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Sunday, September 7th, 2008
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2233:Sun.Sep.07:2008 - Children + Violence = Humor
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| Saturday, March 8th, 2008
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0622:Sat.Mar.08:2008 - Not allowed to have any other dreams in a three piece suit.
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He walked out of the school, adjusting the cufflinked sleeves of his shirt.
Neither the shirt or the cufflinks was expensive, nor was the suit that covered it, and they would know.
Rayon and synthetics reeked of dismal failure. This wasn't the sweet, softly salty waft of Italian silks and wools, with imported cotten, this had thrift shop in it, and that couldn't ever be washed out.
Ordinarily, he wouldn't mind, but it was important to be taken seriously today.
He walked into the hotel, and immediately spotted the large thing standing with its back to the doors. This wasn't even a human being, it was a six-foot tall thumb that someone had painstakingly painted and shaded to look like a thick-necked man in a double-breasted suit. They were both trying very hard not to notice the other, but he had to pass Mr. Thumb, and take the right-hand elevator to the second floor, where he then took the other elevator, past another fingeresque gentleman.
He arrived on the fifth floor, accessible by this means only. It was small, almost cramped, in stark contrast to the sprawling foyer, the grand ballroom, and plentiful dining rooms below. It was no less luxuriously detailed, but it was surprisingly devoid of persons. Having been up here before, he was prepared for it, steeled for the sudden, ghostly emptiness of the hallway with three doors.
The door on the one side led to the elevator. The other two doors led to the same room, but he wasn't sure if there was some subtle, unspoken difference. He had always used the leftmost of the two, and felt it could be wise to be somewhat predictable in this matter. If they had wanted him dead, they wouldn't go to elaborate extremes, like rigging a door. Mr. Thumb would have just followed him into the elevator, the gun in his suit coat pocket cocked, or his jackknife palmed in one of those immense trash compactor hands. Maybe that was it, he reflected grimly about being crushed to death between those huge hands. "Yeah, I'm not worth the cost of a bullet, of throwing away a brand new gun." The place was covered in cameras anyway. If he had used the right-hand door, it wouldn't have surprised anyone on the other side. They didn't need security thugs up here.
He imagined they would be on him if he stepped out of line, instantly, appearing from some unseen door.
He turned the knob. The door almost opened of its own volition.
The white light flowing, gently curtained with linens, from the windows made the figure in front of him a shadowed outline. This was as it had been before. He stepped up to the chairs which formed a perimeter in front of the silhouetted, square shouldered person, a person softer in outline, somehow, than the man that had indicated the duffel full of cash and drugs the last time. An older woman's voice reached him like pipe-smoke crosses a study. That was the difference: whomever it had been last time, they were gone, replaced by this woman.
"I suppose you know that you're in trouble with us?"
She sounded fifty-something, but not at all bad-looking. He was surprised when she turned and came over to him, her face suddenly visible. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go at all. He wasn't ever supposed to see this person, to be able to identify them if pressed. As she sat down on the chaise across from him, in a delicately crafted women's suit, she carried twice her usual weight, and she knew it. She must know it, or she wouldn't have come over to him. He was about to die, and that certainty closed around his throat like Mr. Thumb's hands.
"Actually, I was going to ask if you needed me to-"
"We don't, and the only person the organization -needs-," he could plainly hear the italicized letters of the last word, "is me."
"Oh." It was all he could think to say. In every movie with someone dealing with the mafia, or a drug lord, or something, the main characters were always so clever, so quick to shoot back verbally. Why did he suddenly feel so stupid, like a scolded child?
"You've run up quite the debt to us, on that card we've given you. Or, judging by the look on your face, someone else has."
He realized he was pulling a face, and tried to settle into the studded leather chair nearest him, tried to relax that look of horror off his stupid face.
She spoke gently and calmly to him. She would protect him, he felt. He pulled out his wallet and searched desperately through the year-old receipts and scraps. The yellow and white card was gone. How could he not have noticed it missing? The weight of that card was heavier than anything else he owned or carried.
He felt defeated, he looked defeated, and he could feel that too.
"How would you like to handle this? Do you know who has our money, our should I put you into hiding?"
Ordinarily, he wouldn't have liked the connotations of being put into anything, but the way she said it now, it was air after being held underwater.
"I'd like to make a call." He spoke quietly. The phone rang, trying to connect him to his girlfriend's number. While it rang, he contemplated the choice set in front of him. He could die trying to get back any amount of money serious enough to result in this perverse situation, or he could cut all ties from everything he knew, and become someone different. It wasn't a bad thought, until he realized that he might be safe if he did.
If he was safe, then they would come after the next person closest to him. He would take his girlfriend with him. No, she wouldn't go if it meant she couldn't ever see her father again, her sisters and brothers. He wouldn't be able to see his family, either. They'd be watched forever, possibly tortured, for any indication of the debtor's whereabouts. If he left, his family would be in danger...
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This is the point in the story when I awakened. I'm not sure what to make of all that.
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| Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
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2209:Tue.Feb.19:2008
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[10:03pm] Ikasatu: So... John McCain seems like he's pure evil.
[10:03pm] Elecwnch: Pretty much. Yes.
[10:05pm] Ikasatu: I'm always surprised to see his televised appearances, because I keep waiting for him to start wringing his hands and muttering "excellent... excellent"
[10:05pm] Elecwnch: They have him sedated to keep that from happening.
[10:06pm] • Ikasatu laughs
[10:07pm] Ikasatu: "twenny-twenny-twenny four hours to goOooOooo...
[10:07pm] Ikasatu: I wanna be elected!"
[10:07pm] swamidog: "I wanna be sedated!"
[10:07pm] • Ikasatu wrings his hands...
[10:07pm] Ikasatu: "excellent... excellent..."
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Continuing the long tradition of "every damn thing I say gets made", from the bed-couch-chair, to an Apple cell phone, the film "The Signal"is pretty much exactly like a story I've been writing. I don't think people are copying me, or that I'm some kind of trend-predicting supergenius, but I do feel like I'm being pushed to make something.
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| Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
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1356:Sat.Dec.22:2007 - It's a Wonderful Second Life
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It was my birthday last Monday, and I still feel like some reckless kid. Knowing that I feel like some irresponsible teenager makes me feel very old too. I am dichotomous, as usual.
My birthday was made better by the chance to finally visit my family, which I hadn't done in ages, and because many of the people I love gave me exactly what I wanted for my birthday: a "happy birthday", and good wishes for my twenty-fifth year.
Oh, and I'm also not going to complain that my sister got me Metroid Prime 3 in the grand tradition), my mother got me Harry Potter (also in the grand tradition), and my father bought me the new boots I've been needing (I guess my feet are even bigger than I had thought, this is also a grand tradition).
With respect to these other gifts, one gift completely blew me away, and for so many reasons; my darling cupcake and huge lot of my friends pooled their cash to buy me a limited-edition Nintendo DS Lite.
They may not even have understood the significance of the gift, beyond that it was something I desperately wanted.
Kim and I had been wanting a DS for a long time. It's been (pretty selfishly) on my Christmas list for a few years now. She and I saved what money we could to buy one for each of us, but we wound up in financial trouble and we couldn't afford that. We could just barely afford one used one, and when it came down to choosing whether to buy a black DS Lite for both of us, or a pink DS for her, I knew which one would make her the happiest. I don't mind playing a pink DS (I'm secure enough not to care), but I bought that one for her because I wanted her to have one even more than I wanted one for myself, which was very badly. If we bought the black one, I knew she would think of it as being mostly mine, and I would eventually feel that way too.
Someone showed Kim the gold-with-a-triforce Zelda DS Lite, and knowing how rabid and schoolgirl-squealy I am for that franchise, she showed me. I wanted it, and that's a vast understatement, but I also told myself that this was one of those lavishly expensive things that was a "want", like an XBox 360 or a new car. Since we're fairly poor, I tend to put aside a lot of these things, and I have ever since I was a child.
When I was little, I didn't realize my family was poor.
Actually, I knew we didn't have a lot of money, but I never knew just how little, to my parents' credit.
For many reasons, my parents repeatedly refused to get us (my sister and me) a "proper" game console. Don't worry, this isn't like some huge sob story, we weren't deprived: they gave us wonderful bargain computers with edutainment software instead. Even though we enjoyed these, we still protested: clearly, this was not the Nintendo that we had asked for, the console we'd seen in films starring Fred Savage and on television, the prized central entertainment of the entertainment center.
We were insolent and somewhat ungrateful little shits, as all kids are to a degree.
We begged them for it, but they told us we didn't need it and that they would rather have us play video games that taught us something or that we play outside, they also told us that we frankly couldn't afford something so frivolous. I even tried to win a Nintendo PowerGlove controller, convinced that if I got that, there was no way they'd let it go to waste and would be forced to get us a Nintendo. I'm still thankful that they held out as long as they did.
My father brought me to a video game trade show one Saturday morning, and quietly purchased a Sega Genesis while they were on special there. He tucked it away for months until Christmas morning, when my sister's and my first video game dreams came true. Games had always been a part of our family life, my sister and I would sit up late Friday night with my father, raptly helping him as he played Zork on the family's old 286, but now they were a part of everyday life.
My sister and I played them and became best friends and best enemies. My mother played them (and still does) to relax after a hard week of winning the familial bread. Since my father is unable to play fast-action games, he sat down and bonded with me as I got through Flashback with his help, just as he had done with me by his side when I was too little to play Zork and Civilization, eerily completing a previously unfelt circle.
My sister bought a Playstation and we played every afternoon, eventually I got over the idea of having to win all the time, and learned to be a good sport (sort of). My mother continued to play Sonic and Bubsy the Bobcat, and this remains one of many common bonds we share with her.
Years later, the Dreamcast came out, and my sister and I (having learned nothing, it seems) begged my parents to get it for us. Things had gone badly for our family that year, and we were told that it just wasn't possible. We were disappointed, but not so much that we let it ruin our Christmas Eve.
Christmas day, we found the Dreamcast under our stockings, just as we had found the Genesis years before. They were both moments of pure child-like joy, when our expectations were so vastly exceeded. Magic was briefly possible, and Santa existed, if only in those moments of happiness.
A few years ago, when Metroid Prime came out for the GameCube (during the holidays), I wanted it very badly. I had played the in-store demo a number of times, and it was terribly enthralling to me. I put it on my Christmas list, dearly hoping that I would get that, not-quite-but-almost-above-and-beyond anything else. I knew that my parents were struggling financially, and hoped (as I often do) for smaller and more necessary things instead. My sister finished her Christmas shopping and came to find me while I was playing and replaying that demo, and asked me why I didn't put it on my list. A hot knife may have pierced my lungs and heart at that moment, but I'm sure I couldn't have felt it. I sputtered out that I had! I did put it on there! It was at the top! I my even have written it twice!
Christmas Eve that year brought many great presents, as it always has.
I was completely surprised as I opened what I'd expected to be a movie, finding a copy of the game I had so sought after, the game she had already purchased for me before coming to collect me during Christmas shopping, the game about which she then told me she didn't know anything. She bought it because she knew how important it was to me. My present from her this year is amazing, not just for its intrinsic values (it is exactly as awesome as I had hoped and dreamed), but also as an icon of how hard my sister works to make her brother happy.
My brand new Zelda DS Lite is like this, too. I dared not dream of having it. It was an impossibility yet my desire for it is immense. Even as she wove every thread of its purchase together, my darling did the same thing my sister had done with Prime. At first it was by accident. We had been told that the only way to get one was through special order. When she told me that she was working on some big present for me, and that she would have to order it, I felt elated... Perhaps there was some inkling of hope? Then she said she wasn't going to risk ordering my gift, and was just going to pick it up from a local store. I knew then that it couldn't be the DS, perhaps it was some other thing I was interested in? She had discovered a stock of them at our local GameStop and for the sake of my surprise, she carefully didn't tell me. She collected money from quite a lot of my friends, and purchased it on the night of my birthday. Even as she walked out of the store tward me, with the present in the bag, I thought "Oh, it's much too large to be a DS, it must be some other thing. She's worked so hard at this, I hope I don't let her down." As I opened this treasured thing, those past Christmas Eve and morning surprises came back, given to me again, and not just by this girl that I love, but by so many people that I care about.
And far beyond something that exactly catered to my interests, far from the system that I've longed for and put achingly aside for other things, far from having the newest in the series of games I love, that feeling is exactly what I wanted for my Birthday.
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| Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
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0045:Tue.Nov.20:2007 - Yeah... it really does.
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I've had a deep chest cough for a week, most likely a combination of the weather changing, the sheer exertion of being in the play for six days in a row, following weeks of consistent rehearsal at full volume and projection, and that pretty much every single person I know is ill, or is at least coughing.
I bought Buckley's cough syrup, partially because their ads are simple, direct, and short; I decided on Buckley's mostly because it relieves chest congestion, and because it's cheap.
Their motto is "It tastes awful. It works."
I firmly agree with both statements.
I wish I had known just to what extent they had understated the facts regarding these issues. It really does work, and it really does taste awful.
It tastes so bad that I thought I could smell how bad it was going to taste as I opened the bottle. I was very wrong.
It tastes so bad, that having taken it, I went immediately to this computer for the purpose of sharing just how awful it is.
It tastes so bad that I wasn't sure I could really take a second dose. I almost don't think it would matter if it contained nothing of medicinal value, you would probably stop coughing simply as a self-defense mechanism.
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| Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
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1142:Wed.Nov.14:2007 - D'awwwwwwwwww!!! *^_^*
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I ran across these little guys (part of an 8-bit nostalgia art show) while I was searching for line art to print out for my collegiate "Intro to Production" course, because I didn't want to go buy a coloring book. I wanted to color Link, not Dora the Explorer.
I forgot to buy crayons when I was picking out my watercolors set; fortunately a girl in class had a gallon-sized plastic bag filled with different crayons, and let a bunch of us share with her.
We all sat on the floor with our art boards, and our crayons (sometimes "our" in the royal sense), and colored.
Afterward, I went outside and played on the swings until my bus arrived.
Last night was the biggest night of the play (opening), even if the attendance was slim, and everything went smoothly!
Kim and I frequently play Second Life, and people are actually buying my furniture!
It snowed today.
I have little mittens.
I work in a store that sells board games.
I just finished reading the second book in the Ender Saga.
This is pretty much everything I've ever wanted from adulthood.
I don't think I can handle it if life gets much better than this.
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| Sunday, November 4th, 2007
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0918:Sun.Nov.04:2007 - Wait for it....
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I ran this idea past my friend Sasami, and I took his silence to mean that it's a wonderful idea that he thoroughly endorses. Also, he might have been asleep, but no matter.
I've written a new film...
One lonely half-retarded man's attempt to find love in Japan is retold as a historical epic,
wherein he finds himself serendipitously creating the anime art style by mistake,
founds several powerful manga production houses by freak chance,
and accidentally brings amazing new cartoons and comic books across the Pacific Ocean, where he finds the girl he's been chasing.
When he finds out she's got a terminal STD, he does all he can to help her get well, including investing his now vast fortune into a new company (ADV) that he thinks researches her illness.
I'll call it "Shonen Gump".
The tagline: "Life is like a box of chocolate pocky."
Yeah, you should have seen that coming.
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| Sunday, October 28th, 2007
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1254:Sun.Oct.28:2007 - The cake is a lie!
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Things like Portal don't have a bandwagon.
Portal's band needs a vehicle of far greater capacity than could ever be offered any mortal, Terran wagon.
Even if we were to be pretty gratuitous with our description, the sheer enormity and speed of the required conveyance exceeds even the most generously-applied terminology.
I am, therefore, not jumping on the Portal bandwagon; I am jumping on the fucking band-Deathstar. Only a fully-functional, battle-station-the-size-of-a-moon has the requisite internal space for the Cult of Portal and their Companion Cubes.
My contribution to the Populous Nation of Cake Lies is this image:
Which is clearly based on a more porcine endeavor.
I can only hope that I add to the joy of the Enrichment Center experience.
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| Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
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1345:Tue.Oct.16:2007 - I made her a card...
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On the 13th, Kim and I celebrated our 3rd year of her putting up with my dumb shit.
I worked all day, but tried to make up for it b taking her to plays the next day. I felt kind of bad that I wasn't just taking her to the plays, though.
I was going on a field trip to see the plays, but I bought her tickets so we could spend the day together.
I think she had a good time; I definitely enjoyed spending time with her, and taking her out for food.
The card I made for her:
The Cover
The Inside
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| Saturday, October 13th, 2007
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2029:Sat.Oct.13:2007 - Pirate-themed Scouts
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I was always sad that I never made the rank of Eagle Scout when I was in Boy Scouts, and now it's way, way too late.
I want to start a new organization for men and women, who like adventure.
I want there to be a manual of useful things everyone should know demonstrably, if they want to lead a successful life.
If it were Pirate Scouts, you could show your rank with bandannas, and metal rings pierced into the ties.
Anyone over 21 can be a "Buccaneer (Scout)"
Would anyone join that?
What would be a good name for it?
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