megaphone, but I wasn't paying any attention to that. Something about letting out whoever was in there and then coming out with their hands up. Soon after that I knew that they'd caught sight of Vera, cause she got thrown through one of the front windows, and landed at the troopers' feet. I just sat there in the dirt watching, out of sight. The rest of it happened real fast. The troopers started firing, and then the gas pumps out front went up in a huge roar of an explosion that took half the cruisers with them, and pry about half the troopers. The rest of them were running for cover. The force of that explosion knocked me back against the wall, but luckily I was around the corner of the building otherwise the blast would have fried me right then and there. I was only half-conscious as it was, so I might have imagined this, but the blond girl came out the broken front window, moving fast, like a blur, and she cut the rest of the troopers to pieces.

The rest is hazy. I remember being dragged away from the Diner, I think by the blond girl, cause I caught sight of the other girl behind me, looking back at the fire like it was a dog she was leaving behind to fend for itself. They pulled me free of the fire and left me on the side of the road. I wasn't hurt much, and just a little scorched, but I was alive, for whatever reason. I just laid there, waiting for the end--I was sure it was coming any second, but the blond girl just leaned down and whispered in my ear again. "Thanks for the quarter." And then they were gone. I watched them walk away for a second or two, and that's when my heart decided it couldn't take the strain no more. When I woke up next it was here in the hospital.'

"Thank you, Mr. Arkle," Sharon Carter says. "You've been a great help. Get some rest now."

---

"You know what we're dealing with here, I assume."

Sharon Carter looks down, takes a deep breath. "Yes. I do."

"Canary Kudo is supposed to be dead," the FBI agent says. "SHIELD informed the Bureau that she died, along with her sister, in Munich last year. So, would somebody please tell me what the FUCK is really going on?"

"It's Canary Kudo, all right," Japser Stillwell says. "No doubt about it. And from the sound of it she was with Wilhemina X."

"You mind telling me who that is?" the FBI agent says.

"I can't release that information to you yet," Sharon says. "I have to talk to my boss first, and let him know what the situation is."

"Fury's not going to be too happy about this," Stillwell says.

Sharon gives him a look, and Stillwell falls silent.

"What do you mean? What do you mean you can't release that information? If Canary Kudo is out there somewhere, the Bureau needs to move on this. Like yesterday."

"Don't think I'm unaware of the implications of this," Sharon says. "It's much worse than you think."

"How could it....?" The FBI agent stops, his eyes widen. "You knew. You knew Canary Kudo was alive, and you didn't tell us. Her sister is alive, too, isn't she?"

"I can't--"

"ISN'T SHE?"

"Yes. Their bodies were never recovered after Munich. We've always believed they survived."

"Son of a...." The FBI agent starts to storm away. "You people are going to hear from us. Some heads are going to--"

The FBI agent drops to the floor. Jasper Stillwell stands next to him, holding they hypodermic needle he just stuck into the agent's thigh.

"Sorry," Sharon says. "I'm afraid I can't let that happen."

She checks his vital signs.

"He'll be all right," Stillwell says. "Won't have more than a headache."

"And he won't remember?"

"He'll barely remember showing up here at the hospital today."

"And by then we'll have this whole situation clamped down tight."

Stillwell glances down the hallway. "What about Arkle?"

"Relocation," Sharon says. "Tell him his life is still in danger, which probably isn't a lie at all, given who we're dealing with, and we'll move him to some beach on an island somewhere...for his own good. And as far as the FBI is concerned, he'll have just disappeared."

"When?"

"Start on it now," Sharon says. "Get it done. I have to go see Fury."

Adair Tishler...

2008-07-23T19:48:00.003-05:00

... would make an excellent Miranda Jane in the movie adaptation of The Book. Adair plays Molly Walker in the superb first season of Heroes, which I just finished watching, and if you haven't watched it yet ... Why not?

Virgorama

2008-07-23T19:34:00.002-05:00

Your life story is about to deepen and sweeten and get more interesting -- if, that is, you follow the trail of clues into the dark forest, and if, as you travel, you hum songs that are both sad and happy, and if you call on the spirit of your favorite dead person to accompany you. Of course, you're perfectly free to refuse the call of your destiny, and never even take a glance into the dark forest. But in my opinion, that would cheat you out of some profound fun that has the potential to teach you and tune you for many years to come.

As spot on as these horoscopes sometimes are, this is one of the first times I really believe this specific week was written just for me. Bonus points for anyone who can spot the key words there.

"if you call on the spirit of your favorite dead person to accompany you". Ding!

"the call of your destiny". Ding!

"follow the trail of clues into the dark forest". Ding!

Let's go check out that Dark Forest, shall we?

Nothing Tonight

2008-07-22T23:46:00.002-05:00

I'm taking tonight off.

I am somewhat frazzled and tense. There's a story behind it, which is really an accumulation of things, and I don't feel like getting into it right now. I have already discussed it out with Guinevere, and she made me feel better, and that's good enough. I'll probably get into it tomorrow. We'll see.

Peace out.

Holy Freaking Crap

2008-07-21T23:07:00.002-05:00

While working on the Myspace project, alluded to in recent posts, I signed on my own account and found a friend request from someone, and it *blew my mind*. I accepted, naturally, and left a comment on that page (see title of this post), but as that was only ten minutes ago, that's as far as it's gotten. Wow. I didn't expect to hear from this person, so that's exciting. I don't know what's going to happen next, but given things that have been on my mind lately (sorry, folks, that's an e-mail specific reference that one person will understand), it seems like a sign of something. A sign of what I don't know, but something.

And of course, it could also lead exactly nowhere (see: Jacquie, Krysten, Stacy, etc.). But I am an optimist (2007-present), so I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Tales of the Kudoverse #8

2008-07-21T21:42:00.003-05:00

This one is the big, loud conclusion of the Secret Origin of Kitten Mundae, also featuring two characters you've already met in previous stories, and introducing a behind the scenes character that I love to death. When I was first writing this one I described it to a friend of mine as being "obscenely violent", and I think I lived up to the hype. It's the first big team up of the three characters we've met so far, and it really shows what they're capable of. The new character, Gigi, is the only principal character not based on one of the NHG's, but is instead based (somewhat) on one of their friends from Alabama. Unfortunately, this is the last of the Secret Origins cycle that I wrote, so even though I know where Wilhemina X and the Black Rabbit come from and how they came to be, those stories aren't yet written.

'Yet' being the key word there.

*****
Although many in the Chitauri Empire considered the story to be something of an urban legend, there is no doubt that the attack on the Children of Azoth Orphanage did in fact occur, carried out by three young women who walked in during the middle of the night. Skrull operatives stationed on the planet Earth at the time still tell the story in vivid detail to young skrull-lings, who listen in wide-eyed wonder. Officially, the incident never happened, and those in high command discourage the spread of the legend, and many go so far as to deny such a thing ever took place.

But it is a true story.

January 1998. St. Aureillius, France.

The attack was sudden, and brutal in its efficiency. The Skrull kept numerous guards posted around the perimeter of the Orphanage, and most of them never saw what killed them. Those on the watchtower were killed by sniper fire, fired from a single gun. Others in the woods were cut down by something ferocious and fast moving, carrying two blades that flashed quickly in the moonlight. Bodies would be found the next day slashed, dismembered, and decapitated. In other areas of those same woods, the bodies of other sentries were found with their necks broken, their spines shattered, and others were killed through the use of weaponry that Chitauri scientists could not identify. All of this was done within minutes. There was no call of alarm. When the three woman blew the front gate off of it's hinges and entered the orphanage, the aliens in residence were caught sleeping.

The explosion woke the complex. Skrull from every corner of the building grabbed weapons to meet the threat. The scientists in charge, fearing the worst--an attack by the Kree, rushed to their labs to protect their data and their experiments. The three women split-up on the first floor. The dark-haired one disappeared almost immediately. The other two made no attempt to hide. The Skrull, in full going-to-war mode, didn't bother to disguise their appearance. Their orders were simple: kill any invader and protect the laboratories at all costs. The cost was higher than they could have anticipated.

In the south corridor, Jillyana Von Zemo met the charge full on. The first contingent of six Skrull warriors was taken by surprise rounding a corner. The young blonde-haired girl only smiled, said something in German, and leapt into them, swords drawn, with a shriekish war cry that chilled each of the aliens to the bone. They didn't have a chance to fire a single shot. The next contingent found the girl pulling one of her swords from the face of the last kill. Behind her, green Skrull blood splattered the walls, and severed limbs littered the walkway. These new skrulls tried to fight the sick feeling in their stomachs as they raised their weapons.

Jillyana smiled, said something in German.

Amelie Anne Marie Auf Der Maur traveled the north corridor. Each hand carried an automatic weapon. Other firearms were holstered on her belt, and another rifle was strapped to her back, just in case. It's unknown if any of the Skrull who encountered her in those hallways knew her origins and could appreciate the irony of the living weapon they helped create coming home to kill them all. If any of them knew who she was, they only had brief seconds to register the information before a spray of bullets cut them down. Her telepathy and feline-spiked DNA kept her ahead of the Skrull firepower. They could not pin her down. Amelie moved in a fluid motion through the corridor. She met the enemy, dodged the attacks before a trigger was even pressed, fired back, and did not miss. She killed, and moved on. In her wake the corridors filled with dead bodies.

The bodies of dead Chitauri stared to pile up. Many of the soldiers stationed within the orphanage decided to desert their posts, and abandoned the orphanage. They left individually and in small groups. The Black Guard, a squadron of the Red Skull’s finest killers, who had made a perimeter around not only the Children of Azoth Orphanage, but the town of St. Aureillis as well met all of them in the woods. They were under strict orders from Elspeth Von Zemo to kill anything that approached. In the early hours of the morning, the forest erupted in the sound of sudden gunfire.

Deep in the basement of the Orphanage the scientists and highest-ranking officials gathered inside a small bunker where their most valued genetic data was stored. The bunker was their fallback area, designed to protect them from attack from the Kree, SHIELD, or whatever else came along. From there, the twelve men, and their six guards, watched the massacre on several monitors. They watched the young blond woman cut apart soldier after soldier. They watched the other young woman, the one they identified as their lost sheep, gun down their soldiers with ease. The scientists calculated their most likely destinations within the installation, ordered more troops to intercept, and wondered where the third young woman had disappeared.

Behind them an air vent grating dropped to the floor. Everyone in the room turned in response to the sound, the guards drew their weapons, and Elspeth Von Zemo jumped down to the floor, landing on the grate. Seven different guns, most of alien origin, pointed at her head, she only smiled. In her hand a small sphere was activated with the press of a thumb. It started to glow with a light blue energy as it left her hand to levitate at a spot in the center of the room, just below the ceiling.

"Time to go, boys," she said. The sphere pinpointed it's targets and discharged sixteen beams of electrical blue energy, leaving behind piles of ash where creatures pretending to be men had stood only seconds before. Only Elspeth and two guards remained.

"Where do I get those wonderful toys?" she said, casting a glance towards the two men across the room.

Upstairs, in the south corridor a dozen more Skrull met the blond warrior head on. She slashed, and they dropped one by one. In such close quarters, the soldiers didn't have time to line up their shots on the fast moving target, and fired wildly. One blaster shot grazed Jillyana's arm, but she hardly seemed to notice it. Her sword severed the skrull's hand before he could try again. Another soldier grabbed her from behind, but couldn't keep hold due to the blade that punctured his lung. Everywhere around her, skrulls were attacking, trying to pull her down. Adrenaline mixed with the super soldier serum that coursed through her veins, and Jillyana Von Zemo flew into a berserker fury. The small wounds inflicted upon her didn't register. A skrull head bounced off the wall, and then rolled down the hallway. Another was cut in half across the chest. Her swords did not stop moving for a second until all of the skrull were flayed.

The north corridor. Amelie continued to move through the installation, killing everything she met. The hallways echoed with all of the horrors they had seen over the years, and Amelie could feel that. She remembered everything the Chitauri had done to her. Now it was her turn. Amelie turned a corner, heading northeast. Her goal was right at the end of the hallway, and soon she would be done with her pursuers forever. A junction in the hallway to her right, less than ten feet away, hid eight skrulls. They were laying in wait for her, but her telepathy picked them up as soon as she turned the corner. A gun in both hands, she didn't even slow down when they attacked. Four of them fell immediately, courtesy of bullets to their brains. The other four swarmed around her.

One of them changed itself into a snake and circled her legs. Another turned into some form of furry carnivore from another galaxy. The other two just tried to grab her arms. Amelie threw her elbow back into one of them, destroying its nose, and then cracking it's skull as it was driven backwards into the wall. She shot three times into the carnivore with the other hand, but it absorbed the bullets. The other skrull grabbed her right arm. She shot him through the eye with the gun in her left. She slipped one leg free of the snake-formed skrull, caught its head underneath her foot, and then shot it dead. The carnivore thing swiped at her, but Amelie ducked the blow. It's claws cut her leg on a second swipe. She backed against the wall, as the beast charged at her with a mouth full of sharp teeth. When it was close enough, she thrust both hands inside its mouth, pulled two triggers, and blew its head off.

The basement. The two remaining guards could hardly hold their weapons steady, not to mention their bowels. Terrified, they could do nothing as the dark-haired woman approached them. They couldn't pull the triggers on their weapons literally to save their own lives.

"Human, is it? I wasn't expecting that," she said. "Not that anyone working for this scum of the universe can really call themselves human, can they?"

"Please," the first guard said. "I have...have two dau--"

His last words were cut off by the three fingers Elspeth used to collapse his throat. He fell at her feet. The second guard dropped his weapon and tried to run for the door. He only made it halfway there. Elspeth leapt at him. Her foot caught him in the lower back, shattering his spine. The guard never had a chance to beg for his life before she snapped his neck.

Elspeth checked the door to make sure it was secure, and then pulled a headset and a small handheld laptop from a pouch on her belt. She walked over to the mainframe, watched the path of destruction caused by Jillyana and Amelie upstairs for a few seconds, and then hotwired herself into the Chitauri system.

"Gigi, I'm in. Take everything."

A voice younger by several years than Elspeth crackled over the headset.

"Loading up. How are the girls?"

"They're fine." Elspeth cast an eye at the monitors. "They should be finished up before too long."

"You remember the way out, right? From the map?"

"Yes, G. The second tunnel leads right outside. I already checked it. Don't worry."

A large clatter outside the door startled Elspeth. Several voices shouting something in Chitauri were clearly audible over the new sound of something heavy trying to break the door down. Elspeth estimated there had to be twenty of them out there. At least.

"G, we're going to need to finish this up in a hurry. I have a situation."

"I'm trying, El. Everything is encrypted in alien, and the encryptions have encryptions, and there are firewalls behind that. Plus, their system sent about eighty viruses, which are now trying to eat my computer."

Outside the door, the banging increased in intensity. Elspeth watched as dents started to form in the steel plating. She looked at the spent sphere, which had dropped to the floor and rolled into the corner. One use per sphere the AIM technicians had told her. She wished she had a second sphere with her. Another loud thump against the door rattled its hinges. Elspeth took out a silver disk roughly the size of a quarter and placed it on the mainframe. As she pressed it down, four small arms extended from the top of it and clamped the disk tightly to the computer. The door rattled even harder against its hinges.

"G, time's running out. I'm going to be stir-fry in a minute if you don't hurry up."

"I got in. The transfer is gonna take a bit."

Inhuman voices howled on the other side of the door, which was near to collapse.

"Gigi."

"Give me two minutes."

Upstairs. The door of the nursery splinters and falls when the body of a skrull soldier is kicked through it. Jillyana steps over the body. She sheathes her swords on her back. The three nurses inside back away from her. All three are taken out with a shuriken to the face. Twenty small cribs line the walls. Jillyana walks from one to the next. Most of the infants appear to be human, but some are skrull, and a portion are a hybrid of the two. Jillyana makes a disgusted face, draws her swords. The half-breed creature opens its eyes. Its cry is hideous. Its blood splatters the wall when the sword comes down. Jillyana is half done with her work before she's interrupted.

"Stop right there," a female voice says. "You monster."

Three young women, roughly her age, have entered the nursery from the far door. The one in the middle is holding an automatic rifle. The other two are holding an axe and a pair of nunchaka, respectively. Jillyana was told to expect them--the other genetically enhanced children made at the same time as Amelie. The one in the middle has her gun trained on Jillyana. She is in the process of ordering her to surrender when a thrown sword impales her through the chest. The other two are momentarily surprised, enough for Jillyana to spring at them in attack. She blocks an axe thrust with her sword, and then kicks the girl down. The other swings for Jillyana's head with her chucks, and misses only by inches. Jillyana swings around and makes a deep cut across her throat. The last one attacks again, chopping with the axe, only nearly missing. Her last thrust makes a shallow cut across Jillyana's midsection, and knocking the sword from her hand. Jillyana punches the girl in the face, takes her axe, and then splits her down the middle.

Jillyana picks up her one sword from the floor, and pulls the other from the dead girl. No one interrupts her as she finishes her work. She walks from crib to crib, whistling a happy tune.

Across the building, Amelie enters the dormitory she lived in for several years. Inside, the twelve young girls who make up the new batch for the Chitauri to experiment with sit huddled in the corner, having heard the approaching gunfire. Amelie lowers her guns as she approaches them. She remembers what it was like to feel the fear she sees in their eyes. That's how it was for her everyday before her escape.

"Those bastards won't touch you again," Amelie says. "I promise."

She opens her mind and goes inside theirs. From girl to girl, it's all the same. The damage has already been done. The Chitauri have begun the experiments. It's too late. Amelie feels their pain, and knows it will never end for any of them.

"I wish I could help you." Her voice is weary. "All I can show you now is mercy."

Amelie Anne Marie Auf Der Maur closes her eyes for the last time. Her guns fire twelve times. Kitten Mundae opens her eyes. She doesn't look back as she leaves the dormitory.

Downstairs. The Skrull have finally broken the door. They pour into the bunker looking to kill the intruder, but only find two dead guards and several piles of ash. The skrull captain walks over to the mainframe, and sees the silver disk attached. He recognizes it as an explosive device and quickly burns it's circuits out with an electrical surge from his weapon.

"Find the human. Search the whole building, the town, the forest. Everywhere."

"Captain....."

"Just find..." The captain's voice trails off when he sees what his lieutenant was trying to indicate. Thirty more silver disks have been placed all over the room. The captain curses something in Chitauri.

The explosions ripped through the building. Within minutes, the entire structure was aflame. Any skrulls that escaped the conflagration were met in the forest by the Black Guard and gunned down. The orphanage fire could be clearly seen from the town of St. Aureillis. After decades of living in fear of the Others, the townspeople gathered in the streets to watch the installation burn down. They were there to meet the three women, their saviors, who walked into town. The young woman in the lead, her hair in two long braids, carrying a high-powered rifle, stepped forward. The other two, the blond and the dark-haired one, hung back. An elderly gentleman stepped forward to offer thanks. Kitten Mundae said nothing, and barely looked at him as she stepped inside his mind, and then the minds of several others.

"You knew," she said. "You all knew what was happening there. You always knew."

A single shot drops the old man at her feet.

"You all let it happen."

Panic broke out almost immediately. Kitten began systematically gunning down everyone in her sights. The other townspeople ran in every direction. Jillyana cut down dozens of them. Elspeth joined them. Anyone who made it as far as the woods was gunned down. The slaughter of St. Aureillis took only forty-five minutes. The three women left after every man, woman, and child in the town was exterminated. When SHIELD arrived within the hour, there was nothing for them to do but remove the bodies. The explosion and fire left little for them to discover as far as the real truth of the Children of Azoth Orphanage was concerned.

But for the Chitauri, that day has become a legend.

Not Quite Dead Yet

2008-07-20T22:06:00.002-05:00

All right, so there have been a couple of snafus along the way as far as killing off the alter-egos. Two of them should be dead by tomorrow, going by the "24 to 48 hours" thing I was told by the program. The other three, however, are being a pain in my ass. It isn't as easy as just going in and deleting the blog, apparently. I have to have a confirmation letter sent to the e-mail addresses, and then I have to click on a link to confirm that I want them destroyed. The problem is that with those three accounts I hadn't logged into their e-mails in so long that they'd been deactivated. So I reactivated them, which I didn't really want to do, but for some reason I can't get the site to send the confirmation e-mails to those reactivated e-mail accounts despite repeated attempts. I might have to Plan B them.

Nevertheless, I've mentally moved on from those alter-egos. As far as all this goes, I'm all alone in here now.

Let's see what I can do with that.

Tales of the Kudoverse #7

2008-07-19T23:01:00.002-05:00

So we're in the middle of another three-part story. Like I said last time, there are a few other stories that fit between #6 and #7, which I haven't written yet, so if it seems as though things jump way ahead, well, they kinda do. I don't think, however, that they jump so far that it's hard to follow.

This one was tricky. In a departure from most, if not all, of the other tales, this one is pretty much all conversation with very little actual violence. I'm going to write a post soonish describing my takes on the principal characters and all of the disciplines I try to adhere to while building this universe, but some of them apply to this story here. On the one side we have Dynamite Kudo, who is an extremely persuasive and manipulative evil genius, and on the other side is Kitten Mundae, who is a hardnosed, no-nonsense killer for hire ... and a telepath. So the problem I was trying to work through was: how would Kudo go about winning over someone who she can't lie to, because that other person can read her mind? There are also a few Easter eggs hidden in the details of this one, just because I love to do that sort of thing.

*****

Amelie Anne Marie Auf Der Maur spent two years on the run. The skrulls were only ever two steps behind her, no matter where she ran. The more of them she killed, the more they sent the next time. They never stopped coming. And the more she had to fight, the more Amelie learned what the enhanced genetics in her body could do. By the time she landed in Spain, Amelie had killed almost 100 of the aliens. They would not stop, and the more they pursued her, the more she learned how to kill efficiently.

Not that her skills were displayed against the Skrulls exclusively. Her talents attracted the attention of numerous, and very powerful, contacts throughout Europe. Many of these contacts were willing to pay her exorbitant sums of money to eliminate their enemies for them. It wasn't long before her asking price skyrocketed.

By late 1995 her number of contract kills almost matched the number of Skrulls Amelie had exterminated. In the spring of 1996, Amelie Auf Der Maur was the 4th ranked assassin in the world, but she expected to move up that list. #'s 1 and 2 were busy trying to kill each other in New York City over some business with the Kingpin. The third name on the list was the blond psychopath Amelie encountered in Switzerland six months earlier, when both of them were looking to collect the same bounty on the same prey. The only thing that stopped them from killing each other was the Skrull war party that interrupted them. Amelie could never work for the same client for long, because of them. She had to stay on the move.

August. 1996. She was in Spain on a job for Ahmal Farouk. An easy kill. The target was a head of state, his family, and any witnesses. A child could pull this job off; it was almost beneath her talents. Or it was a trap. Amelie kept on her toes throughout the entire operation. Once on the grounds, she reached out with her telepathy and pinpointed the location of everyone on the premises. She counted eleven. The target, the wife, the three children, two servants, and four security guards. Piece of cake.

The security barely put up a fight and was disposed of in minutes. The servants were even easier. The wife was next, and then the children. The target was left for last, as Farouk had specified, so that he could suffer the losses of his loved ones. Amelie questioned the wisdom of leaving the target alive for even that long, but for the money Farouk was paying her she didn't really care. A single bullet through his head finished the job just the same.

On her way out of the mansion Amelie encountered a presence she hadn't been aware of. Another young woman stood in front of the door. A breeze from outside blew strands of black hair across her face. Startled, Amelie drew her rifle, aiming at the woman's forehead.

"Hold up, killer," the woman says. "Before you pull that trigger, let's you and I have a conversation. There might be something in it for you."

"Who are you?"

"Elspeth Von Zemo. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Amelie. I've been looking forward to meeting you for some time."

Elspeth moves forward a step and extends a hand in greeting. Amelie keeps the rifle aimed at her head.

"Don't get cute," Amelie says. "One twitch out of you and I'll put a bullet through you."

"Or I could just dodge the bullet."

"You can try."

Elspeth grins at her. "Maybe we won't have to find out. Let's talk."

"How do you know who I am?"

"I know lots of things about you, my dear. You might say you've become something of a hobby of mine."

"Zemo...Zemo....I know who you are. Elspeth Von Zemo. Elspeth the Bloody. Diablo speaks highly of you. The Mad Thinker, too."

"That's very flattering."

"And your sister. She's the maniac who tried to kill me in Switzerland."

"Yes, Jillyana mentioned you. I have to say that it's impressive to have survived an encounter with her. Not many do."

"She's the first person that's ever walked away from me, too."

"Oh, I know. You come very recommended, darling. You have quite the reputation already. A number of my contacts pointed me in your direction. I just regret it's taken this long for us to meet."

"Farouk. He set me up."

"Some money changed hands, yes. He owed me a favor over some mutant business, so he helped me out with meeting you."

"Why didn't I know you were here? Why can't I read your mind?"

"Because of this." Elspeth indicates a charm on the necklace she wears. "It's old AIM hardware, blocks telepathic intrusion. Very handy, given the sort of people I go up against. Not even Farouk, or Charles Xavier, could punch a hole through it."

"You knew I was a telepath."

"Yes. I did my homework."

"Nobody knows that. Not even Farouk could tell, and I felt him reaching around in my head. How do you know so much about me?"

"Like I said, you're something of a hobby of mine, Amelie."

Amelie tightens her finger on the trigger. "Why?"

"Because you're special...unique. And I could use you on my team."

"What do you know about me."

"Amelie Ann Marie Auf Der Maur. Age 15. Escaped from the Children of Azoth orphanage two years ago. High range telepathic abilities. Enhanced physical abilities due to genetic tampering, primarily due to feline DNA which was combined with your own. This was done by aliens known as the Chitauri, although they're primarily known as Skrulls on this world. They've been hunting you ever since."

A shiver travels up and down Amelie's spine.

"You know about them?"

"Of course. The Chitauri have been here for more than sixty years. The creatures set up shop during the confusion of the war, and on both sides. Even my grandfather had some dealings with them. They have outposts and facilities in a dozen locations all over the world. That orphanage was their only genetic research laboratory, though. They were building killers, like you. Your group was the big test run. Out of the fourteen girls they started with, six of them died during the operations, and you escaped. You were the only one that ever escaped. Very embarrassing for them. It's no wonder they're trying so hard to get you back."

"How do you know all this?"

"I have a girl working for me. She's good at hacking into anything, even when the technology is from another world. She can get me anything, more or less. I asked, she provided the info, then I studied up on you."

"Why are you so interested in me?"

"I'm assembling a team. I think you could be a vital part of that team. The world is changing. And I'm part of the reason why. Oh, I have some big plans for the world, darling. You could be part of those plans. We could change the world together."

"I have my own thing going. It suits me."

"Isn't it lonely out here on your own? Wouldn't you like to stop running?"

Amelie falters at the trigger, but only for a moment.

"I've been doing all right on my own."

"You have. There's no doubt about that. What I'm offering is a chance to come in out of the cold, a chance to join my little family, an opportunity to be part of something much bigger. With me, you'll never have to run ever again. And I could use someone as skilled as you are, too. From what my Intel says, you're the best shot in the world. If you enjoy the work as much as I suspect you do, I can guarantee you'll never be bored."

"What about the Skrull? They're still after me."

"The Chitauri are no friends of mine. Their presence here is very inconvenient for me, in fact. If you joined us, I could help you with that little problem. I think I'd quite enjoy it, in fact."

"These plans you mentioned. What are they?"

Elspeth removes the necklace and lets it drop to the ground.

"I'm thinking about them right....now."

Amelie reaches inside Elspeth's brain, and finds what she was looking for. Her eyes widen; she can't believe what she's reading.

"Joking, of course."

"Not at all. And while you're in there, you can verify everything else I've said as completely accurate."

Amelie thinks this over for several seconds. She lowers the gun.

"All right. I just have to see this for myself."

"That's the spirit, darling. Come along with me. I'll take you home."

"And the Skrulls?"

"Will be taken care of. You have my word."

"And your sister."

"Already knows I've come to find you. Don't worry your pretty little head about her."

Amelie looks off into the distance.

"I would like to stop running."

Elspeth puts her arm around Amelie as they both walk towards the black jet waiting to fly them back to Berlin.

"Amelie, my dear. You are about to have the most fun you've ever had in your life."

Scrapper

2008-07-18T22:37:00.003-05:00

So being that we're still on the four day workweek (four 10's), I had today off. Also seeing as we're still on that schedule, I'm not getting the 10 to 15 hours of overtime that I used to get, and as such money is tighter around here than it was a few months ago. Which is why when Cooter asked me if I wanted to help out on the scrap metal collection project he was undertaking today, after much inner debate, I decided to do it. A little extra money is something I can't turn down.

He borrowed a one ton truck from some friend of the family, with the intention of collecting some scrap metal that a few people we know from work had laying around and bringing it to the recycling plant in Claremont to cash it in for some bucks. Fine. I can help with that ... as long as I don't have to drive the truck. He picked me up here at 7AM (even though he told me 7:30 yesterday, so he ended up waking me up ... and I was a wee bit grouchy), we went to breakfast (he paid), and then set off on our mission.

He already had a pretty good load in there. He's had the truck for a while, I guess, but got lazy and never finished. Our first actual stop was over at Bob's house. There we got some junk he had laying around in his garage, but the main attraction was this old rusted out truck that was down just over the embankment in his backyard. We surveyed the situation, loaded up the garbage from the garage, and then took off for Barney's house. Cooter told him he'd meet him at 9AM, so we had to bail at Bob's and come back later.

The Barney part of the haul was pretty easy. It consisted of some old exercise equipment in his basement. Then it was back to Bob's. The truck was a huge pain in the ass. We had to cut what we took off of the frame (which I guess the two of them think someone will want to buy), and that wasn't easy. In all we destroyed four(4) saw blades on Cooter's smallish electric saw, which amounted to every saw blade we had. After that we still managed to break off a few pieces, and we did get everything disconnected from the frame, but there was still a huge chunk of it we had to leave behind because we couldn't chop it down.

Then it was off to Claremont. I'd never been to this recycling plant, or knew it was there, so that was an experience. There's something vaguely frightening about forty foot high piles of old cars and other scrap metal. All we had to do was dump it off the truck, but we both forgot that we'd thrown a strap over the top of the pile, so some of it came out and the rest was just hanging there in the truck. Instead of feeling stupid, we both decided that was pretty funny. The going rate for the scrap was $215 per ton of scrap, and we had a little over a ton, so some decent money was made. Since Cooter was paying all the overhead, driving, and already had 2/3 of the truck filled when he picked me up, I didn't ask for a 50% share in the profits, but I still made a tidy amount for a few hours work.

Even though the day started out cool, by our second trip up to Bob's it was sunny and *hot*. The temperature only said it was 89 degrees, but by the time we made it to the scrap yard it felt like 109. All I wanted to do when I got home was take a shower and veg out ... and that's all I did. I relaxed and watched seven straight episodes of Heroes on dvd.

And it was great.

Libby Dies at Dawn

2008-07-17T23:45:00.003-05:00

Now despite being a reference to a classic story, that title is inaccurate in a couple ways.

1. It's going to be more like late afternoon.

2. It isn't just Libby; it's going to be all of them.

The time has come. I'm shutting the whole operation down. My original intention when I started this and abandoned those alter-egos was to just leave them out there for posterity, but with this whole head-clearning operation going on I think it's better to put an end to all of it. Less than 24 hours from now, these five remaining holdovers of my old internet aliases will be obliterated for all time. They served me well, but I'm interested in the future now.

From here on out, it's just going to be me ... being as awesome as I can be.

Tales of the Kudoverse #6

2008-07-17T23:17:00.003-05:00

Now we start the three part integration of Kitten Mundae into the Kudoverse mythology. She's one of my favorite characters among The Ferocious Five, and I'm very pleased with this arc, even though there are two stories that belong between this first chapter and the middle chapter. I have them in mind, but they are not written as of yet. As Kitten is based off of the NHG identity of Emily, who was herself an amalgamation of qualities found in both Erin and Samantha, there are some thematic notes that you might find familiar. This first story is more of a sketch than I'd prefer, but when I get back around to these it'll be fleshed out a whole lot more.

*****

The past.

Out in the outer northern regions of France, the town of St. Aureillis keeps its secrets. Ever since the others came. Ever since the others slowly, quietly, took over the town. The people of St. Aureillis never speak about the others, and never discuss the odd sounds and strange lights that come from the Children of Azoth Orphanage at the edge of the woods. In fact, the townspeople don't speak about the orphanage at all.

At the age of two Amelie Anne Marie Auf Der Maur was left in the care of the Children of Azoth Orphanage. She was left on the doorstep in the middle of the night. No information has ever been found to say who left her there, or what became of her parents. One night she appeared. After that, she belonged to the others.

One hundred and fifty-eight young girls resided at the Children of Azoth Orphanage when Amelie arrived there. Some nights, screams echoed in the hallways during the night, and the next morning one or two of the girls would have disappeared without a trace. None of the girls ever talked about it. They didn't want to be next. A few days later new girls would arrive to take the place of the disappeared, perhaps as an offering from St. Aureillis. Nobody knows. Nobody ever talked about it.

When Amelie was six the experiments started.

France. 1994.

Six years. The experiments never ended. The pain was unbearable, but Amelie persevered somehow while the doctors cut into her flesh and adjusted her DNA to their specifications. She screamed into the night. Some nights she thought the screaming would never stop. The doctors didn't hear, or didn't care, and they continued to cut into her flesh.

One night in October, when Amelie was dragged back to her room by the orderlies, she didn't sleep. She tried, but she couldn't sleep. The doctors cut too deep, hurt her too badly, and in her screaming something--a window--opened in Amelie's mind. She could hear their thoughts, those of the doctors, of the other girls, everyone. Amelie could not shut them out--the agony of the other girls or the strange alien thoughts of the doctors and most of the staff. The thoughts invaded her mind, increased her own pain, kept her from finding any peace. Worst of all, she could now see the doctors and the rest of the others for what they truly were.

In her room, Amelie Anne Marie Auf Der Maur began to scream again.

Learning to control her new ability was difficult. The thoughts, all the thoughts, from everyone around her, attacked her day and night. It was weeks before she could discipline herself and force them out...until she wanted them to come. Then the power became hers to use and it helped her block out the pain when the doctors strapped her down to the table in their laboratory and sliced into her. And she began to gain awareness of what had been done to her in those experiments, what had been altered in her DNA, and just how enhanced her body had become. She knew that the doctors were building her into something. Her strength, speed, agility, and reflexes all exceeded normal human limits, because of the doctors and their experiments.

Amelie used her new awareness to explore the capabilities of her physical attributes. And she started to plan.

November. The doctors had detected Amelie's enhanced mental capacity only a few days earlier. Despite the excellent progress they had made in building her, they could not contain their curiosity about the special mind they were now in possession of. Perhaps if they cut it open the doctors could figure out how to replicate the effect in the other girls. Amelie didn't fight them when she was brought into the lab, even though she could hear their intentions for her clearly in her mind. It wasn't time yet. The doctors surrounded her. Only Amelie could see through their facade, beyond the appearance of older gentlemen in surgical smocks. She knew that beyond the surface they were different. In their true forms the doctor's flesh turned a pale green color, their eyes grew larger and reptilian, several ridges formed along their lower jaw, their ears extended and came to sharp points. The doctors of the Children of Azoth Orphanage were not of this Earth at all.

The aliens were strong. The two orderlies that held her were human, weaker than she was, slower--she could surprise them. It was her only chance. Once they cut into her brain she was lost forever. The two men dragged Amelie to the table near the window, where outside the moon cast an unearthly blue glow on the French countryside. Both men carried guns. Amelie reached in and took everything they knew about firing weapons for herself. One of the men let go of her arm to ready the straps on the operating table, and Amelie made her move.

She had never exploited the full potential of the genetic enhancements done to her before this moment. Amelie moved with the speed of a cat. Her left hand took the gun from the guard holding her while her right elbow vaporized his nose. The second guard barely had time to react before Amelie broke his neck. The doctors reacted faster. As they closed in on her their bodies became fluid and formed into far more frightening shape. Amelie turned the gun on the closest of the doctors, found his alien brain, and fired. Green and black pieces of matter exploded out of its head, and the doctor hit the floor in its true form. The others closed in. Amelie shot another one through the neck, but she knew there were too many of them for her to kill, not if she wanted to get out of there in one piece.

Amelie turned towards the window and leapt atop the operating table. She didn't even stop for a breath before springing off towards the window. She felt neither the glass shattering around her nor the blast of cold winter air that rushed up to meet her. The laboratory was on the third floor of the orphanage. Amelie turned in the air and landed on all fours. She knew the aliens wouldn't let her leave. She had to run. She had to get as far away as possible.

From inside the orphanage a fierce howling arose. Lights all over the building turned on. The aliens were coming. Amelie turned and sprinted into the woods. The aliens scoured the countryside looking for their lost experiment, but they did not find her.

The skrulls would never stop looking for her.

(to be continued)

Virgorama

2008-07-16T19:56:00.001-05:00

"Dear Rob 'Fat-Burner' Brezsny: I used the Sweet and Sassy Toner video and lost only two pounds in five weeks. I tried the No More Love Handles program and actually gained weight. The only thing that really worked was your column. Reading your horoscopes has, I'm convinced, been responsible for bringing me much closer to having my dream body. You've helped me jettison a ton of psychic fat, not to mention a wad of guilt, a load of concern about what other people think of me, and a mass of remorse about the past. I never realized how much of my extra weight had to do with psychological burdens I was carrying. This is the lightest I've ever been! Grateful Virgo." Dear Grateful: Give yourself credit, too. It has been courageous of you to get rid of your unnecessary buffers. By the way, this week will be the climax of the shedding process. Celebrate your success by emptying out even more.

Interesting. That is exactly what I've been doing.

Crowning Moments of Awesome

2008-07-15T21:22:00.003-05:00

The following definition of the term comes from a TV Tropes website I've recently been turned on to in my travels. We'll pick up on the other side of it.

"The moment when a fictional character does something for which they will be remembered forever, winning for them the eternal loyalty of fans. Sometimes occurs just before the character dies. But usually it doesn't. It should be noted that Crowning Moments of Awesome are subjective, and what strikes one as being pure awesome may generate a 'meh' reaction from another. It is also possible for certain characters to have more than one moment of awesome during their existence, both for the above-mentioned reasons of audience subjectivity, and because some characters are just that awesome."

I've been reading the different sections, and I now realize that the term CMoA is a term I've been searching for all my life. I react very strongly to these wherever I find them ... in comics, in movies, in books, on TV shows, and in real life. A lot of my own fictional work is constructed with such moments in mind.

The Kudoverse is pretty much based around connecting the dots between one CMoA and the next. In what I've put up in this blog so far there have been a few--Greta's sacrifice comes to mind--but my absolute favorite has to be Elspeth's "I think you need to get away from my sister right now." Some mention to young Jillyana calling out Captain freaking America should also follow. In the next three part arc, The Secret Origin of Kitten Mundae, there are a few more.

The Book as a few, too. Sure, it's a different sort of animal from the Kudoverse, but the characters definitely have their moments. Emma has two different ones (if not more) in Chapter Two. Alyssa has one definite one at the end of Chapter 13. Kelly has a few small ones, but there are bigger ones coming. Ben has a huge one during Season Two. Laurel has a gigantic one herself, but it's coming up later on. There will be others.

What are mine? Hmmm.

-- The time in Springfield while at my cousin Brad's house when we were being terrorized by a larger kid with a big lead pipe, and I went out in the street--unarmed, mind you--to face him.

-- The time when my sister got pulled off her sled by a neighbor's dog who then ran off with her scarf. I took her home, and then went after the dog to get the scarf back.

-- Back at Stop and Shop when Jessica and I made it clear that if Carol wasn't hired back within a week, we were both quitting. (She was hired back)

-- Also at Stop and Shop, going into the bottle room to get in Dan's face, who I didn't know very well at the time, after he and Julie were being complete assholes (it was mostly her), and telling him to cut the shit. And I should point out, he's much larger than I am.

-- Making the decision that protecting my crew was more important than doing things Sam's way, and sticking to that decision, even though she made my life hell.

-- Telling Evan to get the fuck out of my way or I was going to move him out of my way. (He got out of the way)

-- Disregarding Sam's bullshit advice and handling a delicate sexual harrassment issue for Jacquie and Casey without things getting ugly.

-- After years of being beaten down and turned into a whipped dog, standing up to Sue and telling her where to stick it. Special mention for the day after Jen was fired, during which I was a holy terror of righteous fury.

-- That night in the parking lot where I stood my ground while Jen tried to talk me out of getting into a relationship with her ... and I won.

-- Deciding that picking up Amy that night was the right thing to do, and going to do it even though I knew it would turn into a shitstorm, and then *not* sleeping with her, even though it was the thing I wanted to do the most.

-- Recently, deciding I'd rather be alone than get into a relationship with the wrong person, even though I really hate being alone.

Of course, all of these are subjective, and your mileage may vary. But that's how I see it.

Tales of the Kudoverse #5

2008-07-15T21:17:00.002-05:00

This is the conclusion of the three-part Jillyana vs. Captain America story, and if it seems a little rushed--especially at the end--that's because it was a little rushed. I was trying to get it finished before heading off to New York, which I did almost as soon as I hit the post button. As a consequence, I'm not sure I hit everything the way I wanted to hit them, but overall it's fairly decent, and nothing a quick touch up wouldn't fix. The first part (#3) is still my personal favorite regardless.

*****

1995.

A second thick beam of energy hisses from the weapon held by Elspeth Von Zemo, aimed at Captain America, who is still dazed from the first hit. On the ground, not in the best position, he nevertheless raises his shield to deflect the beam. The shield, usually capable of absorbing anything, takes the blast full on, and Captain America is pushed back four feet into the overturned jeep. A third shot is fired immediately, again hitting the shield, again slamming the Captain back into the jeep. Next to him, Sharon Carter, now in full mortal terror, tries to inch away for cover. Another shot is fired, this one hitting the jeep about six inches to the left of Sharon's head, causing the vehicle to flip twice more and land against a nearby storefront. Elspeth points the gun towards Sharon.

"Not so fast. You stay right there. You're the one who shot my sister, and I don't want you moving an inch."

All around them, agents from both sides are pointing weapons. The other SHIELD agents draw down on Elspeth and her AIM back-up. Her AIM soldiers in turn have the agents in their sights in a deadly standoff. Captain America stands back up. Elspeth turns the weapon back on him and fires. He gets his shield in the way of it, but the blast knocks him seven feet straight backwards where he lands on the hard pavement. She turns the gun back to Sharon.

"Neat little toy, isn't it? My boys here worked out a way to step around the problem that damned shield always causes us. What do you think it would do to you?"

Sharon's eyes are wide with terror. SHIELD sharpshooters have Elspeth in their sights, even as they know that AIM has them in theirs. All they have to do is pull the trigger, and they can kill her--one of the most dangerous terrorists in the world--and be a hero, even if that means they will likely die seconds later. On the sidelines, Jillyana Von Zemo picks up her swords. Captain America is back on his feet.

"As much fun as it would be to kill the lot of you, I have some pressing concerns to attend to. So, I'm going to take my sister and leave. And all of you are going to drop your weapons and let us leave."

The agent nearest to the situation has his weapon pointed at Elspeth's chest. He doesn't need much of an excuse to blow this scumbag away. He knows all about her, and her sister. "Not going to happen in this lifetime, lady."

"I don't have time for this," she says. "Boys."

Every AIM soldier on the streets turns their weapons away from the SHIELD agents, and towards the crowd that gathered to watch the fight between Jillyana and the Captain.

"Oh, and one more thing." Elspeth pulls a small device from her belt. Her thumb comes to rest on a red button on the top of it. "There's a bomb. Not here, though. It's in Amsterdam, big enough to rupture the entire metropolitan area. I'm sure I don't have to actually make the threat here. You know I'll do it. All of you agents drop your weapons, and I'm going to take my sister and go without turning this into one of those big slaughters that you people never get over. And do it now."

The agent nearest to Elspeth looks to Captain America. He hesitates, hating the choice, but then nods. All of the agents set down their weapons, except for Sharon Carter, who points her own weapon at Elspeth.

"Tell your whore not to be stupid, Captain. This doesn't need to be a bloodbath."

"Elspeth. I'll allow you and Jillyana to leave, but if one person is hurt I'll hunt you down myself."

"Always with the big talk. It won't help you."

Elspeth's weapon remains pointed at Sharon, who is now on her feet. Her hands are shaking again.

"Sharon, put down your weapon," the Captain says. "This is over. For now."

Sharon Carter reluctantly lowers her weapon. Elspeth doesn't.

"See?" Elspeth says. "I knew we could all be reasonable here."

She and the Captain lock eyes.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

Her eyes are filled with contempt. "I wasn't yours to save. I never was."

Sharon Carter feels the sharp point a split-second before the sword punctures her stomach. Her scream is stifled by the blood that vomits up from her mouth before she falls to the ground. Jillyana pulls her sword from Sharon's body, and then the Captain's shield, thrown from where he stands knocks her down. Elspeth turns the gun back to the Captain, who is already moving at a high rate of speed towards Sharon and Jillyana. She manages to shoot him in the thigh, ripping muscle from bone, which is then broken itself. Even so, he is down, but not out. A bullet whizzes by Elspeth's head. She presses the button on the device in her other hand. Several dozen spheres fall from the sky, detonating on impact all around the SHIELD agents and civilians. AIM makes a tactical retreat, firing upon their opponents as they leave. The spheres continue to fall everywhere. One lands only yards from Jillyana, spraying her with debris. The streets are chaos. Everyone is running for cover. An emergency team is working to save Sharon Carter's life, while another agent helps the Captain to safety. The Zemo sisters have already made their exit. The small plane that brought Elspeth lifts off on a course towards Berlin to bring Jillyana safely back home, and so that they can both make sure the man who raised them, who they love, has survived.

"I thought you said Amsterdam," Jillyana says.

"I lied."

Elspeth looks out the window of the plane, enjoying the carnage and chaos she helped create. When she looks back to her sister, Jillyana is staring at her.

"What?"

"You came for me."

The look on Jillyana's face is different than she's accustomed to. The rage and hate isn't there, at least for the moment. Somewhere inside of Elspeth her own black heart lets go of the anger the fuels her, at least for that moment.

"Of course I did. You're family. You and I are all there is now. I'm not going to allow anyone to take that away."

When they arrived home, the Red Skull was awake...and very relieved to see his two girls were there safe and sound once again

(Next: The secret origin of Kitten Mundae!)

Curses

2008-07-14T20:05:00.002-05:00

Yeah, so I was thinking about it today and wondering which of those wrestling matches I saved into my documents earlier, and there were three I was particularly interested in, and I was pretty sure I had those three. And if I did, I was going to paste them into here one at a time. But as it turns out, I only have one of them, my third favorite, but not the other two. So I'm a little disappointed.

Not that I expected anyone to read them. Any bone I might pick about who's reading what isn't going to be spent on those old wrestling matches (or the Kudoverse stuff either), because I know that's a niche interest. But it would have been nice to have them, especially since I put a shitload of work into them and I thought they were pretty good. I could put that third best one up, but I'm kind of wondering what the point would be without the other two. I'll think about it.

Ah well.

Joyride R.I.P.

2008-07-13T19:56:00.004-05:00

Well, I did it. My old blog is no more, having just now been deleted from the universe. It was not something I did lightly. For the four years that it was in operation, and for all of it's 1700 posts, that blog was something that I really enjoyed during those dark years of depression and inertia. I looked forward to posting in there every day, I enjoyed the regular feedback I got from it's gang of readers, and there was a whole bunch of stuff I came up with in there that I really liked. So it was with a somewhat heavy heart that I pushed the self-destruct button. But it was time. In keeping with the new program, it was time to let go of it and let it die a peaceful death. Even so, I feel a little sad that it won't still be out there somewhere.

Before I did it, I took a quick comb through the remaining posts to make sure I had each and every last Kudoverse post saved in my own files. I'm not losing those. While looking I found some other stuff that I worked really hard on, and I debated whether or not to bring those over here, too, and ultimately decided not to do so. There were a number of wrestling matches I wrote for my old forum, and even though I put tons of blood and sweat and tears into their creation, I can't imagine anyone ever wanting to read them outside of the group they were originally written for.* And so I've said goodbye to the most of them (some of them were already saved during earlier purges, and one or two of them may show up here --- I don't know). It's an era that's past, and I've long since learned that it's impossible to recapture lightning in the same bottle, so it's probably better to let them rest, too.

*unless I happen to meet the ultimate fangirl who'll enthusiastically read anything I write, but what are the odds?

Now that that's done, I have another thing to do, which will also be done with a somewhat heavy heart, if only because I'm a sentimental bastard, but it's something else that needs to be done. Maybe tomorrow on that one.