#78: Nanowrimo

Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo and I have signed up. For those of you who pay attention to this blog, NaNoWriMo is the thing I did last year that spawned the monstrosity known as Dogs of Wrath, The (yes, I have realized that it was horrible, but there is nothing that I can do about it now because I will not edit it now).

If you wish to participate in NaNoWriMo, (which stands for National Novel Writing Month, by the way) feel free to visit the website and create an account.

Wish me luck.

#77: Thoughtful Thursdays

There has been a rumor in recent years that on Halloween, large gangs, such as the Crips and the Bloods decide to hold initiations. Allegedly, the goal is to cut the throats of 31 women or something, or shoot and kill some people. I don't really know. But I checked it out on Snopes.com and apparently it is just a rumor. Completely false, they say.

But this evening, as I sat down at my computer, I heard several very distinct gunshots and then the sound of a car speeding away. I have heard what I thought were gunshots before, but I was not completely sure. But these ones tonight sounded authentic. If it had been just one isolated incident, I would have dismissed it as my mind playing tricks on me before Halloween. But then earlier, I heard some possible gunshots further away. I hope that they weren't shots, or that someone was just showing off for their friends, or that if a person was shooting at someone else, that their shot went harmlessly wild, but I don't know. I just hope that it wasn't what I thought it was.

So a while after the shot, I started thinking (because I do far too much of that and I can't seem to stop). How can a person take another one's life? I've thought about doing it, seriously, several times (not because I have issues, but just as a mental exercise. A twisted, violent one, but just in theory) and I don't think I could. The biggest living thing that I've ever killed is a mouse and that shook me a bit. What I do know is that if I were to kill someone, I would get a massive thrill. But if the thrill would cancel out the MASSIVE F*CKING GUILT is what I'm not sure about.

This post was so morbid. Should have ended it two paragraphs ago.

#76: (Formerly)Turbulent Thursdays. Now Adjective Beginning With "T" Thursdays: Transitive

As you can tell, not all of the posts have the same tags, which means that I did not complete my mission. What did you expect? Probably as much (It was 75 posts! I did at least a third. And then stopped for a rest). But I will continue.

Meanwhile, like I said before, I'm trying to be a bit more regular with posting on this thing, so I've begun Turbulent Thursdays. I will post anything that I feel is indicative of the fact that we live in a moving world (I don't know, I couldn't think of any other adjectives. Maybe it will just be "Adjective Beginning With 'T' Thursdays." That works. I could replace the whole adjcetive beginning with T thing with an appropriate adjective.), or just anything interesting.

Actually, you know, the parenthetical insert is right. I will do the ABWT thing (I like acronyms. Can you tell?). Anyway, I will post every Thursday. I promise. Unless I say why not beforehand. Okay?

Good. See you next Thursday.

#75: As You May Have Noticed

So, after finishing my last post, I decided, along with ceasing to self-reference, possibly reposting articles from Cracked.com, and some other third thing that I forget because I was distracted, that I was going to go back and do specific labels for all of the posts. All seventy-four of them. I hope that this probably unnecessary procedure will be done by Monday, but I will make no promises.

Also, I have uploaded another game that has been described, variously, as "awesome", "very goog(sic) game", "cool game !!", "lolol", and "It made me laugh." Play the game of the decade, Avoider With A Smile, available exclusively at the link provided. Go ahead and experience the "goog"!

#74: Marines: Assault on Terror?!

So, how y'all doing? It's been, what, two, three weeks? Yeah, something like that. Anyway, I have been twittering, or whatever the hell it's called (I'm sorry, but it seems to change every f*cking week. I can't keep track. And I hate this. I feel like those old geezers on CNN who decided a long time ago, "You know what? I can't even begin to understand how this stuff works, or what it's called, so I'm just going to treat it as magic. I don't give a sh*t about how old and out-of-touch I seem." And that's not cool. Anyway...).

I'm sorry about that. It's just that with Twitter, you can't really do long parenthetical breakaways, and I've missed those. It's one of the many reasons that I have to continue writing this thing. If you followed my Twitter account, you would know some of the others. But the main one is thatI don't feel whole unless I'm writing. And neither texting nor coding count as writing, as much as I may enjoy both activities.

So I intended to come back to this eventually, but the impetus for this specific post is a game. A video game. It's called, as you may have guessed, Marines: Assault on Terror. Now, don'tget me wrong; I have nothing against the Marines, but this is taking too far. If you want to indoctrinate the population, please, do it in a subtle way.

As far as I could gather from my five second glance at the tacit summary on Amazon, you go through the streets of Beirut, looking for terrorists to shoot down and stuff. Now that I look at it, I remember that it was featured in some newspaper where the developers were trying to pay homage to the troops, while producing the most kickass war simulator on the market. Which means that they are trying to paint this war as kickass by association.

But the reason that I'm doing this post is that it just doesn't seem right to commercialize war. Yes, the revenue doesn't hurt, but when war is commercialized, a real, active war is commercialized, it lowers the level of horror that is so much a part of war, and such a large part of the reason that many people abhor it, and most countries resort to it as a last resort. This just seems wrong on some basic level, that I can't properly articulate. But it's wrong. I know it's wrong. There are still people out there, in Afghanistan and Iraq who are fighting something and losing their lives, and to trivialize that conflict, where people are still dying, on both sides, just to make some money just strikes me as not quite f*cking kosher.

I guess I got my point across as well as I'm going to be able to right now. Comment if you think that you understand, or if you want to disagree or agree, or whatever.

#73: Online Certification

Guess what?

AllExperts.com has certified me as an expert. I got an email today saying, and I quote (obviously, since I have little quotation marks around what I'm about to say), "Congratulations! You have been accepted as a Volunteer Expert in category Internet Media."

Yay me.

Just kidding. I am actually so happy to have my "padded" resume accepted and be seen as fit enough to qualify me as a expert in something. I might actually do this sort of thing more often if I can get qualifications out of it.

Yeah. Nice.

#72: Avoider With a Smile

I can't bring myself to give this up completely and give up a large part of the last three years, so I will continue to write here. And I also wanted to tell you guys that the game that I have spent somewhat less than thirty days working on is available exclusively here. Also, I challenge you to beat 9000 points.

So, go on, play Avoider With A Smile. And by the way, the title is my sad attempt to differentiate myself from the plethora of Flash games that are already out there.

So anyway, see you around.

#71: Actually, why not? The Meaning of Life (Part 2)

For various reasons, I have been reading a book called Why Men Cheat and one of the reasons that this book, (written by a woman) gives for why we cheat is because it is part of our nature to spread our seed to as many places as we can.

Remember how I said that the meaning of life is to make babies?

That's why we cheat. Because it gives us a better chance of someone, somewhere having our babies and passing down our genes to the next generation and thus validiating survival of the fittest and furthering the evolution of homo sapiens. However, civilization has severely curtailed human development and evolution. Any creatures that might have wanted to prey on us we are able to kill with a few shots from a rifle or gun, which means that for us, the fittest is the one with the gun, and not necessarily the most truly fit. No disease that currently exists is able to wipe out the human race (sure, swine flu was scary a while back, but most of the people who were going to get killed by it are already dead or very near to it). And anyone can find someone who will have their kids. Even if a person is so unattractive that this is not true, there are sperm and egg banks, so their genetic material can still be passed down.


So what now? Is this the pinnacle of evolution? Are we destined to have a small segment of the population finding ways for us to passively waste away the rapidly increasing amounts of our free time, in front of ever larger and more advanced versions of computers and televisions? Are we doomed to spend the rest of our collective time on Earth going to parties, f*cking whomever we damn well please, and getting drunk and high (another passive event)?

Hopefully, yes, because at this point, the only active activity that we engage in on a regular basis is war. The only downside to the above lifestyle is that we are going to be the only ones taking part, and we will probably get bombed. But we've had a good long run, over two hundred years, and we've shaped the world to be what it is today. So in the end, can we really complain if we go down?

#70: Still Waters Run Deep

...but dry river runs not at all.

Sorry folks. I have little to talk about. Somebody incoherently explained to me how the United States is like a cow, which sounds interesting in theory, but the way he explained it made no sense to me. So tomorrow, I'll have something for you.

#69: So I Have Nothing Much To Talk About Today . . .

. . . But that doesn't mean that I'll stop from trying.

I said that I would give you at least three posts a week and I am trying to live up to that.

The hard part is finding things to write about right now. I haven't really read or done anything

noteworthy that I can recall. Actually, you know what? I just saw Obama's speech, a transcript of which is available here, in case you missed it, or you want to read it. I liked it, (and yes, I am a Democrat), and I've heard the controversy over it, and I have to say, the people who are opposed to schools showing the speech shouldn't have been against the content of the address itself, because he talked of things that we should all be in favor of, like staying in school, working hard, not committing murder, etc. Nice, harmless, platonic, peaceful things.

I think that the people who protested the showing of the speech were more against the man being shown in the schools, which just proves how people can let their bigotry, ignorance and dislike get in the way of solving problems. FOr those of us who wonder why we can't get things done, here is the answer.

And I though that I wasn't going to be able to write anything.

#68: Found this interesting blog

So I was doing my internet thing, searching and reading and gaming and Facebooking when I noticed that a person has decided to follow me. So I checked the blog out and saw that it was really intersting. It's by this girl named Desiree and I really think that it will take off, moreso than mine has, anyway. It's being done as a part of a school project, but I hope that she will keep doing it, even after the school year starts. So you should check it out. It's here. Enjoy.

#67: I Published

Ok, I will not usually post on Sundays, but today I have some good news. Dogs of Wrath, The, or as I have retitled it, Man Does to Man, is available for purchase today! If you want it, click here for a copy.

Also, there's one thing that I forgot to mention yesterday. I will be posting on a specific schedule. Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays will see posts from me, unless otherwise mentioned.



That's it. Buy the book. The preview is up here and you should have read it already, but if you didn't, all seven parts are available here:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

#66: There's a Gonna Be Some Changes Round Here

Ok, this is more of a public service announcement than a substantive post. The public is entitled to purchase new and used cars . . . .

No, ok, I can be serious now, don't leave! Ahem. Thank you. Ok, I am now going to number my posts. I am also going to stop using labels, because at the time of writing, I had . . . far too many. At least one for each letter of the alphabet. And it was n't helping me to organize the posts and I doubt that it was helping anyone out there find a specific post. So no more labels.

And finally, I was up until almost two last night, working on this sidescrolling Flash game (yeah, because I had nothing better to do, like party, or club, or BLOG, or write, or maybe SLEEP or anything like that.) Instead, I spent a good four hours trying to get some dumb*ss enemy/bullet hitTest to work. So now the bullet goes back to the gun and stops moving, but the enemy won't become invisble, like it's supposed to.

F*ck. I need to get a job.

I'm now unemployed, by the way. In case anyone wanted to know.

While I Was Out

So, as you know, I have been on the West Coast for the past two weeks (seems like much less time) and while I was there, I decided to do something to make it up to you guys for leaving you with only my sporadic Twitter updates. So, over the weekend, I made a little Flash game with my friends Betsy and Emmett that came out of an inside joke between the three of us. The game is posted here and I hope you will enjoy it. Good luck, and I apologize for the truly horrible nature of the controls and graphics.

Upcoming Delay

As I mentioned last week, I'm going to be on vacation for the next two weeks. However, there has been an unexpected wrinkle. I will most likely not be able to blog for a variety of reasons. BUT, in order to keep you abreast of any developments or thoughts that I may feel like dictating to you, I have revived my two-month defunct twitter account. So if you feel a need to hear from me, just go over to http://twitter.com/Solomon_L where I will be doing my best to at least make a tweet every day about my experiences on the West Coast.

If for some reason, you are unable to view my twitter account, fear not! In two weeks I will return and blog about my adventures in full. So until then, fare well!

And on a completely unrelated note, I just read my theory on the meaning of life in Orson Scott Card's book Shadow Puppets. I knew others had thought of it, but seeing it in a bona fide book validates it for me (even though he thought of it seven years before I).

So, once again, see you on the other side. Remember: http://twitter.com/Solomon_L!

No, I Have Not Forgotten

Ok, hello all. Apologies for the ridiculously long post before, as well as the gap in between postings, but the length of that post, as well as it's being written in my blogging notebook (bad idea. My handwriting is atrocious and the notebook seems to inspire me to write longer posts, so the Michael Jackson Memoriam was a two and a half page long illegible muddle. And every time I opened the notebook to try and complete the post, I grew a headache).

By the way, before I get into what I was going to write about, I wanted to say that I have not forgotten about Dogs of Wrath, The (I am going to change the title). I will continue to post sections, but my life is kind of busy right now. Got back from a two week vacation, where I was essentially cut off from the Internet, and on Saturday, I'm going out west for two weeks, so I don't know what the Internet status will be. Keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to post, etc. And for those of you who have checked my profile recently, I have another blog, where I am going to be creating this sort of world. Hope to develop it into a novel eventually, and I might actually do that for NaNoWriMo.

Which brings me to what I wanted to write about. I am considering doing a two character novel about a world in which God disappears (idea came to me in the shower, so don't knock it) and I think it might actually be workable. It allows me to fix the sixth degree and another project I was working on, and helps me to actually have CHAPTERS! Instead of the two 35 page long blocks of text that is currently DOWT. (I like the sound of that. DOWT. And it's a homophone. It fits.)

So what do you guys think? Can I do it, the God thing? Comment or something, but I'm probably going to do it anyway, so whatever. Encourage me then, or offer ideas on what happens afterward, because THAT I don't have. Right now I have about five pages of exposition, a page or two of God's appearance, page of God speaking to the world and then he vanishes and a page of the world's reaction. How can I make this a book?

Life Happens (With Memoriam to Michael Jackson) [Jesus, this took forever. I think the autopsy results came back already]

So few people realize this small, yet important fact. But this truth is important and must be recognized to achieve happiness. If it is ignored, or denied, bad things will happen. So listen up.

Life happens.

You may make allowances for it, plan around it, or try to account for it, but regardless, it will happen and you cannot stop it.

Many have heard the phrase "shit happens," and in fact, it makes up half of one of the central tenets of my life philosophy, though it takes the slightly more poetic form of "Expect the best, plan for the worst."

"Shit" is only shit if you let it be shit. It's only "shit" if you know that it will happen and yet you go on into life without a contingency plan, assuming that it will go correctly on the first try, you'll get it on the first take and everything will go swimmingly from then on. If you assume that Plan A will work, and you don't make a Plan B, "shit" will happen. If you expect that Plan A may possibly go better than you expected, better than you planned, shit will happen. Yes, this does happen, but only rarely, and it should not be planned on. If you plan like this, with ridiculous, misplaced optimism, your plan will mess up. AND SHIT WILL HAPPEN, and you be left out in the cold. And then you will become jaded and pessimistic, neither of which is a way to live life, despite how many people may be attracted to it. You get out of life what you put into it, and if you put a lot of negative energy into living, you will recieve negativity in return. If you act surly and jaded all of the time, the only people who will be able to stand you are other surly, jaded people. Besides, a failure to plan for failure is a sign of a weaker mind, of a person who leaves all to chance, and is that really who you want to be seen as?

Contrast the above with the person who start off with the assumption that shit happens. They don't expect the best, are caught off balance by a scenario that would be a great situation for anyone else is for them a miserable death march. Andrew Johnson never expected to become president after Lincoln's death, but he did and he hated the job. Things didn't go well for him in the position and he ended up being the first US President to ever be impeached.

Those who know that life happens, those who know that they need to plan for the worst but expect the best (yes, the order can be switched, but just don't mangle it, like plan for the best, expect the best) they are the ones who will succeed like Bismarck, like King Louis XIV, and like Ivan the IV of Russia. They succeeded because they planned for the worst but expected the best. They never displayed their indecision. And they went forth every day, demanding that only the best outcomes from the world and they recieved it.

However, people today refuse to make decisions. They vacillate endlessly between multiple decisions, focusing on the negative outcomes and weighting them heavier than any positive ones, which, more often than not, causes the road with the least good to be taken, only because there is little recoil. Or, on the opposite spectrum, people refuse to plan for the worst, expecting only good can come of their plans, as if they have a sort of Midas touch. They have bought too heavily into what they were told as children: "If you work hard, you can be whatever you want to be!" And so they just skip the planning part, believing that if they work hard, soon someone will notice them, without their having to do any self-promotion or have a backup plan or do anything besides being a workhorse, or a man on a hamster wheel. The hamster runs and runs and runs but doesn't get anywhere, but continues to run until he finally gives up, exhausted.

But their hard work doesn't excuse them from a central fact of life: Life happens. And it hits them hard. They wake up one day, and the stock market has crashed, their shop has burned down, their computer was erased, and they have nothing to fall back on. Or they come out of grad school, summa cum laude, expecting job opportunities to be laid before them like palms before Christ, and they are supremely disappointed. But then they see their colleagues with jobs lined up and they wonder "how did she get all of those when I got much better grades?" It's because while he was working at the college store and studying during the downtime, she was looking up companies who were hiring and applying for thrity, forty, fifty different jobs.

But the summa cum laude has to ask his classmate how she got those jobs. And the classmate responds, "I lined these up last summer!"

But her response isn't nearly as important as what she doesn't say: "And I didn't expect so many to be left."

Successful people are also a little bit lucky. Think of all of the beautiful people you see every day. How many do you think are models, or actors or actresses? Why didn't your band become famous, but Prince's band did? Why didn't your internet business take off and Google did? Why didn't you become a successful comedian and JERRY did? Hell, he stole some of your jokes!

Yes, Prince had the patronage of Owen Husney. Yes, Google was Google. And Jerry was Jerry. But more importantly, these people planned for the worst and expected the best. They understood that life will happen and that it can deal good cards as well as bad. They knew the odds and they took their own cards. Because they also knew that if you let anyone or anything else pick your cards for you, it can only lead to evil in the long run. YOU must control which hand you're dealt.

So plan for your life. It's not like you can restart if things go badly, so you might as well take control.

Now before I go, I'd like to request a moment of silence for the death of Michael Jackson (over a fucking month ago!). The man was very good at what he did.

However, I'd also like to mention how if anyone of us normal people thought about Michael Jackson on Wednesday, June 24, they would likely remember him as "Wacko Jacko," the accused child molester, alleged vitiligo sufferer, and presumed plastic surgery addict.

It's funny how someone's death can change public opinion of that person. Yesterday (on June 26th!), almost all of my friends who, previously, had almost unilaterally declaimed him as something along the lines of "creepy pervert," were now changing their Facebook statuses to something along the lines of "RIP MJ. You will be missed for your genius," or "RIP MJ, God wanted his angel back." Now I'm not quite up on my theology, but the way I've always heard it is that "creepy pervert" is few steps away from "angel."

But maybe I'm wrong.

Anyway, I meant no disrespect to the man, I just wanted to point this out.

(This has taken way too goddamn long to put up. I started this post way back in mid-June and it's August fucking 5th!)

Omegle.com

Ok, as you may or may not know, there is this (relatively) new website called Omegle where you can chat with a randomly selected stranger who is also on Omegle. The stranger aspect and the odds that you will never talk to or meet this person again means that the conversations that arise may be very weird. I submit as evidence my recent conversation:

Connecting to server...

Looking for someone you can chat with. Hang on.

You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!

A word of advice: "asl" is boring. Please find something more interesting to talk about!

You: hey

Stranger: yo

You: sex talk?

Stranger: sure

You: i'm in a bikini

Stranger: i'm in a polar bear suit

Stranger: covered in peanut butter

You: are you a peanut-covered polar bear?

Stranger: oh yeas

You: because that would be so fucking awesome

Stranger: a very naughty one

You: i am rock-hard...i mean WET! very WET

Stranger: i'm rock-wet

Stranger: in fact my fur is starting to matt

You: ooh. i like matted fur

You: i like all fur

You: rub your fur on me

Stranger: not yet, you have to earn it

You: how can i earn it, oh master of the great matted fur?

Stranger: make me a sandwhich!

You: would you like tuna with that?

Stranger: then rub it on my big hairly polar balls

Stranger: oh yea

Stranger: and penguine meat

You: no! that would be a waste of tuna AND fur!

Stranger: I know, thats what turns me on

You: not me!

Stranger: wasting food is my fetish

You: no! and i thought you were cool!

You: waitaminnit!

You: is that a zipper?

Stranger: maybe

You: what happens if i pull it?

You: OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Stranger: go ahead

Stranger: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Stranger: thats right

You: YOU'RE NO PEANUT-BUTTER COVERED POLAR BEAR!

You: YOU'RE TED BUNDY!

Stranger: in a ski mask and smeared with honey

You: AGHHHHHHHRGHHHHHHMEARGHENGHENTAHIANARGHHHHHHHH!

You: BLARGHIARGHIARGHIARGHIARGH````~~~~!

Stranger: YES! Take it

You: blechiargh!

You: NO! I CANNOT STAND THIS HYPOCRISY!

Stranger: DO IT FAGGOT!

You: JESUS! TAKE ME NOW!

You: ooh.

You: orgasm

Stranger: Wanna ciggarette?

You: religiorgasm

You: what?

You: no

You: i don'tsmoke

Stranger: what are you, gay?

You: what are you? ted bundy?

Stranger: you know i am

Stranger: in a ski mask and smeared with honey

You: the only way you can get any is by tying women up and locking them in your trunk

You: and then killing them

You: wait!

You: another zipper?

You: OMG!

Stranger: thats right

You: YOU'RE THE BTK KILLER!*

You: *redundancy. BTK stands for Bind Torture Kill

Stranger: don't sound surprised

Stranger: you knew it was me from the beginning

You: AGH! A MAN OF GOD MAN!

You: How could you hurt those women!

You: What about your wife?

You: YOur children!

Stranger: she's a bitch

You: YOU MONSTER!

Stranger: always nagging

You: SCUM!

Stranger: fap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fap

Stranger: oooh yeah pass the butter

Stranger: fap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fap

You: fap?

You: there was butter?why didn't anyone tell me there was butter?

Stranger: don't stop now...PASS THE FUCKING BUTTER

Stranger: fap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fap

You: i want butter

Stranger: you can have it when i'm done with it

You: what are you going to o with it?

Stranger: grease up Obama and have a good old fashioned mad-wrestle

You: oooo...kkkk

You: i'm going to go now

Stranger: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Stranger: fap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fapfap fap

You: why not? you want to mud wrestle a butter-covered obama.

Stranger: wanna come with?

You: besides the obvious implications, that's just plain creepy.

Stranger: i know right?

You: and no one will want to use the butter afterwards

Stranger: thats hot

You: wasting butter

You: you monster

Stranger: i told u that turns me on

Stranger: in fact, i'm getting a raging hard-on

You: butter isn't food

Stranger: neither are you

You: butter is the sweat of GOD!

Stranger: tasty sweat

You: and i could be if you fried me long enough.

You: it would just be rude

Stranger: rude isn;'t in my vocabulary

Stranger: just like condom

Stranger: or france

You: wow.

Stranger: nope, don't know that one either

You: my great x13 grand uncle's fourteenth cousin by marriage is french

You: as is my brother

Stranger: what the fuck is a "french"?

You: from france

Stranger: what the fuck is "france"?

You: you're cool

You: do you have a facebook?

Stranger: nope

You: fuck you!

Stranger: ok!

You: GO TO HELL!

Stranger: YES MAM!

You: oh by the way

You: there's something i want to tell you

Stranger: oh yes do

You: it's something that i've kept close to my heart for far too long

Stranger: oh sorry i'll take my cock back

Stranger: you shouldn;'t keep that too close to your heart, it might stop

You: not that

You: it's a secret

Stranger: hit me

You: and i'm finally ready to reveal it to someone

You: are you ready?

Stranger: no, but HIT ME!

You: *smack*

You: there, are you happy?

You: ok

You: here goes

Stranger: you bet your french ass

You: I don't like to have relationships with guys

You: and this is why

You: this part might shock some people

You: and a lot of religious people might be against it

You: it's because

You: .........

Stranger: i'm getting so turned on right now

You: i'm a guy

You: HAHAHA!

Stranger: i'm a transvestite with both girl and guy parts so its all cool

You: oh.

You: ok.

Stranger: so...wanna like, play naked majhong

You: ah

You: ok

You: oh wait

You: oh no

Stranger: OH YEAH!

You: no, something has gone terribly wrong

You: i have to go

Stranger: tight

You: we may not meet again

Stranger: the odds are very slim

Stranger: like my balls

You: but if we do, here is our code word

You: eggs

You have disconnected.

By the way, I apologize for not posting recently, but my computer has been on the fritz due to my overloading the Vista side of my hard drive partition (at least, that's what the guys at Geek Squad told me [after they failed to repair the problem, so now I'm back where I started], the bastards. Vista still won't work on my computer, so I can't access my files, which pisses me off to no end. Fuck). So right now, I'm working on Linux, which I have realized that I do not like, and as soon as I get Vista working again, I'm going to get rid of it.

So check out Omegle.

Just Went To The NY Times Website

Damn. And after the post that was essentially in worship of trains.

Fuck.

Public Transport

I'd like to first renounce certain of my statements in a previous post regarding environmentalism. In the post, Why Going Green is BAD (Yes, You Heard Me, BAD) For the Environment, the title contained a sweeping declaration against all environmentalism, when the article just addressed buying organic food from places like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. The title of the post will be changed as soon as this post is completed.

The reason for this decision to change the title is not because someone brought this to my attention (you guys never comment on my posts), but because I am riding on a Bolt Bus to Baltimore and I've realized how much I care for public transport, or, more accurately, shared transport.

I took a train to get to the bus, which is very nicely equipped. It has actual seatbelts (like the ones that go across your chest and are usually found in cars, something that I have never seen on a bus before), electric outlets, and apparently wireless internet. I say apparently because this post was written in a notebook on the way down after I foolishly decided to leave my laptop at home because my bag didn't have enough space and I thought that I wouldn't be able to use it until I got to Baltimore and set up, because the bus shouldn't have Internet, which it did. I only found this out because when I get on the bus, I see all of these people with computers working on them and the woman across from me is checking her Facebook page, so I assume there was wi-fi.

The train was a New York City subway, so I can't really expound on this, since almost everyone has riden on some sort of subway.

By the way, every time I get on any sort of public transport (excluding buses), I always think of one of my favorite games, Locomotion by Chris Sawyer. By the way, I am part of the small cult following that they mention in the article. So, in the game, you are the CEO of a transportation company and you set up a transport network with buses, trucks, ships, trams, planes, trains, and boats. I haven't played it in about two years, so I'm going to look for it on eBay or BitTorrent as soon as I can.

Anyway, the bus is one of the coolest that I have ever been on. Unfortunately, it is just a bus. If it were a train, with actual cars and all of the amenities that this bus has, I would love it and figure out somewhere that I had to commute so that I could ride it everyday.

Well, maybe that's a little drastic, but I f*cking loved that bus. But in my opinion, no matter how awesome a bus is, it will never be as fast, cool or dependable as a train (excluding Amtrak). I mean, trains pretty much trump every other mode of transport. They are not hindered overmuch by the weather. They don't usually crash. They don't have to deal with much traffic. They don't induce seasickness. They're realatively quiet. They don't produce much pollution. And best of all, they usually stay at ground level.

Unfortunately, trains are not as common as buses, highways, or planes. Planes do have the advantage if large bodies of water need to be crossed, beause they can travel a more direct route than trains. And highways had a lot of potential, but due to poor administration and overpopulation by cars, they became the nightmare that we now know as the American superhighway system (You notice I am only addressing the United States. I don't know enough about, nor do I have the inclination to research other countries' transport modes). However, now others are realizing the potential of trains. In California, there are plans to build a high-speed train down the length of that state.

The bus is stopping. I'll try to muster the resolve to finish this post later, but I highly doubt I will. And for those who care, I'll post the next installment of Dogs of Wrath tomorrow. Just so you know, I didn't figure out how to install the proper code.

Thank You, 69.141.124.55

Well, I recieved my hit counter report yesterday and I'd first like to thank the owner of IP address 69.141.124.55 in Montclair, New Jersey. I appreciate your regular visits, and I'd also like to apologize if you don't want me putting your IP address and location up here.; message me and I'll take it down.

So anyway, once more, I'd like to thank you for your visits, which were hopefully inspired by my shameless self-promotion on the various websites that I am a member of (by the way, I now have a Facebook page. Become a fan). Please continue visiting and I'll post again soon.

Extended Addendum

Oh, and by the way, I am very close to getting Dogs of Wrath, The (I should delete the "The" when referencing the work, it's annoying me [Oh, little parenthetical asides, how I have missed you! What fun we shall have again! {I love Deadpool, and am not so keen on the fourth wall, by the way. Just in case anyone was wondering where the "parenthetical asides" thing came from} Oh, yes we will! Yes we will!] But I like it as a pun) up for sale on the blog. I know that I said if I didn't get it up by the 2nd, I would just continue with the installment posts, but I feel that it would be a bad idea to offer the entire thing for free. I swear this time. If it's not up for sale by Monday, the 22nd, I will put up some more posts.

If anyone out there is reading this thing (I know you're there. I know you visit the site. [ Statcounter dot f*cking com tells me that] Read the damn blog!), please take the time to comment telling me whether you think this is a good idea.

And in case you guys think I can't follow through on anything, suck it. I just deleted my Twitter account.

The Saturation Point, Part 2

There are six and a half billion humans alive today. At an average weight of 150 pounds, that is a total biomass of 975 billion pounds, or 487.5 million tons of biomass.* This number may not quite match the biomass of several other species, such as ants, or beetles, but it is still an impressive figure.

The thing about ants and beetles though, is that they have a clearly defined place in their habitat’s ecosystem. They leave a minimal impact on their environments, and daily, hundreds of thousands of them give up their lives after a short struggle to provide sustenance for some creature greater than themselves.

However, humans? We do not have a defined place in the ecosystem. We kill and eat almost every single animal on the planet, and are not consumed ourselves except by accident. We have caused untold harm to the Earth, harm that may be irreparable. But the most telling, significant difference between our philosophy of life and that of the creatures that operate solely on instinct is that human beings almost unilaterally refuse to give up living if another alternative can be found and we view those who have differing views as to this fact as in need of therapy and counseling.

And if we are injured and declared to be nearly beyond repair, we will turn all of our willpower, intelligence, and funds to find a way to cure ourselves in order to remain alive, even though we may be in incredible pain (Example: Chemotherapy). And if there is no possible way to be healed, we will freeze ourselves in the hope that one day technology will be developed that will be able to cure our ailment.

But why do we go to these lengths? It seems that after a certain point, we would realize that it would be better, easier and cheaper to give up on life.

But no.

We don’t.

We continue to fight to stay alive and the important bit of this is that with our intelligence and determination, we will probably very soon raise the average lifespan to above ninety. However, humans would likely not stop having unprotected sex, and as a result, the population would increase even faster than it is, since there would be more people alive at any given moment. And as the lifespan continues to increase, as more cures for diseases are found, humans will die less frequently, which will lead to the population density increasing to the point where basic sanitation will become nonexistent and we drown in our own filth, our elderly bodies that have lived longer than humans were meant to live too aged to provide the strength that might once have saved us.

Now let me pause in my predictions of doom and catastrophe to insert some logic into my arguments.

Yes, excess will kill us unless we get our waste under control.

And yes, the population is growing at an absurd rate. As much has been said before. However, the apocalyptic scenario that I painted is probably a bit over the top.

. . .

This is why I never do sequels to posts. The fire, drive and inspiration that consumed me during the writing of the original post is gone, leving me to write a moronic, insipid, unenthusiastic piece of work.

Fuck.

* HamdenRice at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x111533

The Saturation Point

If you guys followed me on Twitter, you would have seen the series of tweets I wrote last night about the world being oversaturated with people. It's not that these people lack talent. Not at all; however, any field that contains even the slightest appeal, writing, for instance, is now overflowing with aspiring authors, journalists, poets, songwriters, etc., which makes it harder for any of these talented people to rise to the top.

At first, one would argue, "Well, hey, doesn't that mean that the absolutely most talented are gonna get famous due to survival of the fittest?"

Oops, no, so sorry, wrong answer. First, let's all reflect on the fact that Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen (a.k.a. Tila Tequila) got a television show. As far as I know, she has no marketable talents, besides being extremely hot (she is) and having over 1 million MySpace friends, neither of which can truly be considered talents. Essentially, she's a whore. Her show just took up time that could have been given to someone who actually had talent.

Now for the second part. If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's newest book Outliers, you will understand how success is influenced not only by the person's talent, but also by many arbitrary factors. He uses the example of birthdays in Canadian hockey influencing success, with those who have earlier birthdays being more likely to become pros in hockey, due to the setup of the Canadian youth hockey league. His proposal is that a player, Ned, born closer to January 1 (which is the cut-off date for the league) will have had more time to grow and mature than a player named Ian, who was born December 31st of the previous year, so their birthdays are only a day apart. Because hockey apparently favors larger players, the January 1 birthday will be seen as more talented and pushed to attend special hockey programs that will result in his becoming genuinely better at hockey than the player born on December 31st who was not drafted into the special hockey programs. Because January 1 is better, he will be sorted into the A-1 league, Canada's top youth hockey league, where he will compete against the best youth hockey players, gaining experience. December 31st probably didn't get into the A-1 league because he wasn't sent to the advance hockey program, a result of him not being seen as talented at hockey.

The end result? Ned eventually becomes a pro hockey player. Ian does not. And this could have been reversed, or happened a totally different way if only one of them had been born a few hours earlier or later.

So if success can be based on something completely arbitrary, like birthdays, how can we say that "survival of the fittest" in relation to humans will let the most talented rise to the top. This is obviously an erroneous viewpoint. Ian could have been more naturally talented than Ned, but because of their birthdays, Ned was put into the advanced leagues, while Ian was not. If success depended completely on talent, Ian would be the pro of the two of them.

But because 6.5 billion people are living on this planet, it can be hard to sort out who of us is the most talented at anything. And talent is not necessarily and indicator of success. Again I offer up the example of Thien Thanh Thi Nguyen. Compare that to one of my friends. She has written several short stories, which I think are rather amazing, and yet, she is not famous.

Perhaps the "whoring" nature of self-publication is onereason why the talented rise to the top. To achieve fame in the way that she did, Tila Tequila was forced to self-publicize relentlessly, whereas my friend sort of expects that somehow, she will become famous.

If this is why the most talented do not recieve notice, doesn't it mean that there is something wrong with the model? I realize that the sheer numbers of people alive today prevent publishers and talent scouts from discovering everyone who is good at something, and that if you want to be famous, you have to put yourself out there, but still, there needs to be a way to certify that those who have true talent are exposed and discovered.

But again, as I mentioned at the beginning, the number of talented people on Earth is astounding, and seems preventative to anyone getting discovered and recognized. There are simply too many people.

Which leads me to the necessity of a mass extinction event. Humans are so intelligent and geographically ubiquitous that the normal controls on population size (i.e. Drought, fire, natural disaster, famine, disease, predators, etc.) simply don't work anymore. At this given moment, I am sure that any number of these events is going on somewhere in the world. And is the human population plummeting? No. Even with these events occuring, the human population continues to increase exponentially.

This makes Agent Smith's revelation from The Matrix ring true: "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague, and we are the cure." --The Matrix. (Can't believe I quoted The Matrix, but whatever).

Continued next week.

Even Homeless, You Have to Be Connected

In the Wall Street Journal recently there was an article about homeless people who, despite being homeless, manage to still maintain internet access in order to remain a part of online communities. The story is here if you want to read it, but it basically describes, using the homeless as an example, how tied we, as a culture, are to our computers, and the Internet as a whole. I lived without the Internet for a month (April of 2009), and I was nearly driven insane. I couldn't check Facebook to see what my friends, who I don't care enough about to call or text them, were doing, I couldn't blog, I couldn't check my e-mail, and I didn't know what was going on in the world, since I couldn't get to the New York Times website, and I don't trust network television and CNN is just a collossal waste of money (they had f*cking holograms on Election Night! Not even real, Star Wars-esque holograms. It looked like they took a video of will.i.am and cut his image out and pasted it in front of Wolf Blitzer. The thing looked sh*tty as hell. And I bet it cost eighteen f*cking million dollars). They say they're unbiased and all that crap, but they're just burning money.

Anyway, before I get too off-topic, I wanted to mention how, even though someone may homeless, the person can't completely sever their ties with the Internet. According to the article, the privelege of computer use at one shelter became so desired and popular that the shelter was forced to limit it to thirty minute sessions.

Wow. I am speechless. I can't even comment on that. Really, besides searching for a job and keeping in touch with other homeless folks*, why are you using the computer for so long? I mean, what are you doing that would require the shelter where you get your Internet fix to limit session time, because I doubt that the homeless are going to http://www.miniclips.com/ to play games or something. They're probably not playing Runescape, because that's just sad. And I know that they're not popping in World of Warcraft and doing that for half an hour. I mean if you're living on the streets or in a shelter, what business at all do you have going to the shelter and hogging the computer playing online games?

Seriously. I think that no one has their priorities this screwed up. But, on the off chance that any homeless person actually does this, they should go to China. There's no problem with unnecessary Internet use over there.

But honestly, we as a country need to cut down on frivolous Internet usage. I have a presentation due for work tomorrow and I have spent five hours not doing it, instead writing this post, reading the Times and sporadically looking for images that I can use for it. My teammates are going to be so disappointed.

*By the way, according to John Grisham in The Street Lawyer, homeless people know everything that goes on.

Twitter

As you know, there's this little thing called Twitter that has a bit of a following on the Internet now. I bet you can guess what's coming next.

Yes, I have joined Twitter. But it scares me, so unless I get a following of fifteen people by Tuesday, I'm going to delete my account. That seems reasonable, right? I don't have to wait long and fifteen isn't that much

Of course. I'm not one for doing irrational things.

So to clarify. Fifteen people by 6:00 pm EST on Tuesday, June 2, 2009. Right then, see you there. Or not.

Oh, and by the way, here's my Twitter page in case you actually want to follow me. I can't believe I jumped on the bandwagon like that. Such a dumb idea.

Dogs of Wrath, The: Hiatus

For those who missed the Dogs of Wrath last weekend, rest assured, I will not let it go the way of The Sixth Degree. It is finished, and I am trying to be able to sell it.

That sentence made no sense at all.

What I mean is, I want to be able to sell the Dogs of Wrath manuscript as an eBook. I have the PayPal thing set up, but I also want automatic delivery or a download link, or something. That's the part I'm having trouble with. I can't figure out how to have both of them together.

Help would be appreciated.

Oh yeah, and I never did write that follow-up post about the meaning of life or the one about money, did I? Well, that's on my list of things to do (which is, essentially, in no particular order: 'Get girlfriend, get married or become responsible baby-daddy whose baby's mother is irresponsible [just to flip the stereotypes and be a single father], adopt female [preferably Asian] child [haven't worked out how to reconcile those two yet, since I want to have one kid and I also want to be a baby-daddy and adopt a girl], finish writing second book. And the aforementioned 'finish blog post series.'

I think I might have trouble finishing things [Wow, one of my parenthetical musings has never had its own line break before. Can you do that?], or maybe just staying on topic). So I'll get one of those done soon.

A'ight, good night guys. See you tomorrow.

H1N1(Swine Flu!): Overhyped?

As you all know, (unless you've been living under a rock for the past three months, as usual) there's this little thing called swine flu going around, and people are getting a little worked up about it.


Now, before I continue, I want to say that I've been on a camping trip this weekend and I couldn't post. Also, I think that I might have had swine flu or something, but I'm better now.

And now it has been three days since I started this post, and I haven't worked on it except to mention that I had swine flu, but I'm better now. Nor do I feel any compunction to finish what was planned to be a citation heavy post on the over-hyping of swine flu, so I'll just say: Swine flu is over-hyped.

Get over it.

Oh, and the CDC and the various new agencies? Stop inciting panic. No one needs to panic more than they already do. We get enough panic everyday. We need some panic-tan lotion, but seeing as that is unlikely, everybody should limit their exposure to panic-causing substances, like panicky news reports of the antibiotic-resistant bacterium-fueled apocalypse. If you really want us to panic, tell us more about the sh*tty economy, or Iraq (haven't heard much about that lately . . .) or something f*cking important, not this ridiculous sh*t about this dumb*ss, overpublicized media scare.

I'm going to eat dinner, then I'm going to bed.

Nuclear Holocaust! Plus, a Technorati Blog Link!

As you may or may not recall, a couple of weeks ago, I posted about how I was trying to register my blog to Technorati on the advice of an article by the New York Times' technology columnist. However, when I tried to register, Technorati refused me, which set me on the path to a completely random, rambling rant about nothing (moreso than my usual posts), but also happened to lead me to a new blog that I am now following.

Anyway, I have just retried registering and it was successful, which is why I am now very honored to be able to post this link to my as of now blank Technorati Profile!

(I had to post the link in order for them to verify that I owned the blog.)

Now that that's out of the way, in my last post, I mentioned the very real possibility of nuclear holocaust. It may be just a coincidence, or some sort of subconcious expression of the effect that watching Nicholas Cage's latest film, "Knowing," (which was a piece of sh*t, by the way) has had on me. Either way, I have been having thoughts and dreams of nuclear holocaust (by the way, in case you couldn't tell, this is a picture depicting about the maximum range that Iran's new nukes could reach), all of which, for some reason, seem to involve me quickly making a post to this blog along the lines of, "The missiles are about to hit the Northeast. They've sounded the alert sirens. I don't know how much more time I have, but rest assured, I will keep you updated and I will fight the cancer, heat, cellular degeneration, radiation poison and disintegration until the bitter end. F*ck the bastards that came and sh*t on the American way of life! Solomon out."

Then, just as the missile is about to hit, I fold up my laptop, stand erect with a steely glint in my eye, and begin to run away from the missile, escaping just in time in one of those action movie explosion escapes (you know what I'm talking about. The hero just barely makes it out from the exploding vehicle, house, secret lab or other threatening structure, and is pushed to the ground by the explosion's shockwave, but gets up with nary a scratch, cut or bruise), then I run somewhere with free, unrestricted internet access and continue blogging until the end of the world. And you know my last word is "This is Solomon. Goodbye," and I click Publish just as the missile hits and I die a martyr for a now extinct civilization.

Yes, I know how implausible that is. Yes, I know the destructive power of nukes. Yes, I would not have time to escape the shockwave, and if I do manage, by a miracle, to evade the epicenter in the fashion that I have described, I would have massive radiation burns and likely be in too much pain to do anything.

But it's a cool scenario, isn't it?

I also know that the likelihood of Iran setting off a nuclear war is extremely low, since the President knows that massive retaliation would be swiftly forthcoming and very possibly fatal for all of Iran. He might even set of a nuclear world war, which no one wants. This is why nuclear weapons are used more a bargaining chips in the international game of diplomacy, along the lines of countries with nukes saying to the nukeless, "Send us money or we bomb you to the Stone Age."

Or something like that.

But even though I am aware of this fact, or have rationalized it through a brief consideration of the problem, the presence of nukes still worries me, especially with the recent apparent glut of news stories about small, US-hostile nations building and launching nuclear weapons tests.

And if I'm the only one, I might as well cede control of this blog to my brother and turn myself into a crazy bin.

Which I won't do, because Mr. Obama apparently shares my views. You all know about how he wants to abolish some nukes (if you were able to find my small, relatively obscure blog, you know about current events), and how no one else thinks it is really feasible or rational (oddly enough, suggesting the disposal of a few slightly volatile substances is not rational) to do so.

I am hardly in a position to suggest a plan to make Mr. Obama's dream a reality, nor do I believe myself capable of fulfilling such a momentous task, but I do think that it is somewhat feasible, and in fact, necessary. I use this analogy: Do you really need 7,600* bullets when you can kill just as effectively with just one or two? The problem worsens when it is revealed the the bullets are highly volatile and need constant care.

Think about it.

*Number of warheads in the US arsenal as of November 2002, according to the website http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nudb/datab11.asp.

The "Next Blog" Link

Good day, all. Just wanted to discourse about this thing that's been slightly bothering me. I mean, that's why I started a blog in the first place, isn't it? To express my Flow of Conscious, or was I just experiencing temporary insanity?

Either way, I will communicate my issue. Whether you decide to read it is beside the point, because I can't make you do anything that you don't want to do. Even if I'm right there with a knife to your neck, telling you to read this, it's still your decision . . . but that's another post.

Whenever I click the "Next Blog" link at the top of the page, it always, invariably takes me to some foreign language blog. Often it's Spanish or Portuguese, but Monday, I believe (I'm not too certain of dates around midnight), I was directed to a Russian woman's blog (which I'm sure I would have found delightful, if I had been able to read Russian!).

Before you get on me for being all f*cking anti-immigrant, pro-America (not that being pro-American is a bad thing), "Burn everyone who doesn't speak American with an American accent," please, understand. I appreciate the fact that we live in a global society, melting pot, yada, yada, yada . . . BUT I would appreciate it if I could once get as my "Next Blog" a blog that was in English. I know that non-English speakers exist, and I applaud their accomplishments, yes, but I want something that I can support and follow and add to my list of "Blogs I'm Following," without having to learn a new language.

Also, I suppose that it bothers me that I always get a different blog every time that I click that link. I'm probably going to sound out of touch (BTW, I have Linux! My comp now has 2 OS[s? i?]), but I thought that if something was next, it was supposed to always be next, kind of like two is always after one (as long as you count [forwards] in whole numbers and not with fractions or decimals or some crap), B after A, etc. I'm slightly disoriented by the changing "Next Blog" (slightly; I figured out how to get Linux, [which I have to stop bragging about], didn't I?), which irritates me.

But whatever.

Also, before I collapse from exhaustion or lose what little lucidity I have ever possesed (ooh, flying monkeys! Hi Dorothy! Flibberty-gibbet![Is that how it's spelled?]), I'd like to congratulate the nation of Iran for successfully conducting the solid fuel missile launch that "landed exactly on target," according to President Ahmadinejad (I always thought that his name had a C in it somewhere . . .). I am not exactly sure what a 1,200 mile range will allow them to target, but as long as they don't begin a nuclear war, I am fine (I wonder if the Obama administration is as uptight as Bush's was about not spouting the party line, RE: Kid Gets Arrested For This. If I said that supporting Iran during Bush years, my blog would be shut down and you'd never hear from me again directly, since I'd be in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib [whatever happened to that anyway? No one mentions it anymore]. Maybe Obama is just more covert about it, since he essentially controls the media, and everyone loves him, including me. I'm just cynical).

Next Time: The World Is Dumbing Down! Prepare for Nuclear Holocaust!

Dogs of Wrath, The: Part 7

India woke up in a strange bed. Where am I? she wondered, as she tried to get up. She couldn’t because there was a large strap over her stomach, which only increased her unease. Why am I being kept here? She gazed around the dark room, trying to pick out some identifying features, but it was too shadowy for her to see anything.

She lay back in the bed. All right, I don’t know where I am, or why I’m here. I have a massive headache and I am hungry. And to top it all off, I can’t feel my foot. Wait, foot?

The events of the afternoon rushed back to her and she nher foot exploding after Robb moved his hand. After that, it was dark. I must have blacked out, or fainted, she decided. Not unlikely, considering the pain she must have been in at the time. Her body couldn’t deal with it and had shut down to shelter her from the distress. Ok, if my foot is gone, then I must be somewhere where they’d take care of it, since I’m not dead. Am I dead?

She explored her surroundings and felt soft cloth, and sheets. Ok, I may be dead, but I may not be. Back to square one then. I’ll assume I’m not dead, since my head hurts like hell. Then, I’m probably in a hospital or something.

Reassured now that she had puzzled out her location, she relaxed, not expecting any immediate harm. Of course, when one relaxes, one’s guard is down and if one is a target, this is the moment when one’s enemies are apt to strike. This stream of thought came into India’s head as soon as she rested it upon the plush pillow, which shocked her back from the state of lethargy that she had been in. Luckily, no one chose this moment to harm India and she soon fell into a light, fitful sleep.

______________________________________

Mr. Duke looked up from the manuscript he was reading and stood. He took off his reading glasses and stuck his head into the busy hallway of Duke and Shelby Publishing Corporation. He grabbed an intern and said, “Can you call Loretta for me?” The intern nodded and ran off.

Mr. Duke closed the door and rubbed his temples. The manuscript he was reading was perfect trash, not even worthy to grace his trash can. The largest of many problems with the manuscript that sprung to Mr. Duke’s mind was the complete and rather noticeable absence of any overarching plot at all. Some books could get away with no plot, but with this one, because of the relatively nondescript characters, the complete lack of scene description, awkward phrasing and the odious dialogue, it needed an unbelievably stellar plot to even have a chance of breaking even on the world market. And this it simply did not have.

Mr. Duke sat at his desk. Make no mistake, he thought, this author, Eric Glencoe, he has a lot of promise, but this thing he’s written is garbage. He’d be better off scrapping it and starting anew.

His intercom buzzed. “Yes, Loretta?” Mr. Duke answered, pressing the button.

“You asked for me, Mr. Duke?” The intercom crackled with Loretta’s voice. She had a beautiful voice, but the intercom could take the most beautiful sound and turn it into a static-filled, crackling, nearly indecipherable mess.

“I did. I wanted to know if you had any means of contacting Mr. Glencoe. Did he leave a phone number, an address, anything?”

“Yes, he did indeed, Mr. Duke. He left his home address with me. I’ll fax it up to you if you want.”

“Yes, that would be splendid,” Mr. Duke responded.

“He also left a message this morning asking if you had finished his manuscript yet. He’s really quite anxious to see it published, Mr. Duke.”

Mr. Duke pinched the bridge of his nose. “Thank you for passing that along. That will be all, Loretta.”

“You’re very welcome, Mr. Duke. Good night.”

Mr. Duke shut off the intercom. Another problem with Glencoe was that he had the most annoying, cloying, abrasive, irritating personality Mr. Duke had ever encountered. He didn’t want to break the kid’s heart, but he hated the guy’s personality. If he were a little more charming, and actually had a plot, Mr. Duke would give his book a shot, but because he wasn’t, the book was going in the trash and Mr. Glencoe was getting the standard Duke and Shelby Publishing Corporation rejection letter. It was five pages long and one of the best pieces of writing Mr. Duke had ever produced. He had worked on it for three months, and it was a masterpiece. It would be used for decades longer, with only slight alterations and was designed to let disappointed authors down gently, without the name of Duke and Shelby leaving a bad taste in their mouths.

While Mr. Duke waited for the fax to arrive, his thoughts wandered, until he began to think about writing his own book. It can’t be that hard, he reasoned. I mean, I’m the CEO and Editor in chief at a huge, multinational publishing corporation. Hundreds of manuscripts find their way to my desk every day. I know what the average reader wants and I’ve had thousands of story ideas bouncing around in my head for years. I can do this. It’s not that hard.

Mr. Duke’s reverie was interrupted by the whirring of his fax machine as it prepared to spit out the paper with Eric’s address. Mr. Duke grabbed the paper and opened the file. He changed the name and address portion of the letter to that of Eric Glencoe and searched the document for any recurrences of the name of the person the letter had last been sent to.

Satisfied that the only name in the letter was Eric’s he printed the rejection out, saved the template and shut down the computer. Grabbing his gray felt fedora, his darker gray wool – cashmere blend overcoat and his black briefcase, he dropped the letter in his OUT bin, turned off his lights, exited his office and tipped his hat to Loretta as he passed her cubicle. He entered the hallway, pressed the button for the elevator, and when it arrived, he quickly entered the empty car, pressed the button for the basement and headed for his car.

Once inside his Aston Martin DB9 COUPE, on the way to his apartment, Mr. Duke couldn’t stop thinking about perhaps writing his own story. All I need to do, he reasoned, is to get started. Some authors write a book a month, like that R.L. Stine with his Goosebumps series. I don’t expect to be able to do that, but perhaps I could write this book in a year. But, again, I’ll never know until I get started.

He arrived at his apartment building, disembarked from his Aston Martin, grabbed his briefcase and over coat from the backseat, tossed the keys to the adolescent valet, mentally cringing at the idea of this pimply, gangly, oily, teenager driving his car. He’ll probably destroy the suspension, pretending he’s James Bond, or something. He made a note of the boy’s name, resolving to call the super and get the boy fired if something happened to his car.

Mr. Duke entered the elevator that was always waiting in the garage and took it to the penthouse. A slot opened where he inserted his key, and without further delay, the elevator sped up to the penthouse floor.

He stepped out of the elevator and eyed his foyer. Nothing had been touched, as he had requested. Mr. Duke took of his overcoat and hung it in his closet, which was full of coats and hats similar to the ones he had been wearing. He stepped into his office, where he placed his briefcase and then went into his bedroom, where he changed from his suit and tie into more comfortable clothes. A few hours later, Mr. Duke sat in front of his fireplace with a glass of Mondavi, still thinking about writing a book. Airheads like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson have done it, he reflected. I am a very rich man with a degree from Yale. My IQ is 144. He placed his wineglass on the table and abruptly stood up. You know what? I am going to write this thing now.

Mr. Duke walked into his office and turned on his computer. He logged in, opened a new document and typed one word. The. He stared at the screen for a minute, his fingers poised over the keyboard, ready for action, awaiting commands that were not forthcoming. A brief flurry of motion produced another word. Man. The screen now read, The man. Five fingers flashed and the word walked appeared on the screen. Slowly, and with great effort and long pauses in between each word, The man walked over to the newsstand and picked up a paper, finally emerged onto the screen. Mr. Duke sat in his chair, sweating at the exertion.

He realized he was sweating and laughed at the ridiculous notion that twelve little words could cause him to feel as winded as if he had run a marathon. An idea materialized in his mind, and without second – guessing himself, he typed, On the front page, there was a story about a man who had dropped dead writing a book. Bit by bit, and with gratuitous use of the backspace button and long pauses in between words and sentences and paragraphs, the following words began to materialize on Mr. Duke’s screen.

Copyright ©2009 Malcolm Clarke