The Book of Screed

A few weeks ago I put a second hard drive in my desktop computer. This turned out to be prescient, because the original hard drive is dead. Or dying, at least.

You can learn from my fine example. All my important data - my various writing projects, my pictures, and my vast collection of computer game soundtracks - gets backed up on a daily basis. Indeed, multiple copies exist on multiple hard drives, so no fewer than four separate hard drives would have to fail simultaneously to result in irretrievable data loss. So, hard drive death, while a vexed inconvenience (I really had other things I wanted to do today), isn't a devastating catastrophe.

You can also learn from my failure. I had been looking forward to this weekend because, having finished writing the rough draft of "Ghost in the Flames", this would be the weekend I went on a weekend-long computer game bender. Indeed, I spent a large percentage of yesterday playing "Knights of the Old Republic". And now - all my save game files are on the dead hard drive, because my saved games only get backed up weekly, not daily. Usually this is not a problem because I play computer games so infrequently. But I was at least 70% of the way through "Knights of the Old Republic" and I don't want to start over from scratch again.

So now I'm sitting here with the FUBAR hard drive and a SATA to USB adapter, watching 160 MB of saved game data copying off the hard drive at the rate of 3 megabytes a minute, and wondering if the hard drive will die before the files finish copying. Learn from my cruel fate!

-JM

Still playing "Knights of the OId Republic". I notice that Ed Asner voices one of the Jedi Masters. I am not making this up.

Ed Asner? When I hear the phrase "Jedi Master" , the name "Ed Asner" does not leap immediately mind.

I suspect that "Ed Asner" needed "money" that year.

-JM

Representative Steny Hoyer (who has been mentioned on this blog before) recently announced that no Congressman would vote for the health care bill if they actually read it. But Rep. Hoyer plans to vote for it anyway, despite not having the time to read it. Rep. Hoyer has a J.D., but apparently skipped that one class where they warn future lawyers that it's a really bad idea to sign things without reading them first.

You know, if Satan doesn't already own the souls of every Congressperson, I bet he could get them all in about fifteen minutes. I imagine it would go something like this:

(STENY HOYER sits in his office on Capitol Hill. Suddenly red light floods the office, and MEPHISTOPHELES appears in a billow of black smoke, a diabolical CONTRACT in his talons.)

Mephistopheles: Steny Hoyer, hear me! I, Mephistopheles, Prince of Darkness, will grant you thirty years of wealth, power, and fame, and in exchange I shall claim your immortal...

Hoyer: Sure. Where do I sign?

Mephistopheles: Uh...here. But don't you want to know the price...

Hoyer: Not really.

(HOYER signs the CONTRACT.)

Mephistopheles: But you seriously don't want to read the contract first? It's kind of traditional.

Hoyer: Don't be ridiculous. I am a busy Congressperson! I have seniority! I sit on many important committees! I am far too busy raising funds to continue representing my constituents, and I do not have the time to read the laws I vote for on their behalf! Honestly! You really, really need to take a course in modern legislative procedure.

Mephistopheles: This contract is like three friggin' paragraphs. It's one page. You could read it in two minutes.

Hoyer: Give it to one of my aides.

Mephistopheles: You do realize that you just sold me your immortal soul for all eternity?

Hoyer: Deficit spending is the only way to stimulate economic growth.

Mephistopheles: Yeah...but we're not talking about borrowing money from the Chinese here. We are talking about your immortal soul, which will endure long after all money has turned to dust and all gold has crumbled to ashes.

Hoyer: Macroeconomic policy is not the same as personal finance. Just because it's a bad idea for an individual to go into debt doesn't mean it's a bad idea for the government to go trillions of dollars into debt. It's basic economics.

Mephistopheles: Dude. Are you really that stupid?

Hoyer: There's no need to be insulting.

Mephistopheles: Whatever.

(MEPHISTOPHELES departs.)

(Thirty years pass. STENY HOYER sits in his office. Suddenly MEPHISTOPHELES reappears in a crimson flash.)

Mephistopheles: Steny Hoyer! Your thirty years are up! Now your soul shall join me in the pit, where there is neither joy nor light nor love, but only weeping and the gnashing of teeth!

Hoyer: No! No! NO! I never signed this! I voted against this before I voted for it!

(MEPHISTOPHELES seizes HOYER.)

Hoyer: This is all the Republicans' fault!

-JM

Way back in 2004, I saw the PC version of “Knights of the Old Republic” on sale for $20, so I bought it. But I was quite busy in 2004, what with having two jobs and laboring under the delusion that I would finish graduate school, so I planned to play it when I had a chance, which never quite came around. My youngest brother loved reminding me of this fact, and I loaned him the game for a better part of the year, and I believe he beat it twice, and I still never got around to playing it. 

Well, it's been five years, and I'm still decompressing from writing “Ghost in the Blood”, so I thought the time had come. Here's the one paragraph review so far:

It's Baldur's Gate! But IN SPACE! WITH LIGHSABERS!

It has that nicely epic Bioware RPG feel, where the protagonist is a Man of Destiny at the center of his own epic quest. The first mission in the game, with many side-quests, is to rescue a female Jedi Knight named Bastila Shan:



Bastila is hot. Of course, she's also something of an insecure, nagging shrew, so under the Ironclad Laws Of Narrative Causality, I suspect she will become the protagonist's love interest. Though in real life, I've noticed that women who project hostility are not masking latent attraction but more hostility, and buckets of it. Alas that all hostile women are not voiced by Jennifer Hale!

And speaking of real life, in the game's combat system, a man with a freaking sword can consistently defeat guys with guns, body armor, and personal force fields. So accuracy seems not have been a high priority for the developers.

But who cares? “Knights of the Old Republic” is fun. I predict that I shall enjoy wasting time on it.

-JM

And...there are none left. "Ghost in the Blood" is done.

Finally.

Though much revision and rewriting remains to be done. But not just yet. Now, I'm going to go vegetate for a while.

-JM

Twenty-five down.

One remains.

-JM

Twenty-four down. Two left.

I haven't done a key quotation for a while, so:

“Their names,” said Caina. “All the men, women, and children you’ve abducted over the years. All the people you’ve torn from their homes and sold into slavery. Tell me their names, and I’ll take the bracers off.”

“That’s…that’s madness,” said Icaraeus. “There were…thousands, thousands of them, I can’t possibly remember them all. Take them off, take them off…”

“Fine,” said Caina. “A dozen names. Just twelve. You took them from their homes. Surely you had the courtesy to remember their names?”

“You cannot be serious!” said Icaraeus. “They were…they were nothing to me, they mean nothing…”

The glow from the bracers stopped flickering and grew brighter.

“Very well,” said Caina. “Five names. Five names, and I’ll take the bracers off.”

“I can’t…I can’t…” Icaraeus looked back and forth in panic...

Yes, I'm on vacation, and yes, I'm still writing. It gives me something to do.

-JM

I don't watch TV very often, and the only time I ever watch the 10 o'clock news is when I visit my parents. Which is good, because whenever I do watch the news, I get massively annoyed at the program. It is emotionally manipulative, filled with meaningless sound bites, and short on factual information.

Tonight's feature that MIGHT! KILL! YOUR! CHILDREN! is a certain kind of cough medication sold on the shelf. Apparently, if you swallow the entire bottle, you start to hallucinate, and then there's an excellent chance your liver will fry. Evidently this has become something of a fad among teenagers. Now, the emphasis of the report isn't on the irresponsible idiocy of the teenagers in downing an entire bottle of pills. No, the emphasis is on how the pharmacies are at fault for not voluntarily putting the cough medicine behind the counter.

Ridiculous. By that logic, we better sell screwdrivers behind the counter, because someone might stab themselves with it.

There's an interview with a mother whose daughter almost died from an OD. She's saying how it's wrong, just wrong, how the pharmacy won't put that stuff behind the counter, and there's just no way to stop the daughter from overdosing on cough medication again.

Look. Bad things happen to people who don't deserve them all the time. But if someone dies after swallowing an entire package of cough pills, they've got no one to blame but themselves.

-JM

Today a veteran reporter looked around, saw the strings tied to her arms and legs, noticed how she dances every time the President flicks his finger, and came to the obvious conclusion:

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

Ah. Let me take a moment to savor this.

Yes. Yes, President Obama and his underlings do think of you as obedient puppets, and they think of you as obedient puppets because you are obedient puppets. I mean, why wouldn't he think of you as an obedient puppet? Over the last two years, the media's relationship with President Obama has been roughly akin to a woman ripping off her clothes and screaming "Take me, I'm yours, oh my secular messiah!" And now you're worried about your virtue? Alas, it's far, far too late for that.

It's been great fun to watch many Obama supporters wake up on the lawn with Hope & Change hangovers. Of course, if they had questioned him during the election the way they're questioning him now, that would have meant they were racists who hated black people!

-JM

The winner of this years Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest:

"Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests."

I think all writers have a secret fear that we are unknowingly writing things worthy of inclusion in Bulwer-Lyton.

Needless to say, read the whole thing.

-JM

Twenty-three chapters of "Ghost in the Blood" down.

Only three left. I would say we have approached the Final Countdown, but 80s rock stinks, so I won't say it.

-JM

Happy news from my home state of Minnesota! It seems our new Senator shall be a washed-up Saturday Night Live alum. A man whose greatest accomplishment in life was getting beat out by Norm freaking MacDonald for the "Weekend Update" skit will now vote upon bills dealing with trillions of dollars and matters of life & death.

I think Captain Picard speaks for us all here:



-JM

I tried a new computer game last night. After about thirty minutes of play, I stopped the game and spent the next two hours figuring out how to extract the soundtrack from the data files. I like computer game soundtracks; I once spent most of a Saturday afternoon writing a script to extract the soundtrack from Icewind Dale II, and I taught myself to use Audacity just so I could pull the soundtracks for Rome: Total War and Medieval II: Total War from their respective data files. About ten years ago I spend months tracking down the special anthology edition of the Quest for Glory games, simply because it came with the soundtrack for Quest for Glory V.

(Incidentally, Bethesda Softworks has my eternal gratitude for leaving the soundtracks for Morrowind and Oblivion in unencrypted, uncompressed MP3 files. Compared to the difficulty of the the usual procedures for obtaining a computer game soundtrack, this was like opening your fridge and finding $100,000 in the vegetable crisper.) 

The trouble is, though...I can't talk about it with people. I learned early on in life that it's hard to discuss really interesting things with people because, to put it mildly, my interests tend to freak out the normals. Let's say I decided to discuss my activities last night. It wouldn't go well:

Acquaintance: "So, what did you do last night?"

Myself: "Well, first I wrote about 1100 words in my novel about a cunning yet heroic spy struggling against a power-mad sorceress who derives her power from the blood of the innocent, the concept of which I drew from Romanian mythology. Then I played a computer game, and I liked the soundtrack so much that I spent a few hours figuring how to extract the soundtrack from the game, a complicated procedure that involved the DOS command line, Ubuntu Linux, Audacity, and an extremely out of date by still functional freeware tool." 

Acquaintance: "Um...okay.''

A conversation like this is a bad idea because people are a lot easier to get along with when they don't think you're insane. Still, I suppose the sword cuts both ways; I've had people tell me in detail about their drunken sexual exploits, and I didn't want to hear that. I suppose they would feel the same way about computer game soundtracks. It's usually wiser to stick to the weather, traffic conditions, local sports teams, and the other person's family members. I suppose there's an essential undercurrent of deception here, but I suspect that an essential undercurrent of deception is one of the building blocks of civilized society.

-JM

Twenty-two down.

Only four left.

-JM

Yes, I saw the new Transformers movie.

The plot makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. But that is all right. You don't go to a Transformers movie to see character development, deep insight into the human condition, or even logical coherence. No, you go to a Transformers movie to watch giant robots beat the crap out of each other, and to hear Optimus Prime deliver solemn one-liners before pounding Megatron like a drum.

Of course, some of the logical incoherence wast just ridiculous. Like, the movie's extended final battle takes place in Egypt. In one scene Megan Fox and Shia LaBoof (Biouf? Beaouf? However that's spelled) run for their lives past the Great Pyramids of Giza. Then five minutes later they're running through the Great Hypostyle Hall of the Temple of Amun-Re at Karnak, which is several hundred miles south of Giza. Then back at the battle at Giza, one of the Decepticons gets thrown through an Egyptian temple pylon (a large ceremonial gateway), which looks cool, except there are no temple pylons at Giza. I guess Michael Bay believes that all the interesting architectural features of Egypt are localized in a four-mile radius or so, or he's confident that the audience will never know the difference.

And it's interesting how Al Khazneh in Jordan manages to be both the hiding place of the Holy Grail and the secret tomb of the Autobots. That place must be crowded!

Ah, Megan Fox. Hopefully she saves her earnings now, because when her "acting talents" start to "sag", she's not going to have any other acting talent upon which to fall back. If you catch my drift.

-JM

Don't hand out your passwords, even to people you think are your friends.

Bad things can happen.

-JM

To employ the Internet vernacular, this made me LOL. Repeatedly:



I suppose I shouldn't knock a book if I haven't read it, and I'm not going to read "Twilight". But, come on. From what I've heard, the book is about a homicidal hundred-year-old man obsessively lusting after a teenage girl with serious psychological problems. Good thing that's not creepy or anything!

And sparkly vampires? Come on, people.

-JM

Twenty-one down.

Five left.

-JM

CHARLESTON – Gov. Mark Sanford (R-South Carolina) yesterday announced his membership in the elite Golden Horndog Club, becoming the latest in a string of new high-profile members.

“I am pleased to announced that I have completed the requirements to join this prestigious club,” said Sanford at a press conference, his voice breaking with emotion. “By abandoning my official duties and misusing state vehicles to cheat on my wife in a foreign country – over Father's Day weekend, no less – I have proven I have the poor impulse control, lack of foresight, and execrable moral judgment to succeed in America's political elite.”

“Today is a proud day for my family,” said Sanford, displaying his new membership pin. “But, really, it should be a proud day for America.”

Founded in the 1920s by Warren G. Harding, the Golden Horndog Club's membership is a Who's Who of the American political elite, including Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, David Vitter, Rudy Giuliani, Larry Craig, Eliot Spitzer, Jesse Jackson, Teddy Kennedy, David Patterson, and numerous others. Club members assist each other in making use of the countless career opportunities arising from casual adultery and familial abandonment.

“In less enlightened times, a sex scandal meant the end of one's career in the public sphere,” said noted Golden Horndog Newt Gingrich. “After divorcing my cancer-stricken wife in order to marry my mistress, I thought my political career was over. But thanks to my Club connections, I've gone on to have a lucrative career as a speaker, author, political consultant, and TV talking head.

“The important thing is to make sure you have the extramarital sex first, and then convert to Catholicism,” added Gingrich. “A lot of novices get the order mixed up, and that can cause career problems down the road.”

Unlike many political organizations, the Golden Horndog Club is bipartisan, welcoming both Democrats and Republicans. Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich may have been mortal enemies in the 1990s, but both now sing the Club's praises.

“Yeah, the Golden Horndog Club is even better than an intern with pepperoni pizza,” said former President Clinton, caressing the Argentine stripper draped over his shoulder. “After I didn't have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky, things got a little dicey. I thought my career was over.  But I have been making money hand over fist on the lecture circuit. Hoo boy! If I'd known things would turn out this well, I would have done every intern in the White House. Er, at least, I would have let Hillary find out about the other ones.”

In the past the Golden Horndog has been accused of sexism, a charge the Club adamantly denies. The Club's defenders point to the success of the Golden Horndog Club Wronged Ladies' Chapter as proof that the Club welcomes both men & women.

“I'll admit, I was pretty devastated when I found out about Bill,” said Hillary Clinton, current Secretary of State and former New York Senator. “But I didn't realize how much the sympathy vote was really worth. Senator and Secretary of State in six years? How many people have done that? And when President Urkel finally self-destructs, I'll get to take over! If I'd known things would turn out this well, I would have fed Bill every intern in the West Wing.”

Even religious figures have been joining the Golden Horndog Club.

“Yes, I slept with a seminary student, embezzled money to cover it up, and then spent the next few decades lecturing Milwaukee about becoming more tolerant while defacing historical churches with my ghastly ideas about modernist architecture,” said former archbishop Rembert Weakland. “But now I've got a book out, and I get to portray myself as the victim!”

Weakland lauded his inclusion in the Golden Horndog Club as a “great stride” for homosexuals everywhere.

Of course, not everyone is welcome at the Golden Horndog Club. 

“For the love of God, someone pay attention to me!” said former presidential candidate John Edwards, raving at passing pedestrians while desperately fluffing his hair. “I cheated on my wife, too! While she had cancer! And I disowned my bastard lovechild! But I care about poor people. I really do! I could have been Vice President. I could have been President! I want a book deal! I want to go on CNN again! Please, please someone pay attention to meeeeeee!”

-JM

I am vexed. I just lost two and a half days of work.

(It's hard to back up a major computer system when you're actually assembling it.)

This makes me think of the new Star Trek movie. What would happen if the crew of the Enterprise had to use a Microsoft operating system?

###

Mr. Spock: Captain, a Klingon warship is approaching.

Kirk: Red alert! Lock phasers and arm torpedoes. Mr. Sulu, fire on my mark.

(The KLINGON WARSHIP ominously fills the viewscreen.)

Kirk: Fire!

(Nothing happens.)

Kirk: Mr. Sulu, I said fire!

Sulu: I...I can't, sir! I'm still waiting for phasers to lock on.

Kirk: Then lock phasers and fire!

Sulu: Sir, my console only says that “Windows Explorer Is Not Responding: Restart or Close the Program?”

(The ENTERPRISE shakes as the KLINGON WARSHIP opens fire. Since seat belts haven't been invented in the 24th century, the crew is flung dramatically from their stations.)

Kirk: Dammit! Restart, restart!

Sulu: Restarting Windows Explorer now, sir!

(Long pause.)

Sulu: I'm only getting a blue screen, sir.

Mr. Spock: Captain, I suspect this phenomenon is known as “hanging up”, a colloquial Earth expression that means...

Kirk: I know what it means, Spock! What do we do about it?

(The ENTERPRISE shudders again. Kirk's shirt is torn as he rolls across the deck.)

Mr. Spock: We must reboot the computer, sir.

Kirk: Kirk to Engineering! Scotty, reboot the main computer.

Scotty: But, sir. We haven't properly completed shutdown. An improper shutdown could lead tae data loss! I cannae change the laws of...

Kirk: Dammit, Mr. Scott, that's an order! Restart the computer!

Scotty: Aye, sir.

(SCOTTY yanks the power cord on the ENTERPRISE main computer and plugs it in again. Suddenly every display on the bridge goes dark, and is soon replaced by the MICROSOFT WINDOWS logo.)

Kirk: C'mon...c'mon...c'mon...

(The ENTERPRISE shakes again from a direct hit. A console explodes, killing an ENSIGN IN A RED SHIRT. No one pays any attention.)

Kirk: Scotty, I need that computer now!

Scotty: Coming up now, sir!

(The WINDOWS STARTUP SOUND is heard. KIRK stands.)

Kirk: Finally! Lock phasers and fire!

Mr. Spock: Captain, the computer appears to be displaying some sort of message.

(The viewscreen turns blue, displaying the message “Windows Is Installing Important Updates. Please Do Not Shut Down Your Computer. 0 Percent Complete.)

Kirk: You have got to be kidding me! What kind of fu...

(The KLINGON WARSHIP fires again, destroying the ENTERPRISE.)

###

Of course, things wouldn't go any better if the Enterprise used Linux.

Mr. Spock: Captain, a Klingon warship is approaching.

Kirk: Red alert! Lock phasers and arm torpedoes. Mr. Sulu, fire on my mark.

(The KLINGON WARSHIP ominously fills the viewscreen.)

Sulu: Typing the command to lock phasers now. Let's see...sudo lockphasers -device /proc/wpns/phasers/phaserbank1 | target -enemy /proc/ships/enemyships/enemyklingonships/birdofprey | firephasers -power 100 -duration 5 /proc/ships/enemyships/enemyklingonships/birdofprey.

(An error message fills the viewscreen.)

Kirk: Mr. Sulu, what the hell does “bash: command not found” mean?

Sulu: I don't know...wait, I must have used the wrong syntax on the target command...

Mr. Spock: You n00b, you don't have a shell script for that? Srsly? RTFM!

(The KLINGON WARSHIP fires, destroying the ENTERPRISE.)

###

And things wouldn't be much better if the Enterprise used a Mac, either.

Mr. Spock: Captain, a Klingon warship is approaching.

Kirk: Red alert! Lock phasers and arm torpedoes. Mr. Sulu, fire on my mark.

(The KLINGON WARSHIP ominously fills the viewscreen.)

Sulu: Sir, we don't actually have a computer.

Kirk: What do you mean we don't have a computer?

Sulu: We couldn't afford a Macintosh, sir.

Mr. Spock: I'm afraid Lieutenant Sulu is correct. We could not spend upwards of $2000 on a Mac Pro.

Kirk: Son of a...

(The KLINGON WARSHIP fires, destroying the ENTERPRISE.)

-JM