Cosmos Blogmos

My Robot's Sensory Grid of Apartment Smells

2005-05-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

my robot's sensory grid of apartment smells

Okay. Can anyone help me out here?

Like an idiot, I purchased one of those SensoMatic monstrosities, a SensoMatic 152 xB robot computer knick knack.

I was lonely and bored.

I wanted something to occupy my time and keep me amused.

At first it was fun having the SensoMatic spit out reports and analysis on my immediate environment.

Now it's a nightmare.

For example, I asked it to output a spreadsheet on the various sounds in my apartment for a 24 hour period.

That was creepy. It recorded and statisticized a lot of noises that should not, could not possibly, be occuring in my apartment.

"Knife cutting through wire screen" for example.

Or "Asian couple having sex with an appliance".

Or "cat scratching the crap out of an upholstered piece of furniture".

Or "Large amount of linen based cash and paper checks being shredded by automatic document shredder."

None of these things have been happening in my apartment. And I should know. I never go anywhere. I'm a homebody. A shut in.

Do you know what it's like to stay at home and never go anywhere? It gets weird after a few decades. Really weird.

Anyway, now the damn thing is not only lying to me, it's putting its biased spin on all kinds of unrealistic sensory data it claims it detects.

Or it pumps out a report that is impossible to interpret. Just a mess of color splotches, chaotic patterns, or rigid designs with no text explanations.

For example, see the sensory grid displayed here at the top of this message. See that weave-like, arbitrary, but not unpleasantly colorful design?

That's the supposed grid of monitored fragrances located in my apartment as of last Tuesday.

Can you make any sense out of it?

I can't.

No legend. No call-outs. No footnotes. Just a basket like weave type grid.

Where is the fart I produced quite noisily?

Where is the aroma of coffee brewing or the steak I cooked?

I don't see any indications. Where is the incense I lit to mask the stench of the meat? Do you see anything that would represent any of these smells, good or bad?

I don't.

I'm mad as hell.

I'm about ready to dismantle this robot and turn it into an auto-blogger device that ghost writes blogs for people who hate blogs and other interactive, participatory media. MSM broadcast executives, for example.

That would be a lot of fun.

Wait.

It heard me. Heard me say that.

I, uh....hmmm.

Huh?

HEY, stop that, you piece of computerized shit!

Oh oh.

NO!

I said NO!

It's not paying any attention.

Like it's got a mind of its own now.

Where's my instruction manual?

Hold up.

Wha----?

Now what's it doing?

I don't like the way it's glaring at me right now.

What's it doing with that paper clip?

Where's it going?

What's that thing? Coming out of it's "head"?

I smell smoke. Like burning rubber or plastic.

Son of a bitch!

It's moving toward me!

Something stinks, more like rotten eggs and moldy pianos.

What's that obnoxious, wheezing, high pitched siren sound?

What's going on now?

It's getting closer.

I can almost feel it crawling all over me, abusing me, treating me like a turd.

Help!

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!

Bugs From a Horrible Planet

2005-05-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Have you seen these bad ass bugs anywhere?

I took my Cub Scout pack on a little journey today.

Into the woods behind our house.

Most of them made it back alive.

Some bravely, or timidly, sacrificed their lives for science and humanity.

See, there is an invasion happening that the MSM (main/morbid stream media) is not talking about, and it's worse than the war going on at the US-Mexican border.

As far as I've been able to figure out,

the facts are such as follows:

(1.) Aliens from Outer Deep Space are here, coming from a Horrible Planet that is full of poisoned music, trashy snacks, vain celebrity monstrosities, boring blog-like apparitions, and gaudy garments draped over anything that moves.

(2.) The aliens hate us.

(3.) They want to take over the planet Earth.

(4.) They fear us.

(5.) They are sneaky and smart.

(6.) They are tiny, but deadly.

(7.) They look like harmless bugs.

(8.) They eat harmless bugs.

(9.) They like our insects, especially spiders, so much, they want to live here, and kick us out.

(10.) They have invented massively destructive computer worms, viruses, and other vile code strings.

(11.) They are implanting our computer systems and networks with these malicious entities via text messaging, emails, podcasts, and RSS feeds.

(12.) They use email subject lines like "eBay account update mandatory" and "your dentist detected an obstruction in your filling" and etc.

(13.) They can't spell too good, like most spammers.

(14.) They live in the woods and like to camp out by streams and rivers.

(15.) They build little structures in clumps of poison ivy, hoping humans will shun them.

(16.) They can be destroyed by staring at them for several minutes.

(17.) Cub Scouts are good at staring at evil aliens.

(18.) Cub Scouts with ADHD are NOT good at staring at aliens. (They are vulnerable to alien retaliatory attack.)

So, parents, keep your children away from anything that disrupts attention spans.

Thus, severely limit or eliminate television viewing, movie watching, video games, occult practices, beer drinking, text messaging, emailing, soda pop, candy, artificial preservatives, trance channelling, rap music, and any vegetative, brain dead, couch potato activity.

Make them get up and mow the lawn, paint the picket fence, or visit an elderly shut in neighbor, with adult supervision.

Give your kids books, yes old fashioned paper and ink books, to read.

Force your youth to focus.

Set a good example. Read books. Write letters. Solve puzzles. Compute math problems. Create art, poetry, crafts projects, sculpture, and non-repetitive, aleatory, meandering music.

Do anything that requires concentration, patience, struggle, and rigorous mental effort, and get your children involved.

Together, we can save the Earth we so recklessly pollute, abuse, and disregard.

Thanks.

Snow Fleas from Hades

2005-04-24T15:04:00.000-07:00

Snow Fleas photo courtesy National Geographic. Copyright 2004.

I nearly fell out of my chair when I heard my mother-in-law say, "Oh, probably just snow fleas."

I mean, who ever heard of such things?

My wife had mentioned how she saw some small birds, possibly the Sitta Carolinensis (white-breasted nuthatcher, whose song is a series of single pitch nasal whistle sounds) or the Troglodytes Troglodytes (winter wren, whose song consists of a quick succession series of ultra-high pitch trills), eating or pecking at freshly fallen late winter snow.

"Do some birds eat snow?" my wife asked her mom. "Or is there something on the snow they're after?"

"Oh, probably just snow fleas," her mom replied. "They swarm on top of freshly fallen snow, often near tree trunks or piles of frozen autumn leaves. The fleas do a jig on the snow crust, which attracts the birds."

I was taken aback by that "do a jig" remark. How could she know what the snow fleas are doing? How could she even be sure such a thing as snow fleas exist? And how did they learn how to dance such a complex routine as a jig?

No. This was too strange.

I felt oddly lost, slightly insane, as though I had somehow stepped into the Twilight Zone.

But sure enough, one morning, right after some snow had lightly covered the backyard, I went up to a stump, and there they were. Snow fleas.

I thought I saw some. It was a dark patch on the snow.

I ran back inside and grabbed my large handheld magnifying glass, which I had purchased by mail order from Edmund Scientific Supplies Company.

Yes! I could see them hopping around on the snow crust. It was a jig, too, not a waltz, tarantella, or foxtrot. The little bugs were doing a springy dance, in triple time, to mysterious, and unheard music.

Then I got my expensive studio microphone, which I ran through a guitar distortion effect to amplify the signal...

...(a trick I learned when I conducted audio surveillance on girls at parties when they went into a bedroom, shut the door, and confessed bizarre sex experiments to each other, while my buddy and I listened through my stereo speakers that the distortion enhanced microphone fed into).

I ran the microphone cord into the distortion effect box, then ran a cable from it to my stereo system, and turned the effect level all the way up, to amplify the sound of the snow fleas.

There was a peculiar, but definite, music accompanying the jig.

I grabbed a blank cassette tape, and started recording it.

The music was indeed triple time, and quite strange. I can't even describe what it sounded like, some sort of cross between a violin and a tuba, a thumping, high pitch, low tone pulsation. It mesmerized me. I grew addicted to it.

It got so bad that I spent all my time doing nothing but observing the snow fleas doing their delicate and delightful jigs, recording the musical accompaniment, and then listening to it over and over again.

"So, what's up?" a friend asked me as I took a seat at the little tavern near my home. They have great garlic beer cheese and crackers, provided free. I love going there to have a few beers once or twice a month. A cozy little rec room type bar called "The Gang's All Here Tavern".

I looked at him with haughty disdain.

"You wouldn't understand," I stated. I pulled the cheese crock and crackers closer to me, so I could begin eating.

"Wouldn't understand what?" Jerry asked.

He was smiling with an amused, I-wonder-what-weirdness-he's-into-now type smirk.

"Anything." I growled with cheese and cracker spilling out of my mouth, chunks tumbling down my already soiled shirt. I had stopped bathing and changing my clothes months ago, I was so intensely into my new hobby.

"I wouldn't understand anything?" he reflected out loud. "So, you're saying I'm stupid or queer?"

"That's for you to decide," I mumbled as I stuffed more cheese and cracker down my gullet and washed the mashy mess down with amber bock.

"How about I decide to give you an early birthday present?" Jerry asked as he grabbed my shoulder, swung me around, and landed a hefty fist squarely and succinctly into my bread basket. I slumped over, moaning, my stomach on fire with sudden pain.

Soon, just a mere second later in fact, I felt his meaty fist clobber me again, this time on the back of my slouched head as I bent down toward the floor to vomit in agony.

A sizeable porton of not-yet-digested anchovie and onion omelette spewed out of my mouth, as I thought to myself: "So that's what I had for breakfast."

For some reason I couldn't quite remember, and my inability to identify the morning entree had bugged me as I was walking to the tavern.

My eyes started spinning in their sockets.

"Chump," Jerry barked at me as he kicked me in the groin. "Idiot. Know-it-all."

Needless to say, cheese and cracker began upheaving violently from my gut, along with the last remnants and oozings of my breakfast.

"I ain't no uneducated fool," Jerry announced to the whole bar, but primarily to me. "I can understand things, lots of things, lots more than you think I can."

This time he shoved me down on the floor and began to dance a jig on my torso.

"That's the snow fleas jig," I gurgled incoherently. I doubt that anyone could hear or understand what I was trying to communicate.

"The what? Are you making fun of me again, you son of a bitch?" I heard Jerry ask as blood streamed out of my ears and nose.

"Snow fleas jig," I gasped as best I could, given my distraught condition. "The clever little dance they do on the snow crust. I've got, I've got the music to it..."

Jerry was even angrier now that I was interpreting his mauling as a dance routine performed by fleas. He figured I was saying that it didn't hurt or bother me much, although it did.

"Now you're saying I'm a stinky, flea-bitten sack of shit? I'll show you something about fleas," he replied in a bad and worsening mood.

I could tell that this was not going to be one of my better days.

THE END

SCIENTIFIC POST SCRIPT from Cornell University
http://www.entomology.cornell.edu/Extension/
DiagnosticLab/IDLFS/SnowFleas/SnowFleas.html

The insect nicknamed the "snow-flea" is not a flea at all, but instead is a species of springtail that may occur in very large numbers on the snow.

In some instances they may be so numerous as to color the snow black. In British Columbia there is a minute yellow springtail that is said to cover the snow with a "carpet of gold."

The snow-flea Achorutes nivicola Fitch was written about as early as 1847 by Asa Fitch.

He wrote of it:

"This is an abundant species in our forests in the winter and fore part of spring. At any time in the winter, whenever a few days of mild weather occur, the surface of the snow, often, over whole acres of woodland, may be sprinkled more or less thickly with these minute fleas, looking at first sight, as though gunpowder had been there scattered.

Hollows and holes in the snow, out of which the insects are unable to throw themselves readily, are often black with multitudes which here become imprisoned. The fine meal-like powder with which their bodies are coated, enables them to float buoyantly upon the surface of water, without becoming wet.

When the snow is melting so as to produce small rivulets coursing along the tracks of the lumberman's sleigh, these snow-fleas are often observed, floating passively in its current, in such numbers as to form continuous strings; whilst the eddies and still pools gather them in such myriads as to wholly hide the element beneath them."

Later he included an additional note:

"In the early spring the buckets and troughs of the manufacturer of maple sugar are often thronged with these insects."

Although springtails are very common insects and often very abundant, they are seldom observed. Their small size and the fact that they are often found in concealed situations keeps them out of view for most of us.

Springtails occur in leaf mold, damp soil, under bark, in decaying logs and in fungi. A few are found on water.

Most species are believed to feed on organic debris.

The "snow-fleas" need not be of concern to homeowners, as they do not cause any damage. Their abundance, and habit of crawling or "jumping" all over the place attracts attention, especially when they are contrasted against the white background of the snow.

This is one of the few insects that occur in the adult stage during the wintertime. It is a curiosity more than anything else, and is of interest to the naturalist as well as the scientist.

[signed] Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate

Amoeba Mice

2005-04-11T03:54:00.000-07:00

which way will it go?

I've about had it up to here. I hate what has happened to me, to my apartment I mean.

I used to love where I live. It's near a wooded area, but just three blocks down the road, there is a lovely strip mall, or series of strip malls, about six I think. They look ugly, of course, all clumped together, but I can shop for just about anything I need.

But back to my problem here at home.

This apartment is crawling with amoeba mice.

If you don't understand what I mean, consider yourself fortunate. It means you haven't met them, haven't "made their acquaintance" yet.

They're a lot like cockroaches, in that they come out in force at night, when all the lights are off.

Whenever I go downstairs to get a drink of milk or something, in the middle of the night, like around 10 PM, and turn on the livingroom light using the wall switch at the bottom of the stairs, there they are.

And they just stare at me, like I have no reason to interfere with them, or they simply go about their business, oblivious to my presence.

When I say "they", I mean from thirty to sixty, or even more. One night I actually stood on the staircase and tried to get a quick estimate of how many there were.

They have no fear of me, nor do they respect my rights as a renter. I wish I could somehow convey to you how horrible the situation is, how hard it is to deal with these amoeba mice.

Let's say you see one over in the corner, by the pulmolive plant. You rush at it, to try to catch it and kill it. The problem is: you don't which way it's going to scamper. It can go forward or reverse, since it's pointed in both directions.

I'm no good at classificatory systems.

I call them "amoeba mice" because they look like they're getting ready to spit in half and become two.

They never do. They stay just like you see them in the photo accompanying this article. Like two mice smashed together somehow. Melted or mutated together is probably more accurate.

It's creepy.

How did they get like that?

I lie awake at night thinking about it. I hear them scooting across the livingroom floor all night long, making their stupid squeaking noises, probably just to irritate me.

Sometimes the squeaking becomes a rather loud clamor, a din, a cacophony of high pitched, insistent squeaks, squelches, and squeals. Like they're arguing. Good, I think to myself. When they sound like that, maybe they'll fight and kill each other. But--they never do.

I have never found a dead one, not in the six months period in which this has been going on.

It's a good thing I don't have any friends, nobody who might pop over at night, after 7:30 PM, which is when I go to bed and the ruckus begins.

I really don't fall asleep until about midnight. I just lie there, wondering where they came from, what they want, how they can live like that, looking like two mice fused together, and facing opposite directions. Running first in one direction, then going the other way.

Though I've never seen one eat, I wonder how that's accomplished, how they feed. I mean, if I tossed a chunk of cheese at one, which I will never do, because I don't want them to think I like them, how would it decide which head chews on it first?

Like I said, it's creepy.

"The Big Thing in the Woods (A True Story)"

2005-04-10T23:30:00.000-07:00

what can brown do for you?

"Just a path, hard dried mud, leaves, fallen and upright trees, an old bridge made of wood and iron, about 300 yards in that direction," I complained to my wife as we walked together down the narrow path, neither of us even smoking a cigarette or chewing gum, with rapidly plummeting expectations.

"I mean, I appreciate the fact that it's nature, the woods, but it's so, I don't know, it's so tedious."

We had wandered from the main site of her company picnic to go for our daily walk, which today would be conducted in Julifee State Park, about 10 miles north of our hometown.

"We need the exercise," Olivia said in a playfully stern tone of voice. "Quit complaining."

"It's the fact that it's late autumn," I continued. "The worst time for the woods. Barren, plain, without the frostings of winter snow to make it shimmer. It should be ashamed of itself for it's lack of glamour, for being so jejune."

"Hush," she retorted briskly. "Try to enjoy it anyway."

A bicyclist whizzed by, making a ringing sound with his levered bell attached to the handlebar. I can speak in such rich technical terms, because I once wrote a book on bicycle history, called Bicycle Fever.

To digress a moment, please forgive me, I've been reading Proust, and you surely are all familiar with his inspired tangents and lengthy asides, but I must swerve a bit from this narrative and mention the fact that, since I claim this to be non-fiction, I need to throw in a detail or two to lend unquestionable credibility to my truth claim.

If I were Marcel Proust, in fact, I would by now have launched into seemingly interminable and painfully detailed descriptions of the hollyhocks and jasper weeds, the creeping Charley and poison oak, the sawgrass and pimento vines, the cripsodaisica and elongglibells that surrounded us.

However, I'm not Proust, and I have never claimed to be Proust, nor have I ever claimed to be Maurice Blanchot, though it's possible that I might someday wish I were Blanchot, or his book The Last Man.

The bridge was okay. I tossed a stone into the stream below.

I couldn't wait to get back home.

I had several new books on digital marketing, internet history, and webometrics that I was anxious to curl up on the couch with and read. I like books a lot. New ones even smell good.

We decided to head back to the picnic area. As we backtracked up the path, I noticed some odd, darkish orange mushrooms on the ground.

"Well, there's probably the most exciting thing we're going to see on this little safari," I declared as I pointed to the fungi.

"Nice colors," my wife said.

I was beyond bored. No snakes. No skunks. No wolves. No mountain lions. No box turtles. No salamanders. No dragonflies. Nothing. It was like we were all alone, except for the bicyclist fellow who passed us, as we stepped to the side of the path, a few minutes ago.

As we walked on, a strange high pitched squeal abruptly shot forth from under some brush a few feet from us.

We looked at each other and laughed.

I wondered when she had bought the dark gray sweater she was wearing. I had never seen it before. I was sure she had never worn it around me. This was troubling me, but then I remembered the little guy who had squealed at us, obviously not happy with our approach. Perhaps it had been dozing off, feeling safely sleepy, until we showed up.

The thing had startled us, but we knew that the little critter, whatever it was, was more scard of us, though it probably, whatever it was, had sharp teeth, pointed claws, and maybe even rabies. It might have snuck up on us, if we were camping in a tent, at night, and tore our eyeballs right out of our sockets, just to prove it could.

"A little, albeit short-lived, excitement," I announced, happy to be able to use an archaic, dimly understood, rarely used word, which, for those who are curious, could be deconstructed as "al (though) it be".

What a strange contortion to which we subject the phrase "although it be", almost a circus performance, switching "it" and "be" around, making them trade places, to form the partial seme "be it", then removing unceremoniously the "though" (and no one knows what happens to it when we do that), and, after all these verbal gymnastics, ending up with a word that perforce (i.e., of necessity) contains more syllables, thus is less efficient than "although", which is what we mean when we say "albeit".

And, to make matters worse, the spoken word "albeit" sounds similar to the personal commital lingual train "I'll be it."

I had no idea what it was that made that peculiar sound. Obviously a frightened little mammal of some sort. It would be useless to even speculate on what it was, it could've been any of a number of small furry animals.

It cheered me up to think that our presence was detected by some other form of life. Up to this point, I had not seen even a bird. Just trees and jungle type vines, the kind Tarzan might've swung on, going from tree to tree like a Communist.

Suddenly my wife put out her hand with stiff arm, to stop me.

"Shh. Wait. What's that?" she quietly questioned me. "See? Over there?" Pointed to a huge brown object to my right.

I had pulled out my buck knife and was ready, I thought, to take on any smallish creature that dared to cross my path and confront me.

As I stood gazing in the direction she indicated, I could make out what looked to me like a big rusted tub or bin about four or five car lengths into the woods.

What was weird was the fact that, even though the woods at this time of the year were skeletal, permitting easy sight into it, I would have never noticed the thing if my wife hadn't said something.

I idiotically suggested it might be another, more expansive, patch of those orangish brown mushrooms we saw earlier.

Olivia was perturbed at my highly facetious guess. "No" was all she said.

I kept peering at it.

"Well. I don't know. More likely a rusted tub or bin," I asserted. Yes. That is what it certainly seemed to be.

We both remained still. Gazing and pondering for about 20 seconds.

Feeling bored with this tactic, I decided to move toward it and find out what it was. I was always the more adventurous one, whilst she was consistently more observant and intelligent in her analysis.

I took three steps toward it...and it began to stand or rear itself up.

Whatever it was, it was alive, and it had been bending over something. And it must have heard me begin to approach it.

It erected itself to an upright position, but did not move in any other direction. It remained anchored to its spot. Later that evening I speculated that it had no intention of leaving whatever it had been hunching over. It had something and it wanted to continue to attend to it.

We quickly turned away from it, not even getting a glimpse of whatever head it may have had, which would have told us a lot, may have enabled us to identify it, and ran in a panic up the path that dangerously ran parallel to it.

We didn't have too far to go before we emerged from the woods into a grassy meadow.

A little further on, we saw a park employee, a ranger in uniform and badge. I wondered if park rangers carried weapons on their person.

We asked if there were any bears in Julifee State Park.

"Bears?" The ranger smiled in that smug way authorities have when they think they know tons more than you do. "No, not in this park. They're found up north another 30 or 40 miles, but I've never heard of any reports of bear sitings in this park."

I could tell he wanted to laugh his ass off at us, but was too self-controlled to do so. He'd wait until he and his buddies were at the bar slugging down some beers.

We explained what we saw, as vague as it was.

"Might have been a deer or elk," he conjectured with an arrogant air. "They get mighty big around here. That's probably what it was."

He seemed mighty anxious to dispel any rumors that a bear might be roaming the woods of his precious little state park.

After all, if such a report did circulate abroad, it could make other companies shy away from holding their picnics here. It was all about money and business, not about truth or scientific method.

As we discussed the event with family members later, it was agreed by all that no deer or elk would have been bent over something, stood up, and not dashed off deeper into the woods when it heard me approaching it. Deer and elk are skittish, jumpy. They fear humans.

And, as my wise wife says, it had a big rump, no tail that we could see. It was broad and bulky, like a massive bear type creature, something that could stand upright like a man, something that was not alarmed or threatened by our presence. As if it knew exactly what it would do to deal decisively with us.

Stupidly, we had not brought our camera along. If we would have had the camera, and the nerves of steel required to take a photo of whatever it was, risking the distinct possibility of angering it with the light flash, we might have been able to discover and prove what it was we saw that afternoon.

I wonder if that bicyclist tasted good.

Do animals devour a person's clothes along with their flesh and bones? Or do they rip off all the cloth and metal first? Or do they eat the whole package, but spit out the garments and jewelry as they munch? I had never posed these macabre questions to myself before.

Why are you looking at me like that? So puzzled.

Oh. I see. I'm sorry. My fault.

I forgot to tell you that as we high-tailed it up the path to exit the woods, I noticed a bicycle gleaming in the thickets near where the creature was feeding.

HISTORICAL NOTE: I affirm that this is a true tale of an actual event that really happened. I changed the name of the park, slightly, to avoid causing a panic. I will not venture to state that the creature was a bear, or gorilla, or Bigfoot/Yeti/Sasquatch. All I know is it was big, brown, and hungry for human flesh.

[signed]

Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate

"Chocolate Anchovie Chilli"

2005-04-09T05:25:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed eating at this lazy little cafe, with the large round wooden tables in the outdoor patio.

Batting clumsily at the occasional fly, kicking little lizards that tried to eat my shoes, and listening to the hum of cars rolling down the road, I was in a good mood. A bright Spring day, a Saturday, with nothing to do but relax.

When I heard her call my name, my heart flittered like a flamingo on fire. Love can do this to a person. She was more beautiful than any goddess in my wildest dirty dreams. I loved her so much, my skin wanted to crawl, inch its way toward her, until it left my bones bare and ugly in the noonday sun.

It wasn't until she realized that I was moving toward her that the eventuality of an embrace was ejected entirely from my plans. You see, I was wretchedly lonely and obsessed with my loneliness, and since I had the same name as the person she was calling out to, I got excited, assuming that somehow that cry was for me.

When she hugged the Henry she intended, I could feel my fingernails dig furrows in the heavily waxed tabletop, upon which I had been feasting on a small serving of chocolate anchovie chilli.

"Soldiers Without Heads: the Horrifiers"

2005-04-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

headless heroes to the rescue

Right after my head was amputated, my first worry was that I was going to have a lot of trouble meeting and flirting with girls. And listening to music.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I can listen to music through my torso sound conduits.

And women love a guy who stands out from the common herd of boring males.

I understand their frustrations. I've been around guys who got together and talked about sports, cars, business, hunting, and casserole recipes. Really yawn-inducing.

My good fortune was to volunteer for the Army's highly unpopular Totally Unthinkable Warfare and Information Tactics program, or TUWIT (pronounced "too-wit", as in "intuit" or "into it").

TUWIT was in extreme disfavor among the troops. It was dangerous and unpredicatable. Most of the experiments failed, turning many brave soldiers, untold numbers of good and noble men, into useless freaks that were barely human, or only marginally real.

[Five paragraphs deleted in the interests of national security.]

Anyway, my second day into the TUWIT program, I was assigned to the immensely dreaded, yet confusedly awe-inspiring, Headless Heroes Initiative.

TUWIT's reasoning went something like this:

...if enemy combatants [deleted in the interests of national security] and encounted American soldiers without heads, they would be so startled and confused, they would be rendered inoffensive and dysfunctional, at least for a small moment of time. A unique window of opportunity would open, allowing the decapitees to accomplish feats beyond the capabilities of normal, headed men.

[Seventeen paragraphs deleted in the interests of national security.]

The Walter Reed Army Hospital hyper-surgeons, located in a secret underground sub-sub-basement facility, about twenty stories below the surface, had figured out a way to remove a man's head, and reconfigure his system, so that speaking, breathing, thinking, whistling, seeing, hearing, smelling, and whatever else we use our heads for, could be handled by other regions of the reformatted body.

They transplanted our eyes into our [deleted in the interests of national security], the mouth in a specially designed [deleted in the interests of national security], with a nose just above it, while ears were relocated on the sides of our torsos.

It's pretty complicated.

I can't explain it all right now, but I didn't turn out a useless deformed monstrosity.

To be frank with you, and I'm sure Frank won't mind, I was actually one of the more handsome specimens created by the Army surgeons. You might think it odd to say a man minus a head could be "handsome", but see, our definitions of handsome are headocentric.

I continued to be a rugged, red-blooded American male, with all the normal desires and drives possessed by any other healthy guy.

What I mean, of course, is that I could still have sex in the regular way, thank goodness (though certain pre-cautions had to be taken, due to what was now where on my torso).

That's the biggest fear most guys have when they sign up for the TUWIT program: no more rock music, surfing, or sexual adventures.

[Thirty five paragraphs deleted in the interests of national security.]

I was in the first group of twenty successes, the revered "20 Toppers". The other soldiers called us "20 Toppers" as a joke, since we were "topless", I mean "headless", but we were the first successful. How many batches came before us is classified information.

[Four paragraphs deleted in the interests of national security.]

We were first deployed to, of all places, Haiti.

Do you see the genius of this? Haiti. The land of zombies, voodoo, and persecuted chickens. Everybody's superstitious over there. They believe the dead can rise again, in a grotesque, monsterish form. But even with their appalling beliefs and ugly, mindless rituals, no Haitian was prepared for the Headless Heroes.

[One paragraph deleted in the interests of national security.]

They, the civilians who accidentally, unavoidably saw us in action, called us the "Horrifiers".

You should have seen them jump when we, in pursuit of fulfilling a brief mission, showed up in the dead of the night, striding into a rebel camp, firing our weapons, with no heads.

The rebels did not return fire. They screamed, dropped their weapons, and ran like hell. Or ran to hell. Some cried like babies and begged us to kill them. They felt they would not be able to live normal lives ever again, not after seeing decapitated troops pursuing them. The nightmares and crazy daydream flashback reveries would be too much to handle.

Easy victories for us all the way around. It even got boring after a while. It was too easy. I began to feel cheated. This was not combat. This was like stepping on ants.

[Eighty five paragraphs deleted in the interests of national security.]

Once we were assigned to a little job in the Middle East. One of my buddies got captured, but since he had no head to decapitate, the radical Islamic terror cell was furious, as well as freaked out. They probably wanted to video tape a beheading of the soldier, but could not. I heard that they considered propping some head lying around from a previous beheading, but it had decomposed too badly, and stunk also.

They let him go after torturing him. But I think he tortured them more, simply by being unbeheadable.

[Seven hundred and eleventy four paragraphs deleted in the interests of national security.]

I was up for re-enlistment. I wanted out. I wanted a surgical operation to restore my body to a normal headedness.

"We're sorry, but your head is no longer available for re-attachment," my superior informed me.

"I was told it was cryogenically preserved in a facility in Antarctica, and could be recovered and hooked back on my body," I lied. This was just wishful thinking, a rumor the guys spread around, a rumor I never took the time to verify. Hear-say, in other words. But I was hopeful.

"Again, I'm sorry," he said, without explaining anything. "Not possible."

[Three paragraphs deleted in the interests of national security.]

"It's been recycled," my buddy told me later that evening.

"What?"

"You heard me." He smiled in a strange manner, as if he had something to do with it.

"Recycled? My head? How? Why? When?" I was pissed off big time.

"That's all I can say. You have no need to know," came his withering reply.

"I just hope it's doing well, and kissing lots of pretty girls," I answered, not knowing what else to say.

{...dedicated to John C. Dvorak, who inspired and encouraged me to keep writing fiction.}

[signed Steven Streight aka Vaspers the Grate]

"Rent-a-Party"

2005-03-30T18:27:00.000-08:00

I. Introduction: "Psycho Dad"--a Real Piece of Work

This obnoxious neighbor had moved in nearly eight months ago, but the hammering continued every day, day and night, as late as two in the morning. He was divorced or separated from a wife, and his two children, a teenage oaf with no common sense, and a whiney, chubby 8 year old girl, were in his custody two or three days a week.

Not being friendly, it was difficult to obtain any information from the guy. The best we could do was mute the television when we heard him talking loudly on his cell phone as he paced up and down a stretch of sidewalk in front of his apartment, or on his line phone indoors.

We'd hear things like:

"I'd just kill the son of a bitch, then deal with the cops later. My brother's a cop, and he'd help me get away with it. No, I don't care what anybody says, I wouldn't take that kind of crap from that jerk."

Or:

"I told my son to stop messing with those performance enhancing drugs. He says he got them from a friend who's on his high school football team. Yeah, I know the kid. And I told his parents they better keep their son and his drugs away from my boy, or I'll fix them good. Yeah. Ha ha ha. The little bastard. Yeah. I know what you mean. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I say, too. Yeah. Ha ha ha."

Blustery bravado.

Big mouthed loser.

He said he was on disability and he never slept. It was annoying to see him pacing around in the backyard, arguing with or seeking understanding from someone on his cell phone, strutting around like a bull getting ready to storm out and trample the man with the red enraging flag.

Yet he seemed to be able-bodied, muscular, active, restless even, not helplessly crippled in any way. He often was driving off in his van, or puttering around the apartment, usually with a hammer in his hand. In addition to the hammering, he or his kids (he never had any company) frequently dropped heavy objects and scooted chairs across a linoleum kitchen floor, making a hollow, high pitch, off-key clarinet-like sound. He often was dragging things in and out of his van, leaving oil pans and bags of crap all over the property, like he was living in a farm house out in the country.

Onto the front and back porch area of his apartment, he piled all kinds of lawn furniture, a "welcome to our home" sign, patio lamps, two grills, and some kind of enclosed incinerator he cryptically referred to as a wood-burner. But, oddly enough, we never saw him use any of the junk, though his pudgy daughter swang on the frilly lawn swing on the back porch once in a while, keeping a watchful eye on all the bees and wasps I enjoyed attracting to the garden.

He was always yelling at her, things like: "I said clean up your room. I wasn't talking to the wall. I meant you. Clean it up now. It's ten o'clock at night and you have to go to school tomorrow."

Once, while she was swinging on the frilly lawn swing, staring at the unused grills and towering lillies, as I was tending my voluptuous garden, with black wasps, butterflies, dragonflies, bumblebees, yellow-jackets, hornets, sweat bees, white gnats, and flying spiders whirling all around me, swarming me like a buzzing fog of protective entities, little insect angels with poison stingers and creepy biting teeth. I remarked to her, "My garden is like Disney World for the wasps and bees and butterflies."

When her dad yelled at her a few minutes later, and told her to come inside, after I myself had retired to my livingroom, having accomplished my gardening duties, I overheard her quote my statement about the garden-Disney World to him. Psycho Dad simply grumbled something harshly to her. I think I made out the phrase, "I don't like what that idiot said. You just watch out you don't get stung."

I don't think Psycho Dad liked the flowers, plants, squirrels, chipmunks, or the airborne friends I attracted with my gardening and feeding.

This suspicion was confirmed when I started noticing dead birds, baby rabbits, and chipmunks littering the garden, and never discovered outside of it. The corpses seemed to be a "message" of dissent from a disturbed state of mind. Always the little dead bodies, including a decapitated baby rabbit, were deposited, if not killed on the spot, in my garden.

I told the landlady. She didn't like it, she came over and saw the dead things, and told me to call the police. A police woman arrived, acted hesitant to enter my apartment, so I spoke to her at the front door. When I said it was well known that serial killers like to torture and kill any living thing, and inflicted suffering and death on animals when they were children, thus I was quite alarmed at these gruesome events, she just smirked and said arrogantly, demeaningly:

"I don't know of any serial killers in the area. If the dead animals were placed on your front porch, it might be a message, but I don't see any message in the coincidence that dead animals are found in your garden."

Just two months later, eight women, black prostitutes, were found dead in ditches on the outskirts of town. They eventually caught the guy who did it. A serial killer.

And the guy continued to hammer intermittently, every day, every night. When he was hammering nearly all day long, one month after he first moved in, I complained to the landlady. She talked to the guy, and told me he claimed he was nailing down wires to his stereo, and a cable to his television, and hanging pictures on the wall. Then, seven months later, still hammering on a daily basis, not all day, but several times a day, and late at night. Tap tap tap. Pause. Tap tap tap. Pause. Tap tap tap. It was driving me batty.

When I complained again, and asked the landlady what he could possibly be doing, she reported later that he was "making candle holders" with his daughter, and it was his opinion that he could "work" in his apartment all he wanted, he had that right, and nobody could stop him. Two nights later, loud rock music was heard through the wall at 11:00 PM. I was at the end of my patience, and called the police. Right as the squad car arrived, the music stopped. He denied there ever was any loud music.

I then asked him, in the presence of the police officer, why he hammered every day. He just scowled and stormed back into his apartment, retorting, as he closed the door, "If you don't like it, move out!" The police officer smiled knowingly. I looked at him. He said, "Well, see, it's good that I was here while you guys talked things out. If you have any more trouble, don't deal with him directly, call us first."

Next day, he decided to tell the landlady, "Either they move out, or I'm moving out. If they can't tolerate the slightest noise, they have no business living in an apartment complex." The landlady asked us to come to her office. She said the guy has trouble controlling his temper, and we should try not to get him upset. He was very embarrassed, because the cop who came over was his brother's partner, who is also a cop.

Not get Psycho Dad upset by asking him why he hammers every day? Nothing was making any sense. Suddenly, we're the bad people, and he was in need of delicate handling and charitable pampering. Later that afternoon, my wife and I heard him through the wall, talking loudly on the phone.

"Yeah. Ha ha ha. So I told my son to go up and down the stairs as loudly as he could, to stomp around with all his might. Ha ha ha. Yeah. Right. They can't tolerate any noise at all. Yeah. Hell, I look at my watch and think it's three o'clock, time to hammer on the wall again. I do it every hour on the hour. Ha ha ha. Yeah. I know. Yeah. Right. Ha ha ha."

At this point, we were sure he was a dangerously, pathetically psychotic freak. He was deliberately trying to provoke and torment us. Or so he said to the party on the phone, (if there indeed was anybody on the other end, since he might have been pretending to talk to someone, and we never saw anyone visit him the whole time he lived next door), in his typically blustery manner.

He continued his little rant: "Well, I want him to get so angry, he assaults me. Then I can have him arrested for assault and battery. Yeah. Oh, I've got other ideas, too. I could always put something in their gas tank. Yeah. Oh, yeah. A little of that goes a long way. Right. Ha ha ha."

My wife and I left a few minutes later to buy and install a locking gas cap on our car. In the twisted and demented mind of Psycho Dad, everyone was persecuting him, he never did anything wrong, and people must adjust to his lifestyle. He had no intention of accomodating any neighbor's "sensitivities" or "peculiar hang-ups". Which must be why no woman seemed to want to have anything to do with him.

I used to wish that he'd learn how to go to bars and pick up barflies, just so he'd have something going on in his life besides his incessant hammering projects and soliloquy phone calls.

His life had taught him nothing. He was in the world with nothing to anchor his being, drifting in emotional distress and personal trouble. His late night nailing reminded me of how crystal meth-heads puttered around at all hours of the day and night, trembling with drug-induced delirium. Since he admitted to having a sleep disorder, I was sure he was being given some kind of prescription medicine, probably a speed that would paradoxically tire him out and slow him down, like Ritalin given to ADHD teens. Maybe he was dipping into his son's athletic steroid highs, injecting himself with the sports dope, and feeling twenty years younger and industriously euphoric.

Psycho Dad once argued with, and tried to bully, some U.S. Census Bureau officials one afternoon.

His apartment had been selected as an address to investigate periodically, unbeknownst to him when he moved in. They wanted to know how many people lived there, who was employed, things like that.

Of course, "psycho dad" didn't appreciate anybody poking around in his affairs. He probably didn't want Social Security to find out all the work he was doing, though he was allegedly "disabled" and "unable to sleep".

"I know what you're saying, but I don't want to get involved in any type of investigation," he stated repeatedly, plus a lot of other things I couldn't quite make out. The older couple, the Census Bureau officials, wrote down some notes, then drove away, but not before I told them that his teenage son and little girl lived with him, being shuffled back and forth between his place and his ex's.

"He said he lived there by himself, and didn't have any children," the woman replied.

"That's funny," I said. "I wonder why he's so secretive and deceptive. If you have nothing to feel guilty about, why be so offended and resistant to questioning?"

"People who hide are doing something wrong," the wise and kindly gentleman explained.

"That makes sense," I confided.

II. Enter Rent-a-Party

So, knowing all this, can you blame me, perplexed and nonplussed, for calling Rent-a-Party?

My wife and I decided to take a week's vacation, and let the Rent-a-Party professionals take over.

Actually, they're not called "Rent-a-Party". That would be a dead giveaway as to what they were really up to. No, this firm was called "Brenson Vacancy Specialists", meaning they "took care of" temporarily vacant apartments.

I don't know if you have this service where you live. It's wonderful. A brilliant idea. Yet, so simple and inevitable.

They send two or three people over, to occupy your apartment for the duration of your absence.

The professional partiers wage a kind of "controlled noise and simulated violence jamboree" in your apartment, to compell the next door neighbor to move out.

Even if you have neighbors on both sides of your apartment, somehow or other, they manage to direct the noise and commotion toward the neighbor you want to be rid of.

They laugh, play music, smash glass objects, thump around, clambor up and down the stairs, argue, shout, slam doors, vacuum, and make weird, hard to interpret sounds designed to annoy and mystify simultaneously, so the neighbor-victim is drained and exasperated by the sheer insanity of it all.

It works because of the following facts:

(1.) Glass objects are shattered in a special "cage" thing that keeps the broken glass safely and efficiently contained, and not littered on the carpet.

(2.) All noises, both mechanical and human, are carefully moderated to be loud enough to bother the neighbor-victim, but not so loud that it's illegal. Even if the landlady came by, she wouldn't hear much. The noises are sporadic, unpredictable, scheduled for maximum annoyance and minimal culpability.

(3.) The professional partiers are armed with a legal contract that authorizes them to "watch the apartment" while you're gone.

They tend to be college students, and bring their textbooks and laptop computers with them. They know how to set up a studious, scholarly scenario should a landlord, maintenance worker, cop, or other authority show up to check things out.

(4.) No alcohol or drugs are allowed, but they know how to make it seem like these substances are very prominent.

They even stage "stumblings", "fallings", "drunken, slurred conversations", and even what sounds like sexual "fooling around". These theatrical acts are conducted both in the apartment, and outside, in view of the neighbor-victim.

(5.) Cars will pull up, with people going in and out of your aparment, making it look like drug deals are occuring.

(6.) The Rent-a-Party company provides a Satisfaction Gurarantee, and vouches for the impeccable treatment of your apartment and everything in it.

A representative inspects it before and after, taking photographs, and recording in a digital voice recorder notes about the apartment and its contents. They inspire confidence in every aspect of the service.

(7.) Technically and legally, the professional partiers are simply occupying your apartment to prevent burglary or vandalism while you're gone.

There's no way anyone can prove that their purpose is to torment your neighbor. It's completely ethical and law-abiding. And very effective.

Long story short, "psycho dad" and his pictures, candle holders, and kids moved out, and the Rent-a-Party company scored another success.

It only cost me $100 per day, thus a total of $700, and it was easily worth every penny.

I heartily recommend this service, if you have one where you live. These firms boast an industry-wide 87% success rate, which isn't too shabby.

Look in the Yellow Pages under "Apartment Sitters", "Apartment Watchers", or "Human Pest Removal".

"Bennett Theissen's Pseudo Andromeda Dream"

2005-01-30T00:28:00.000-08:00

bennett theissen's pseudo andromeda dream
Posted by Hello

******

My friend Bennett Theissen told me, in an eclectically calm and self-surrounded voice, "Andromeda has been swallowed by my dream and will never regain its rightful place to plow."

I looked up at him from my position flat on my back on the floor and wondered how anyone could fall for such a yarn.

"Help me get up and I'll tell you what I think about that," I mumbled in pain. The Torment Tower had blasted me again for thinking differently than others in my sector.

"You must think the way you've been trained to think," the ethereal man in the ceiling shouted at me.

"When triple balloons comb the mountainside for favors," I replied in the jello I had stumbled into nonchalantly.

"But...but...but we see everything that may be seen," my eyes pleaded with me.

I shut them just to show them who's boss.

Next time, I'll call a cab.

"Two Mouthed Mutants and Me"

2005-01-25T00:25:00.000-08:00

two mouthed mutant (Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Posted by Hello

***********

When I woke up on that fateful morning a few weeks ago, I had no idea how weird and horrible my life was going to be from then on.

That sparkling musical purple cloud formation that engulfed most of humanity about 24 days ago, well...it missed me.

It figures.

I was one of the few who was busy doing stuff indoors. Too busy to go outside and see what all the fuss was about. I don't care much about things that are "different" or unusual. I don't trust them. As a police officer, I'm taken aback by anything that wasn't covered in my training.

If it was covered in my police training, I'm prepared to react automatically, confidently, without thinking or reasoning.

But if an event deviates from what I was trained for, I panic.

Anyway, I didn't get "processed" by the purple cloud, so I have only one mouth. Nearly everybody else is lucky, they've got two mouths.

See, one mouth is for talking about whatever.

The other mouth is for eating, drinking, or smoking.

Unfortunately, I'm stuck with just one mouth, and the scientific community is predicting that the purple cloud, an emanation from some comet or something that veered close to Earth, won't return any time soon. Maybe in another 50 trillion years.

Everybody else (except for a few exceptions like me)gets to eat a sandwich AND smoke a cigarette. Or drink a beer AND kiss his wife. Or tell a story about his weekend fishing trip AND gnaw on a wire to remove the rubber coating in preparation for re-soldering.

Not me, though. I have to watch them enjoy themselves. Come to think of it, they can't see anything anymore, since the added mouth that mutated on their faces, see, it replaced their eyes. I guess there's always a trade-off.

So now, I'm the freak. I didn't mutate. I have but one mouth. I can see, yes, but big deal. I want to know what it's like to kiss my wife AND drink a beer, with a separate mouth for each act.

But I can't. I just watch others do it.

It sucks.

"Stereo Aliens from Outer Space"

2004-10-15T23:05:00.000-07:00

Stereo lady alien writing. Photo credit: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
***

See? I have proof now.

My hidden camera took this photo while I was employed at a national park.

This proves that the "stereo people" (it's illegal, a "hate crime" to call them "double-headed" or to make any reference to the number of heads they have) not only have symmetrical form, but can write with both hands.

Though we're all accustomed to the two headedness of these freaks, nobody ever suspected they could do two things at once like this photo shows.

So this proves that they're aliens. No human can write with both hands at the same time.

I was told that I had a new boss, a female, and I was to report to her on the double.

Little did I know that "on the double" was a crude joke. I wondered why the other guys were snickering and smirking as I hopped to it and bolted for the office.

I wear a watch that has a secret camera built into it. So when I act like I'm fidgeting with the timepiece, I'm actually adjusting the camera, because the timepiece is all digital and automatic and doesn't need any fidgeting.

So, when she was writing notes during our little meeting, I surreptitiously pointed the watch-camera at her and took this photo, which technically is the property of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, hence the photo credits.

So this "stereo lady" is the new Park Employee Supervisor?

Look at that photo again. Never mind the dual-headedness that we aren't allowed to comment on. Check out the two handed writing. I'll bet you've never seen any human, no matter how abnormal, do that.

What irks me is how everybody acts like nothing's wrong. I mean these are STEREO people. They (I don't care: I'm going to say it...) have TWO HEADS. They can write with BOTH HANDS. There's something WRONG with them. They CANNOT be genuine human beings.

But nobody believes me. They tell me I'm being hostile, expressing rage, due to my supposed "personal inadequacies" and failures in life. People say I'm very "critical" and "harsh" and "judgmental" when I point out how these creatures just cannot be human beings.

The socially accepted, government endorsed, media enforced explanation is that way back in the year 2000, over 50 years ago, men started taking erectile dysfunction medicine. While nature said "stop procreating" these men rebelled against nature and took medicine that caused them to procreate.

And "stereo people" are supposed to be the resulting mutation arising from these unnatural reproductions. Some side effect of Levitra, Viagra, and Morpholoxin. Lots of doctors are expressing alarm about Morpholoxin especially, and trying to get the FDA to ban it.

I think this is a plausible, but erroneous, smokescreen for the real truth.

The "stereo people" are actually stereo ALIENS. They're from outer space. I'm sure of it.

But I'm considered hot-headed, irrational, paranoid, and argumentative.

It's gotten to the point where people shun, despise, and mock you if you question anything.

Like the questioning part of their brains has shriveled up and died from disuse.

"Age Reversal Accelerator from Hell"

2004-10-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

Artistic rendition of Age Reversal Accelerator

***

I remember how much happier everyone was when they used to grow old, sicken, and die.

Nowadays, no such luck.

I admit, I'm just as frightened as everyone else. Growing younger every day, irrevocably retreating into less and less mature states, is not very fun to think about.

Back when we grew old, feeble, sickly, and finally died, we knew what to expect.

Now that that Age Reversal Accelerator came down out of the sky, some say it was from Mars, and zapped everybody, life is weird. Life is moving backward.

I have no idea what will happen to me. Soon my wife and I will be too young to remain legally married. Not long after that, I'll have trouble reaching things, putting my clothes on, walking, expressing myself.

To return to being an infant, then a baby again, helpless, well, it's scares me to know that everyone's in the same boat, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Why? Why did that thing have to come to Earth and do that to us? It appeared, zapped us, then vanished. What was the point? What could that alien race gain by doing this to us? I think it was a sadistic experiment.

This will be my final report. i'm so lucky i was able to type this out ofro you. I can feel another wave of youthfulness hitting me agin.

I'tss afecting mi mind noww. IIIm fergatingg ho tu spel wordz. I can, oh noh, I seeitagain, see how im makin mustaks, cannt spel good naymore, i hv tu stiop stopp sotp i i i i

"Bats from Pluto Aren't So Bad"

2004-10-04T00:40:00.000-07:00

Plutonic bats in feeding frenzy formation.
***

Here we see the 10 Plutonic bats, with their babies, nicely arranged around what I clumsily refer to as their feeding tray. They keep staring at me while they eat, but notice that disc in the center. That thing throbs and accumulates cosmic radiations of some sort, what scientists call "stains" that come from pulsating Y-ray nebulae and sugary vaspment clusters located in deep space, the Alta 5 Perimeter, which is close to being on the extreme edge of the universe.

Now, the reason why I say the bats from Pluto aren't so bad is because I like them. If other people are afraid of them, that's because they don't like anything that's different. They just want to criticize and make fun of things they don't understand or appreciate.

I don't care if people say they think it's dangerous to have the 10 adult bats buzzing around my head all the time. If they want to orbit my head, at least nobody messes with me anymore. If they make me sleep standing up so they can continue flying in circles around my head, that doesn't mean any nonsense to me.

See how their mouths connect with the feeding tubes, so they can suck up the interstellar substances, or gaseous radiations, that twirl around in the center? I just don't know why they keep looking at me that way while they eat dinner. I wish they'd stop doing that.

See those cute little baby bats? They can't fly, they just sort of float in the air.

"Self-Contemplating Universe"

2004-09-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

The universe contemplates itself through the collective senses of all animate beings while I'm asleep. But I'm not really asleep. I'm just pretending. What if the universe gets bored with being itself, and decides to be something else? Will you and I still be in it?

Posted by Hello
Computer art copyright 2004 by Steven Streight. All rights reserved.

"Wake Up and Smell the Coffin"

2004-09-01T23:46:00.000-07:00

***
I sleep with a flashlight and a razor sharp machete near my bed.

That way, if an intruder enters my apartment, I'll have a pleasant little surprize waiting for him. I'll be feeding my backyard dog "burglar steak," marinated in Hawaiian teriyaki sauce, in a very short time.

Well, last night, after a marathon of taping The Larry Sanders Show episodes that appeared on our television, I felt more groggy than usual, and went to bed early, about 2 AM.

A couple of hours later, my wife woke me up, nudging me with her elbow.

"Wake up," she urged me gently. "Honey, wake up."

"Huh?" I grumbled feebly. "Whuh...whudya mean? What for?"

I had a meeting the next day at 3 PM, so I planned on sleeping until noon, whilst she gets up at 6 AM every week day, to be at work by 8 AM. Women take two hours to do what a guy can do in twelve minutes.

"Smell the coffin?" she explained satisfactorily.

"That's nice," I replied and rolled over to go back to sleepy land.

"No," she argued, "It's not nice at all. Don't you smell that odor? It smells like a coffin."

"Coffee?" I mumbled. "Cream and buckwheat honey. Boston cream pie."

I was so tired, nothing was getting through to my dreamy brain.

"Coffin, not coffee. Can't you smell that? I'm sure it's a coffin."

My wife used to work in a funeral parlor, mortuary, cadaver warehouse, or whatever you choose to call it. She knew what coffins smelled like, but I didn't.

I grabbed my flashlight and machete, turned on the flashlight, used it like a search light, a spot of light slipped silently from wall to wall.

"What good is a machete against a vampire?" my wife argued cogently.

"What vampire?" I asked.

"If there's a coffin in here, there must be a vampire in it, or recently stepped out of it."

I decided to agree with her, so I could go back to sleep.

Which I did promptly.

I vaguely remember her making a little muffled moan, which I interpreted as her displeasure with my sleepy-headedness.

She was, to my eyes, the most beautiful and sexy woman in the whole world, and she loved me with all her heart. She made me laugh all the time, and she was highly intelligent to boot. We had a good, some might even say great, married life.

The next morning, she was gone, and my dog was dead, drained of all its blood.

I never saw my wife again.

I guess I'll never know what happened that night.

Boy, was I ever worn out from watching all those Larry Sanders Show episodes, starring Gary Shandling and Rip Torn.

Plus, it was hard work taping them for future viewing, pausing during the commercials, hitting the pause button again, to re-activate the record function, when the commercials were over, you know.

That activity can be rather exhausting.

THE END

Secrets to Generating Creativity in Literature

2004-08-31T14:07:00.000-07:00

***

How does a writer come up with innovative, creative, imaginative stories?

Easy.

I mean this is so easy it's almost ridiculuous, absurd, and embarrassing.

SECRETS to Generating Creativity in Literature:

1. Think of the most bizarre title you can possibly imagine.

Make the title so crazy and weird, everyone will be curious about how a story could be organized around it. In fact, make it nearly impossible to write anything that would have this title. Challenge yourself to stretch your mind beyond what you thought was your limit.

For example:

* The Day Gravity Vanished from Earth and I Became a Successful Art Dealer

* How To Make Yourself Vanish and Re-appear, at Will, Anytime You Want, For as Long as You Want, for under $2o!

* When the Earth Suddenly Became the Only Object in Space

* Adventures of a Paralyzed, Blind, Deaf, Mute Extrovert

* How to Record the Sounds of Galaxies Colliding

* My Tie Likes to Argue with My Toothbrush

* My Journey 500 Trillion Years into the Future...and What I Saw Is Really Funny

2. Start each paragraph with a startling sentence, especially the very first sentence of your story.

Most stories and novels begin with boring sentences and take forever to build up to anything interesting or unusual.

Be different. Command attention. Hit readers right off the bat with something that will force them to keep reading.

3. End each paragraph with a sentence that doesn't have anything to do with the first sentence, or is so unexpected, it's bizarre.

Make readers think, "Huh? Wait a minute. He said at the start of this paragraph that he didn't have a head. So how did he kiss his girlfriend?"

4. Add overly personal comments, or tangential details.

Sprinkle in extra asides and information that actually gets in the way of the narrative, making readers think this story really happened to a real person.

When average people tell what happened to them, they always go off on tangents and add irrelevant details, as their mind makes non-narrative associations.

How many times have you interrupted a friend, saying something like, "To make a long story short, what did the cop do when you pointed the squirt gun at him?" or "Okay, okay. I don't need to know all that. Cut to the chase. How much money do you need to borrow from me now?"

5. End the story with a powerful concluding remark.

A comment that teaches a lesson, expresses a final feeling, or is so funny, it'll make the whole story more memorable.

Stories with "twisted endings" are strikingly unforgetable, and you tend to encourage others to read them to experience the shock, right? Of course I'm write. I'm a genius creative writer!

Happy Tales to You!

P.S. If you like this article, why not email it to your friends? Just click on the envelope icon below this post.

"Little Purple Pony"

2004-08-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

***
My kids love playing in the sandbox in the backyard, near the dumpster. Their favorite uncle, my wife's brother, Mehitibub, made it for them with some wood-working tools he purchased from Fingerhut, a mail order company.

One day, after applying a healthy dose of Old Spice after shave to my cheeks, my kids came running in, yelling excitedly.

"Hold on a minute," I said, my face still stinging from the Old Spice. "What's the matter? What's this about an eerie ray?"

"It landed on the sandbox," Velma shouted.

"What landed?" I asked.

"The ray," she replied.

"What ray?" I asked, because, to be honest, it sounded like they wanted me to do something about it.

"A pink ray shot down from a pink cloud hovering in the air, right above the sandbox," my neighbor Stan said, as he entered my house with a worried look. "Probably some 20 or 25 feet above it. There was a loud crackling sound. How could you not have heard it?"

"Hi, Stan," I said. I felt like I was being badgered into doing something, and this angered me greatly. I resented it when my disability was ignored by people who were very familiar with it. I spent many hours explaining it, answering questions about it, and describing its devastating and convenient effects.

"You saw it, too? Are you sure? What am I supposed to do about it? If a law's been broken, I can't deal with it, because I'm not a police officer."

"I think you better step outside anyway," he answered gruffly. He was always trying to get me to do things, as though he wanted to prove that my crippling disability was psychosomatic, all "in my head".

Due to my medical disability, CWA Syndrome, it took me quite a while to muster the motivation and strength to get up and go look. By the time I finally got to the sandbox, there was no pink cloud floating over it.

I made some annoyed remarks, and went back inside to watch television. One of my favorite shows was on. I turned the volume up. Watching television helps me get my mind off my problems. Like my being unemployed for the past sixteen years.

I have a psychological-medical impediment called Chronic Work Avoidance Syndrome. I can't help it. My condition is something I personally cannot control, nor is it my fault. This devastating hereditary disease prevents me from lifting a finger when there's anything that needs to be done.

A few days later, the kids came running in again.

"Come look at what we found," they exclaimed in unison.

I grudgingly went with them to the sandbox.

There it was: a little purple pony.

I mean, it wasn't actually a pony, but it bore a slight resemblance to what we call ponies here on Earth. This thing was weird and ugly and clearly not of this world. I started calling it a pony to make my kids calm down and not be unduly frightened of it.

"A little purple pony! That's really cute. How long has this little purple pony been here?" I asked them. My kids were acting like they weren't sure if the little monstrosity was so cute at all.

"Since that ray came down from the pink cloud," the youngest one answered. That meant they had been playing with it, or whatever they were doing with it, for about four days.

"When we write a word on a piece of paper, and feed the paper to the little purple pony, it eats it, and then whatever was written on the paper just disappears," Velma explained. "We made Josilita's bicycle disappear this morning."

She continued: "And yesterday, I wrote the word 'tree' on a piece of paper, fed it to the pony, and a tree disappeared, the one in Brixy's back yard. I wrote 'Jimmy's turtle' on a piece of paper, and the turtle disappeared, too. It's fun...but scary."

I demanded that they stop feeding the little purple pony slips of paper with things written on them. This sounded like witchcraft or a totalitarian regime or something. Things and beings vanishing instantly. I didn't like it.

So a few hours later, I looked up from the newspaper I was reading, and asked how that pony was doing.

I was thinking hard about how I could make money with that weird little purple pony. In fact, I had dreamed up several iron-clad schemes, legal, moral, and pure genius. I could make millions of dollars in a very short time.

"Oh, it's gone," Velma said sadly.

Billy started crying.

"What do you mean it's gone? Where did it go?" I asked as I got up to make a honey-baked ham sandwich with mayo, sliced jalapeno peppers, basil, romaine lettuce, chipotle Tabasco sauce, and a thin slice of white onion, between two slices of oatmeal bread.

"She..." Billy began. "Velma fed it a slip of paper again."

"I told you to stop doing that. What did she write on it?" I replied, but I had already figured out what probably happened, to my grim dismay.

"It had the words 'little purple pony' written on it, " Billy whimpered. You could tell that he really missed the dreadful purple mini-dragon. For some reason, he had allowed himself to become emotionally attached to it.

"I'm sure another pink cloud will come by and zap the sandbox," I remarked, in an effort to comfort them. "Then you'll have another little purple pony, and everything will be fine."

I sure hoped I was right. I needed to use it to make some money.

THE END

"Auto-Cannibalistic Alien Invaders of 1963"

2004-08-27T14:21:00.000-07:00

***

I have now received official security clearance to bring this out in the open: the strange case of the Auto-Cannibalistic Alien Invaders of 1963.

Many years ago, in the spring of 1963 to be fairly exact, the planet Earth was attacked by an extraterrestial invasion force.

They would have wiped us out.

They were far less intelligent than humans, except in terms of interstellar travel and the requisite vehicles, propulsion systems, etc.

Their weapons systems consisted of claws and fangs, but there were so many of these hideous creatures, they could have eaten their way through the human race eventually.

Did I mention that there was no human weapon that could have even bothered them, much less hurt them?

Anyway, they arrived without fanfare or alarm, rather peacefully and quietly actually. We were totally unsuspecting and unaware of what could have been happening, or what could have happened. We were sitting ducks, as we Americans colorfully say.

But as the grotesque intruders stepped out of their enormous space craft, a fortuitous event saved us.

For some reason, they chose to land by a radio station somewhere in France. At the time, "musique concrete," reel-to-reel tape manipulation, and other primitive electronic sounds were all the rage.

A group of composers was performing in this radio station, using it as an electronic studio. The broadcast was billed as "Next Noise: the Sound Revolution Continues" and thousands listened in rapt excitement.

The bizarre performance, including tape experimentation, Moogs, ring modulators, Theremins, Oramics, pre-recorded nature sounds, and such, had an untoward effect on the uninvited alien entities.

After being exposed to five or six tunes, or whatever the mad French composers called them, the evil extraterrestials were sorely in distress. They went a bit nuts in point of fact.

One alien monster, having removed its space suit, was seized by an outrageously huge hunger pang, ripped one of its sixty seven arms off, and proceeded to snack on it.

A third alien noticed this, decided it was a good idea, and ripped one of its twelve thousand legs off, turning it into a quick, but delighfully satisfying, lunch.

The rest of them followed suit, picking their own bodies apart and shoving them in their mouths, until the mouth was the only thing left. Then the mouths gathered together and simultaneously devoured each other, leaving not a single trace, with the glaring exception of the interstellar vehicle.

The experimental French composers tore that apart and made an electronic music studio out of it.

I understand that Pierre Henry, Pierre Schaeffer, Morton Subotnick, Iannis Xennakis, Pauline Oliveros, Tomita, and Oskar Sala have recorded albums there. And they always ordered take-out Chinese food while they recorded, to satiate unexplainable cravings for exotic food.

THE END

No edits.

Copyright 2004 Steven Streight
All rights reserved.

"Ants on the Moon"

2004-08-25T18:40:00.000-07:00

***

NEWS FLASH 10-27-2004

from Universal Digital Document Sideloaders Ltd.

Ants have been discovered on the moon, according to St. Vincent's Academy of Astronomical Sciences, located in northern Italy.

While many songs by assorted nincompoops have mentioned ants and other insects inhabiting the moon, Mars, and other outer space vicinities, there has never been any superstitious proof that such creatures would be able to feel at home, much less thrive, in such places.

Apparently, the music had something to do with it.

"Songs about extra-terrestial entities and their lifestyles may have an impact upon cosmic reality," proclaims Arthur Dunbar III, a noted crypto-zoologist and space traveler.

"If you sing enough songs, and repeat them often enough, you may actually influence what goes on up there, way, way, way up there," a seven year old child was coaxed to affirm, superstitiously substantiating the ill-reputed scientist's off-hand, and often cruel, remarks.

"I'd feel no obligation to avoid stepping on them," Dunbar grunted as he surreptitiously lit an illegal cigarette. "After all, the lunar surface is literally crawling with them, those big green moon bugs, I mean lunar ants. It's impossible to enjoy a decent picnic with tempermental family members with all those intrusive ants swarming the food and goo."

Some insect rights advocates are up in arms over recent comments by Dunbar and his ilk. One group, Citizens for Lunar Denizens, has planned a series of serious protest rallies in Los Angeles in about 6 to 13 months, however long it takes to drum up public support.

While no one pretends to know how the large green ants got to the moon, some suspect the notoriously sloppy luggage packing habits of former astronauts who superstitiously visited the big, round, television-like globe orbiting Earth, commonly called the Moon, in the late 1960s.

THE END

Copyright 2004 Steven Streight
All rights reserved.

All plagiarists shall be exterminated, especially college students.

What is Cosmos Blogmos?

2004-08-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

***

Welcome to Cosmos Blogmos: the science fiction site that's not afraid to ask the question, "where did all the living entities go to who used to populate every square inch of the universe?"

If you do NOT have the proper Security Clearance to view this site, don't worry. We don't enforce such policies like we should, because it might *upset* those people who don't like to feel like they're "different" from anybody else.

Since civilization, scientific progress, and relativistic morality are firmly based on subjective feelings, we go out of our way to *not hurt* the transitory feelings of any individual.

We will attempt to answerve (not "answer," but "answerve," meaning to "tilt a little toward the incorrect or imprecise reply," just for laughs) that and many other meaningless questions that currently fill everybody's lack of mind.

As a serious marketing and web site writer, I must have an outlet for my more light-hearted material that leaks out when I'm not looking.

This is it.

I will give voice, figuratively speaking, or metaphorically writing, to my random, no that's too trite and too bloggish, let's say to my unplanned musings on very uneventful topics.

But that's not all.

I will also do many *wrong* things, like use red color for text, then green, then who knows what.

I will attempt to brake all the rules, they go too fast, I'm going to slam on their brakes and slow them down, then violate them like a drunken driver with his headlights off in a drizzly midnight joy ride.

Do yourself a favor and don't copy what I do here. I reappearingly repeat: it's probably WRONG.

While I do wrong things, I will try a little bit, but not too much, to entertain you.

Yes I know, people hate to be entertained. I know that people prefer to be bored. That's why they keep the jobs, friends, and hobbies that occupy their time and rarely read good books. I understand all this.

But I'm a rebel. I will misanthropically give you what you don't want: fun, mystery, illumination, satire, skull-shock, and food for thought.

Don't say you haven't been warned.

If you want to back out, now's your chance.

Hit the Back button on your browser chrome, or the little black "x" in the tiny box up in the far right upper corner, or click Start > Shut Down Computer, or whatever you must do to ESCAPE this site.

If you want to know the RIGHT things to do in a web site, from a usability perspective, please consider:

www.vaspersthegrate.blogspot.com

If you are interested in web user expectations and behavior, or feel like expressing your opinion on various web and computer topics, visit the Web User Research Center:

www.weburc.blogspot.com