The Fall

She was a bright and glorious angel, an untamed fire soaring against the darkness

And in all ways, always dancing, she knew no fear.

She was as light and faraway as the kiss of silver moonshine on the ripples of a lake.

But eventually she stumbled on the wounded place in the fabric, long forgotten places where the thread had worn bare, and her mind couldn't help but turn against the idea that perhaps she might be able to mend them.

And so she reached out, and at her first touch, she sent up a terrible shower of sparks and a shout of horror as she tore and tumbled down against the invisible cracks in the glasswork.

And so her dance came to an end, and her broken body came to rest against the hard surfaces, beneath the pillars of smoke and ash, where the shadows pool their cruelties like bruises.

And those of us that loved her, went to her then.

But we dare not try to mend her.

The Pit Fighting Champion

This first mug you are gonna have to fight in the pit fighting ring is bad news, son.

Yah, so far, every single time he's been in a fight, he's killed his opponent on his first swing.

He hasn't even missed once or twice, yet, either, he just takes that one swing, and the body hits the floor, that's his MO.

He don't make a big deal about, either, he just kills his opponent and walks off stage.

I dunno what you gotta do to beat him, just don't hold anything back and hit him with everything you got, I guess.

If yer lucky, you'll get to fight the next guy, who disarms and then kills everybody with whatever weapon they bring into the ring to use against him.

Yah, but don't worry, I got a strategy for that one, at least, I'm gonna send you into the ring armed with a seat cushion or something.

But this first guy, I dunno farmboy, I think yer screwed.

The Magic of Hollywood

Everyone in hollywood is a midget 'cause its cheaper to feed midgets, 'cause they don't eat as much.

Its cheaper to buy clothes for them, 'cause you don't need as much cloth to cover a midget, and the chicks in hollywood go around naked mostly anyways.

And they can live in scaled-down little houses with miniature furniture and toy cars that saves resources too.

But when they're on film, they look like they're normal size, 'cause they're all midgets.

See, that's the magic of hollywood.

The Bandit Camp

So I'm a Gondorian Infantryman with no prospects and nothing to show for my character, and I hear about this place, this place they got, up in the woods between Rohan and Gondor.

Its a Bandit Fort with this gladiator arena type fighting pit thing.

A hive of scum and villainy, a real party town.

I don't have a horse and I only got 30 denars in my pocket so I have to hoof it up there and bet my whole paycheck on the first fighting match.

And I go down there and join my team in the ring 'cause its my whole paycheck on the line, if I lose this match, I won't even have enough money to make another bet.

Yah so I'm basically betting on myself in a gladiator ring.

And I do enough matches that the Bandits at the Bandit Camp give me the Bandit Champion Title, with a prize of 1000 denars cash.

And I buy a horse so I won't have to hoof it around no more, and I use the rest of the prize winnings to recruit people from Taverns all around the world into my Mighting Fighting Tavern Army.

But it all starts down here at the bandit camp, with sweaty, oily, gladiator fights, and a place that sells freshly rolled Corsair Cigars and Rohan Whisky during the Rohan Whisky Prohibition.

I'll also get the Berserker Title at the End of the Week Title Awards because of all the fights I did with no shirt on, and that's like a little heal that goes off when I'm badly wounded.

And all the foot battles moves you toward the Infantry Captain title so my dudes will heal when they first get hit sometimes.

Orcs can fight here in the ring too, you know.

Yep, big ones from Isengard, there's even Elfs here, the Bandit Camp is a Neutral Place where we can all drink and arm wrestle, even though we're on different sides of the War with the Lidless Eye.

Yep, there was a Priest of the Lidless Eye here a second ago, he was explaining the whole thing to me, I never heard of all that stuff from the 1st and second age before, things are starting to make a lot of sense to me, these elves are really leaving us in the lurch with bad property values, these damn orcs are actually bad elves, they're elven hillbillies that the "good" elves are leaving us with.

Can you believe that?

Well, whatever, I'm just gonna make enough money in the Lord of the Wrestling Ring matches to get a horse and get out of here.

I wanna figure out where on the Bad Guy side the Black Numenorians come from, 'cause if I have to switch sides, that's what I wanna be, one of them Black Knights, that's all class, with the Black Helmets and Black Horses and stuff heh.

Or one of the wolf riding guys, that's fun, that's like the motorcycle of the cavalry world, gimme one of those guys with the white handprint on his face and a Big Black Bow and let me hunt for human flesh, I hear those guys eat their prisoners insteada selling them to the guy who buys slaves at the Bandit Camp ahaha.

Yah, its crazy, I heard those Isengard guys are actually trying to beat Mordor too.

Well, whatever, y'know, I'm going to buy a horse and then head back down to Gondor and look for youths to recruit from taverns heh.

Yah, and then I'll send them into suicidal battles with bandits and Corsairs and train them up into fine Tavern Battle Machines like me ahaha.

Rohan has it so easy man don't even get me started.

The Elven Infantry Captain

I lead a small group of elven infantry into battle.

Well, I sorta ride a Heavily Armored Elven Warhorse on Autopilot behind the Point Guy in the Cutting Wedge of their formation, but its called Leading Them Into Battle anyways, even though my legs don't get messy in the grass, so, I dunno.

Sometimes I get down off my horse and I fight alongside them, and I kick some serious ass with my two hander, just to show my stuff to the New Troops, y'know, show 'em why the Old Man is the Boss haha.

But I'm stealing all their experience points when I do that so mostly I don't do that.

It would be nice if I could target the Point Guy and Autofollow him around, but I can't do that, so I gotta steer every once in a while, and change speeds on my horse sometimes, y'know, up and down with the W and S keys and side to side with the A and D as I approach a battle, tippety tap, and I gotta keep the camera facing the right way with the mouse, so I don't end up in the middle of a Middle Earth Orc Mosh Pit.

It costs influence to recruit Elven Troops, you can't just pay 'em in money like you can with the Human Troops, and the Evil Side doesn't take Elves prisoner (well, it takes some Rivendell Half Elf guys prisoner, but it kills the rest) but I'm an Elf and Elves get more Influence Points every week so I can just buy 'em with that heh.

Anyways the Big Deal about Elven Troops is that they go up to Rank 8, where everybody else (all the human and evil Troop Guys) just goes up to rank 6 or something.

They should be pretty Badass and Kungfu Awesome, at some point, I figure *cough*

Oh, and my strategy was to turn all six of those Lothlarien Scouts you can get into Loth Infantry Guys, this time, insteada Archers, and they just mow everybody down, so that's a good strategy, that strategy don't make me lose any sleep at night heh.

Sometimes one of them dies, and I have to reload a save game, and that takes forever, so you hope that none of 'em die, 'cause Expensive Ass Elf Troops like this aren't taken prisoner, they're all executed after battle, if they're on the losing side.

I'm raising up some Riverdill Duderman Men At Arms guys too, so I can make those Knights of Arnor Rank 8 Horseman Guys, they're pretty gnarly berserker infantry until they become horsemaster guys, so that's sorta fun, and not annoying, like raising archers ahaha.

I ain't got no Woodelves, at all, all Lothlorien Infantry and a couple Loth Archers and some Dunads Infantry and Cavalry types, all Elf Troops start out as archers and it really sucks trying to level them up by kiting guys around while they shooot at 'em, heh, so whenever I get a chance I get rid of them and turn them into Infantry Units so they start taking care of themselves and I don't gotta worry about 'em so much.

Its kinda fun lowriding into battle all slow behind a line of Elven (and Half Elven) Infantry Units, I just got to the point where they are tough enough that I don't usually have to get off my horse and Hero around unless there's more than one Cave Troll around or somebody I gotta knock unconscious with my stick so I can turn him in for a quest, like the captains of their armies, I always got to tell my army to wait at the place where we beam in to the battle map then I gottta ride out and capture the enemy leader guy by myself at the beginning of every major battle so that my own troops won't kill him.

And they're getting a lot of kills so that's good.

I used a character editor to give my Elf 30 in all the stats and level 10 in every skill right from the beginning, so all I ever do is give myself a couple weapon skill points every time I level up, but its fun to watch my Toy Infantry Guys level up because they change outfits and get better armor and weapons and shields and stuff.

Oh man, Rohan and Gondor ain't been doing as good asI have up here in the Northern Lands, where I only gotta deal with Moria, which I already crushed, and Dol Guldur, the Evil Sorcerer Tower in Mirkwood, and I'm just keeping him around so I can milk experience points off him and level up troops to max before I head south.

Rohan and Gondor both went down into the Weakened State, and that's just one state away from the Check to Checkmate Step, so I went down there and I helped them fight for a little bit, and I got Rohan back to Strong.

But I need to finish the Dol Guldur quests before I can use their kings for quests, I think, and I can't do that until I'm sure I'm at the Very Highest Rank of the Elves, because I only get rank for Dol Guldur quests.

I'm a Captain (Breleg Brayhoo, or something, in Elvish haha) of the Annuin or something, I dunno if that's the last rank or not, but I still got a bunch of quests I gotta turn in, that should rank me if there is one past that.

And I've got a quest right now to beat a Great Host of Dol Guldur, and Dol Guldur still won't be totally smashed after that.

And I saved the game at the point where I'm riding across the lawn toward them, and I came here to write this little Captain's Note.

And now I'm glad I wrote this 'cause it reminded me to make a backup copy of that save game heh.

Well, I figured, insteada explaining how to cheat and everything, I could just give you a save game you can load with all the stuff already done for you, you'll have my generic Elf with 30 stats who can run faster than a speeding locomotive and all that heh.

I have a savegame when he first shows up in the game, I have one after I made him the Bandit Champion of the Arena in the Bandit Fort and answered all the Old Man's Questions, I got the one from when the Great War Started, when I hit level 8, and now I got this one, too.

Man, I wish I knew an easy rightclick way I could put this shit up somewhere, its not like it huge or anything, its some gamesaves.

I could send it to ya in an email or something.

Whatever, you can do it all for yourself, too.

Or not do it at all, for that matter.

*shwish shwack*

The Vault Dwellers

*standing ovation*

The idea that rich kids who play video games are something to worry about as far as violent crimes go is hilarious.

Its not like I gotta "stay frosty" and "keep my wits about me" when I walk down that street heh.

I mean, there's a reason rich kids play video games where they pretend to be poor pirate kids that can't afford to play video games.

Its because playing a game where you pretend to be a rich kid that plays video games wouldn't be EXCITING enough 'cause there ain't enough violent crime innit heh.

Now, out in the boonie wastelands, or down in the ghetto, where parents can't afford to equip their children with a proper gaming habit and they have to tell their kids to "go play outside" and there ain't nothing to do in town 'cept get high on somethin' if ya can and fight and screw if ya can't... that's where the REAL toothless one-eyed pirate action is, baby.

But of course, there ain't no easy solution to that problem.

And so we end up with all this "OMG I Caught Little Billy Playing Vice City and Masturbating!" stuff in the news and politics, 'cause THAT'S something us fancy college boy journalists and high falutin' guvnerment lawyers and suburban housewives aren't afraid to DO something about!

As if CRIME could be solved by putting STICKERS on products at Best Buy and junk.

But who can blame 'em, really, journalists and politicians are just rich kid vault dwellers, too, I mean, what the fuck do they know about crime or anything that happens on the actual surface of the planet?

Well, I mean, its pretty obvious what they know about everything, from the stuff they're doing heh.

But its not like anybody except them is reading stickers on products and listening to juicy little sound bits and watching TV about all this shit anyways, y'know, 'cause the rest of their potential audience is out there having fun committing crimes and shit.

Oh, and don't even try to tell me that politicians are Bad Guys.

I mean, sure, they might be the Bad Boys of the Vault Dwellers, but shit man, when one of 'em gets a Blow Job its Big News AHAHA.

Ride On

I been playing Mount & Blade a lot, y'know.

Well, I know it starts out kinda slow and everything, I thought it looked and felt pretty Grade A rinky-dink at first, even though they let me be a Monk.

But once you join a side and turn into a prisoner-liberatin' warlord and get rolling with a humongous gang of heavily armored upgradeable dudes on horseback thundering across the battlefields and crashing into your enemies, its abso-friggin-smashingly kick ass.

Seriously, it beats the ever-lovin' shit out of solitaire heh.

And then I started checking out the mods for it.

And I downloaded this "the Last Days" Lord of the Rings Mod.

There's a link to the download thingie on there.

And oh man, once again, I thought it was kinda rinky dink at first.

And it was buggy, too, y'know, there's a memory leak or something, even though setting the texture size thing to the smallest setting helps a little (and makes the kick ass armor in the game a lot uglier heh).

And the thing takes a smoke-break-and-a-half to load on my machine.

And its a lot harder to play than Regular Mount & Blade, too, there's no easy newbie stuff to do at all, you just gotta run around and jump into fights that are already started and hope you don't get yer ass killed in the beginning, and the combat is a lot more quick and deadly, and the pressure to perform well is really on, y'know, 'cause Reloading a Save Game takes forever heh.

But I put up with all that and eventually I got the hang of it, too.

And man oh man, am I ever glad I did, 'cause now I'm riding around with this humongous gang of my own Rohan Horseman Guys (all fifty seven flavors of 'em), helping the Elven Archer armies and Gondor by pounding all the supply lines and scouting groups and patrols and Lesser and Greater Hosts and Heroes of all the different evil armies of Middle Earth (like the Haradrim and the Corsairs and Easterlings and Dunnish and the orcs of Moria and Isengard) into the ground.

And now, when I lead my troops into battle with that suicical headlong smash into the waiting enemy ranks, I'm like, being all strategic and stuff heh.

If yer an old Daggerfall guy ('cause then I know you can put up with bugs as good as me heh) slash Warlords guy ('cause it reminds me of games like Warlords, although the combat in Mount & Blade is a little more exciting ahaha), like me, then you gotta try this thing, seriously.

Its a good game, and that Last Days has my vote for the best mod for a game ever, its a Vulgar Display of Power, they added tons of faction specific armor and new units like the Orc Warg Riders and new places you can visit like Helm's Deep and all this background mechanics that makes the original game way better.

There's no pony riding hobbit armies though heh.

Man, if only it had multiplayer, what with its modding capabilities and everything, I'd be tempted to actually quit blabbering for a while and help them replace the Aging UO Emulator Scene.

It'd only need a little help to get there, y'know?

Some dollhouse crap and some farming shit is all it needs.

Well, its got all the guy crap already heh.

Pegasusses

Yah, sure, Pegasusses are real.

I been to the village where the Noble Pegasusses comes from.

The place is a hellhole.

Anything that horse shit can stick to is covered in three feet of manure, statues, buildings, everything.

And the rain sure don't help, you don't even wanna mention how a little rain might freshen things up to those poor god-accursed folks in that town, trust me.

It rains there plenty, 'cause its a mountain village, y'know?

All then all the roofs leak liquid manure 'cause Pegasus shit punches holes in 'em like cannonballs.

And then it all bleeds out into the streets, and everything turns into rivers of slippery shit pudding you gotta wade through while avoiding the unthinkable navigational dangers of invisible wagon ruts and pot holes.

Yah, so I spent the duration of my stay there breathing through my monk robe and trying to keep my mug covered while balancing my ass on the least uncomfortable stool in the Local Ale Repository.

Oh, the people there don't seem to mind it so much, as long as you don't keep reminding 'em about it.

I dunno, I guess they're just used to it, y'know, growin' up there and stuff.

Yah, they're all bright smiles and handshakes, actually, even though they're dripping with Pegasus turds, 'cause they're always gonna twist the conversation around and try to sell you a Pegasus or two, eventually.

Anyways, that's why none of the mountain folks yer gonna be fightin' wear these helmets you guys got with these stupid pointy spikes on top.

Pegasusses are crafty bastards, yer just painting a bull's eye on the top of yer head.

That shit is worth three points to a Pegasus.

Yer gonna end up top heavy and wobblin' punch drunk on yer feet in no time.

But if you guys gotta wear these things 'cause its a Rule or something, it is better to just keep yer chin tucked in and take one over the top of yer hatholder than it is to risk looking up with your mouth hanging open in awe or something.

And you better run for some solid cover if you accidentally stray under the flight path of a stampede.

Welp, g'luck and godspeed with the Valkyries, boys, and thanks fer the drink, hopefully the king will assign you to an easier detail next time, like fighting dragons, y'know, what with their slow reptilian metabolisms compounded by the problems of a diet based on the dwindling supply of virgin maidens heh.

Some Zen

Woody Allen says there are two sorts of people, those that say there are two sorts of people, and those who don't.

I think there is two sorts of people, those that quote Woody Allen right, and those who don't.

Can't untangle that one heh.

So lemme switch to Yoda Style:

Western Philosophy's love for Duality (y'know, everything has a beginning and ending, there's good guys and bad guys, everything is pairs in opposition, blah blah blah) leads to Polarization.

And polarization is what leads to dehumanization and villainization all the other bad stuff that I learned from that English Guy that Dundee likes.

Yah, it is the root of politics heh.

But you don't have to be lured into that simple pendulum potential energy trap.

You can depolarize things.

You can bleed the potential energy out the hammer that's getting ready to come down slowly, like a guy defusing a bomb, one wire at a time, and nurse the unbalanced system back to a less dangerous (and more natural) state of equilibrium.

You can humanize yourself and your opponent.

It don't take much to shuffle your feet a little and take a look in the same direction he is.

To try to appreciate and understand his point of view.

And then you aren't standing in opposition to each other.

And then, if you do end up having to punch him in the head, at least you know your enemy a little better Art of War Style and you can probably fire off a sneak attack and catch him off guard heh.

But it is always a failure of your appreciation and understanding when it comes down to that, y'know?

We're not perfect, we don't understand everything like people will a thousand years from now, if there are any people around a thousand years from now.

And so we can't fix everything the way it deserves.

And sometimes you do just gotta put a dog down.

But we can appreciate the situation we're in, and how it ain't ideal, when we gotta do stuff like that, insteada trying to make the Dog into an Evil Alien Death Robot 'cause that'll make it easier on ourselves when we gotta put him down.

Take responsibility for the shit you gotta do when ya gotta do the shit jobs, y'know?

Its less insane and actually respectful to just feel bad about the imperfect shit we gotta do when we gotta do the imperfect shit, insteada working ourselves up into some kinda berserker blood frenzy every time we gotta do something sucky 'cause we're all a bunch of dummasses that can't think of a better solution yet.

And we definitely don't gotta go around winding the pendulums up worse than they already are like a crazy person and making more bombs for the Depolarization Bomb Squad to defuse by shoving all the unbalanced folks around.

So don't do that shit, or I'll have to punch you in the head heh.

The Frontier Jones

Man I'm getting a serious jones for a good space game.

But there ain't anything that's even half as good as Frontier was.

And I played Frontier, y'know?

And so I need something with all the good stuff Frontier had, and more.

I need space stations to trade with that become more productive when I increase morale by bringing 'em a stack of porno mags, a six pack, a carton of smokes, a pair of needle-nose vise grips, and a couple house plants.

'Cause I wanna feel like the stuff I do matters and makes my tiny piece of the universe better or worse.

Even if its just simple numbers going up and down like we had in Star Control.

And that's just for bare-bones starters.

I want multiplayer, but not massively multiplayer, 'cause you MMO dev guys always use that Massively Bit as an Excuse For Ruining Every Damn Thing, heh.

Just regular multiplayer, something so that me and Ex-bouncer and whoever can do the wingman convoy escort thing and tow hulks around and salvage wrecks and fight pirates (or be pirates) while we blabber on voicecom is fine.

I like meeting new folks, y'all know that, but I don't actually wanna be bothered by random people from the internet knocking on my door and trying to sell me their shit, and the less of that there is going around, the less freedom I'm infringing on when I wanna do my own junk.

Heck, as long as it ain't Massively, we can use cheat codes heh.

And I want terraforming and upgradeable spacestations and starports and luxury space hotels and colonies of settlers and research and mining and agricultural bases and shit for the Dollhouse Sims People to play with.

I don't care if that stuff is done really good or not, 'cause that's for girls, y'know, just make it an easy thing where you can stamp down Hydroponics Farms and terrain like in NWN or something, and decorate it however ya like with knick knacks and flowers and shit, and then we can all suffer through those player-made-artwork tours and stuff to keep the girls playing heh.

I do want cool Moon Buggy All Terrain vehicles like they had in Star Frontiers, like the colonist had in Aliens, things with Monster Truck Wheels that we can jump craters and race each other with and stuff, though, y'know?

And oooh, hover cycles.

But I can live without that.

I do need to be able to get out of my spaceship and run around with my hilariously defective programmable pet robot and play with all the computer consoles and upgrade my spaceships with salvaged parts in my very own Jay Leno Memorial Spaceship Collection Shipyard and Garage or something, though.

And it'd be cool to be able to upgrade and decorate my Space Junkyard and Garage with Hot Space Chick Calendars and stuff.

Y'know, 'cause that's not girly ahaha.

And I'd like to be able to have a cast of characters, insteada just one, so I switch between 'em on the fly and have 'em specialized for certain things, like a Science Officer Brainiac Researcher Guy with a Space Physics College Education that I had to send him away and pay or trade for, and a dirty hillbilly mechanic in overalls with smudges of oil on his face who knows how to cheat at cards and MacGyver shit together with duct tape, and a kickass Buzz Lightyear Slash Spaceman Spiff With a Raygun guy.

And I don't care if they die permanently and stuff as long as I can hire some new ones or clone up some fresh ones like a bag of popcorn in the microwave or whatever.

But that stuff can be all cutesy and cheap and cheesy and stuff like those singing lollipop-jail midgets from Black & White, y'know?

"We ain't going nowhere 'till we get some more wooood..."

I don't wanna do all that micromanaging garbage, though.

And I need it to not be all stupid with evil alien races like the Phrrrkkkzzzttts and cat people and shit, I wanna fly around our solar system, and go out to Alpha Centauri and take a look at its trinary star system, and I wanna be able to visit each of the stars in the Big Dipper, and get a feel for everything and feel like I learned something (even if I didn't heh).

Don't tell me we can't do that.

And I don't want nothing else, I don't want no MMO pvp or cognitive dissonance RPG Elements or angsty teenie bopper drama queen avatar guild junk or anything.

All I want is a bunch of toys in a sandbox without all the cat shit.

Man, I write these things, and I think about how its just a Feature Creep Version of a Misery Loves Company thing and all that, and I think mebbe I should just delete it, and I usually I do, even after weighing it against the potential good it might do fer me, being evil like this and getting smart internet folks craving the stuff I crave by talking about the smell of steaming fresh bread and chocolate cupcakes and shit.

But thinking about it fer a while is enough to make the Jones lighten up on me a bit, y'know?

The Other Prince

I was thinkin' 'bout changing my name to something cooler, y'know

'Cause being called Ole Bald Angus the Monk on the Internet is kinda like smoking a pipe at the beach or something.

And I wanna be all cool and stuff, like those chicks that do bullet time kungfu in latex catsuits and shit.

And so I was thinking about changing my name from "Ole Bald Angus the Monk" to "Prince."

'Cause "The Artist That Was Formerly Known As Prince" ain't "Prince" anymore, y'know?

So "Prince" is available, again, now, I think.

Or did he go back to being called Prince, after he was the Symbol Guy Who Was Formerly Known As The Artist That Was Formerly Known As Prince?

Can you do that?

Are their Go Backs like that?

I don't think you should get Go Backs.

I think you should have to be the Artist Known As Prince That Was Formerly Known As The Symbol Guy Who Was Formerly Known As The Artist That Was Formerly Known As Prince, or something.

And then I could be the Prince That Wasn't Formerly Known As All That.

Or I could be the Artist That Was Latterly Known As Prince, or the Other Prince, or something, in order to avoid confusion and stuff.

Well, whatever, I mean, if the guy had the balls to just step up and take the Crown and become the King, insteada being all swishy and limp about it, we wouldn't be having this goddam Prince Congestion problem in the first place!

Oh fergit it, I'll guess I'll just stick with the Devil I Know, smoking pipes at the beach and wearing shorts with black socks and sandals and shit.

The Beer Watchers Beer Loss System

My brother's wife got my parents doing this Weight Watchers thing.

I never seen it in action before.

Yah, apparently, everything you eat and half the shit you drink is worth a certain amount of Points, and you gotta keep track of all these Ponts, and do math, ugh.

And at the end of the day, you gotta make sure you don't go over your own Personal Point Limit.

And yer Personal Point Limit is dependent on your weight or something, so a fatter guy gets more points than a skinny guy.

So it seems to me that it'd actually be better to get fatter, in order to increase yer Point Limit, so you could eat more awesome pancakes and bacon and lasagna and shit without going over the limit, y'know?

Yer actually being punished for losing weight, 'cause every time you lose weight, yer Daily Point Limit goes down!

When I first heard about this Weight Watchers thing, I asked how much a beer was worth, and they told me it was worth Three Points.

So after that, I started dividing everything they were gonna eat by three, y'know, to see how many beers they were giving up every time they ate anything.

"Dude, that crappy healthy salad is worth two and quarter beers! Yer bleeding Potential Beer Points like crazy!"

"Hey! Waitamminit! Fuck this salad! I'd rather have the beers!"

"That's half a beer right there!"

"Three of those is a whole beer you ain't gonna get to drink at the end of the day!"

"Dude, that's Three Beer Chili yer eating!"

So that's my Beer Watchers Beer Loss System.

Its way funner and more rewarding than that Weight Watchers thing.

Seems a lot easier to do the math, too, when something important like the potential loss of beers is on the line heh.

Yah, my mom is so proud to have a smart kid like me ahaha.

Time and Space

For the last couple weeks, I been helping my mom re-roof her "summer" house out in the middle of the woods, and helping my stepdad rebuild the engine of the 1970-something Suburban he uses once every ten years to pull his sailboat around.

Actually, he has two identical 1970-something Suburbans for that one purpose.

And so I guess each of 'em only have to work their ass off once every twenty years, y'know, whenever he needs to move his boat, lucky bastards, those damn trucks are like the Manly Man Version of a Pet Cat, sleeping all around the house and making me jealous and shit heh.

I got myself a tan from working outside on a black asphalt roof.

Well, actually, I got a tan on just my forearms, and my face, and the rest of me is still as white as a fetus.

But as long as nobody sees me naked, and I wear gloves, I can pass myself off as a regular red-skinned hard-working junkyard surfhippy hillbilly construction guy, if I want.

Not that that's ever been a lifelong aspiration of mine or anything, that's more like my default mode of operation, that's what I'd turn into if I didn't smoke so many cigarettes and quit drinking coffee or something heh.

Anyways it was cool up there, in the Middle of Nowhere in the Middle of Summer, what with the fresh air and the Million Miles of Woody Jungle that my stepdad owns.

And the impossible amount of stars they got in the night sky out in the country is kickass, y'know, when yer used to the slim pickings you get, peeking up at a couple of miserable stars through the bald spots in the orange sherbert glow of the city.

Up there you can actually see the Fat Band of the Milky Way, like a ring around our planet, and the stars go all the way down to the horizon like a sparkling curtain on every side of you, and they had that Meteor Shower while I was up there, so I got to see all them smoky little monster-movie meteors fly around while I was drinking all my parent's beer, it was like I was eleven years old all over again heh.

But now I'm back home at my Pizza Box Furniture Compartment Palace in the city, and I can sit around in the air conditioning and smoke cigarettes in my underpants, again, finally, so its all good.

Working out there in the country woods with my parents was kinda like going back to a summer in the 70s or something, y'know?

And now I'm back in the present.

Oh man, my stepdad actually has cable internet up there at his house in the woods, lucky bastard, he's got every fucking thing a nerd could want up there, tons of land and no neighbors, stars, beer, boats, muscle trucks, my mom's cooking, and high speed internet heh.

But he is kinda bummed 'cause he's gotta come back to the Big Futuristic City and teach a bunch of college losers to pay for all that 1970s Country Hippy Woods shit.

So there's always give and take, y'know.

You always gotta pay for each and every movement through space and time.

Even me, going up there and playing with all his kickass toys, I mean, it wasn't free, y'know, I had to break my ass fixing the fucking roof on their house in the middle of a heatwave and act like a crane to help him lower two hundred pound engine parts into his sick truck and shit heh.

Yah, see, that's why I don't feel bad about drinking all their beers ahaha.

Pause

I'm heading to my parent's house in the Middle of Nowhere, Michigan, so I won't be around here blabbering for a week or so.

Gotta help 'em lift heavy things and stuff.

The last season of Stargate just came out on DVD, though, y'know, so at least I won't have to watch the four Walker Texas Ranger Channels they got up there in the Woods.

And I been playing this thing that Mu recommended, and its fun, running guys down with a pike on horseback is pretty wicked, and there's arena fights, and you build your own team of knights to ride around and crunch bandits with and stuff, its all good.

Alright, welp, I'm off fer a bit.