Aside from Obama vs. Adama, I do bsg episode commentaries every Monday morning.  I’ve thrown up some links to the fourth season

If you want to check out some non-bsg stuff, might I suggest any of the following:

funny nonsense Perhaps its just me, but it seems like its all the rage this century to start your own religion. The badly drawn artwork is enough of a draw to ensure you’ll want to click the link. But wait until you hear the benefits that await you! Act now! Supplies are limited!	comics A ringing endorsement of Watchmen, the seminal comic by Alan Moore. Included is over five pages of excerpts from the graphic novel as well as some custom created fake-ads for Dr. Manhattan’s discrete male escort agency. This is really a great comic and completely worth reading.    (the film was very faithful, by the way)
funny nonsense It’s 4.30a Monday; I haven’t slept since Saturday and buses don’t run for another hour. I’m pretty certain I wrote it coming down from a magic mushroom trip. A weird meandering tale taking inspiration from an old-school text-based adventure. It switches styles at least three times and is delightfully random.	crazy tales My 1978 Chevy power-to-the-max offroading adventurous little go-machine was a camperized wonder of the “how didn’t it break down” kind. And with Betty as my trusty rusty sidekick did I engage in many many fine adventures. Including time travel.

I’ve always been a bit on the isolationist side. There have been times of many friends and times with few. Of close involvement and cavernous distance. The two parameters operate independently.

Two years ago I was hurt badly as a close friendship ended. I no longer believe in absolutes or permanence. Everything fades. Everyone will drift away. Love those you can while you can. New people might arrive, but nothing lasts forever.

Perhaps one day I’ll look back on this as sad; that I had to accept this in order to survive. But for me, now, it’s an incentive: not to take my life for granted. To truly know people for who they are; and not be bitter – or hold on too tightly – when life finally leads us apart.

As I began to learn that first lesson, I learned another: I had stopped being a good person. There was a time when I reached out to the world. Asking for reasons. Searching for people who understood. I was so lost. I was such a good person – because I understood what it was to feel damaged.

Eventually I found some answers. I found some people who understood. I healed myself. I was still a decent enough human being, but a careless one. I forgot what it was like, when you’re not so far along in your journey.

I met someone. With such a shell around them; a barricade around the person they truly were. When I saw past the defenses to the innocent person behind, I realized I didn’t know how to behave anymore. I had forgotten how to care. I wasn’t callous so much as clueless.

I learned a lot from that. Or perhaps: I realized how much I’d forgotten. It was hard to learn that. To realize, then accept.

I needed to be a better me.

I tried to do all the things you’re supposed to do: listen, support, understand, care, the usual. I learned from others. I became more in tune with myself. (It always sounds so easy, but it never is) I liked myself better and, perversely, found I needed other people less. My own barricades came down a little; my thick skin thinned. Of late, what you see is closer to what you get.

I’ve also been remembering why my skin thickened in the first place. For a writer who spends his time recording what has been, I live in the now a little too much. I forget a lot.

People are assholes. (How’s that for an absolute) Trying to be an open person leaves you vulnerable. Is it any wonder that the more sensitive among us are the ones hurt most easily? Those two parameters are also unrelated.

People are forever taking advantage of a kind and forgiving nature. And some people are just dumb. Too clueless to realize how bad they’re hurting others.

I suppose my challenge is to try to remain passionate and sincere despite the barbs tossed at me. It doesn’t make daily life any easier, yet I tell myself it’s worth it – that I don’t want to slip back into a careless dismissal of things; of people. When I look back on this, will I think it naïve? Will I even understand anymore?

I will love those I can, while I can. I will love myself. I will try to remember my lessons learned. I will try to deal with all the cruel humans. And I will try to be my own person, despite the consequences.

AWOOGA!! AWOOGA!!

I’m breakin’ all the rules baby… And in memory of all the dead Viet Cong, this page will be red.

Dead Frenchman alert. Dead Frenchman alert.

In memory of all the dead frenchies, this page will also be red.

SCENE: The Imperial Congress of the Entire World, esq.

New York: Why did you put "esq" there like that

Vancouver: Because "esq" is funny. Not Esquire, though, that’s a magazine.

Seattle: I want to be a flashing 3D rotoscope. Everyone imagine that I’m a kaleidoscope of colors. From now on when I say something, go "Hey, that freakin’ kaleidoscope is talkin’! What the freak!"

New York: Freak! Freak! Freak! Frickin’ Freek! S’up?

Vancouver: S’up? Seattle is a pansy!

Seattle: I’m not a pansy. Shut up.

Vancouver: You’re a pansy.

Seattle: Shut up or I’ll sisko yer ass.

Vancouver: Pansy! Pansy! Pansy with whipped cream on top.

<Seattle siskos Vancouver’s ass>

New York: Ha! Ha! You got siskoed.

Vancouver: Shut up all of yas. I’m going to Vegas.

So they all go to Vegas, and also Pam went to Vegas.

You are in a bar. New York, Vancouver, Seattle and Pam are here.

The Vegas music hums in the background.

>Inventory

>East

You move east:

You are in a casino with a number of slot machines. Various patrons are playing games of chance.

The Vegas music hums in the background.

>Look

Look at what?

>Various Patrons

You look at various patrons:

Various patrons are playing games of chance.

>Eat Various Patrons

Your enormous jaw opens up to devour the various patrons. They scream horribly as they are masticated beyond all recognition. Karma is satisfied.

You are in a casino with a number of slot machines.

The Vegas music hums in the background.

>Eat Various Patrons

You look around you, but are unable to find these various patrons.

>West

You move west:

You are in a bar. New York, Vancouver, Seattle and Pam are here.

The Vegas music hums in the background.

>Look vancouver

I don’t understand.

>Look at vancouver

You look at Vancouver:

Vancouver looks back at you

>Sisko Vancouver’s ass

You have siskoed Vancouver’s ass.

Vancouver sez Stop Siskoing my shit.

>Sisko Vancouver’s ass

You have siskoed Vancouver’s ass.

Vancouver sez Step off, bitch!

New York sez Ha! You got siskoed. Again!

Pam sez Will someone think of the children!

<Pam siskos Vancouver>

Vancouver sez Step the mo’fo’ off, bitch!

! Dead Frenchman alert ! Dead Frenchman alert !

>Get Dead Frenchman

You have a dead Frenchman.

>Inventory

>Use scroll on dead frenchman

Which one: The ancient scroll or the modern scroll?

>ancient scroll

You use the ancient scroll of indescribable power on the dead Frenchman:

As you read the ancient text aloud, the scroll begins to pulsate with an otherworldly glow harkening back to the very beginnings of time and beyond; burning with the very essence of creation. As you finish uttering its dark incantation the light beams toward the dead Frenchman and brings him back to life as the re-incarnated essence of golf legend Tiger Woods. The scroll crumbles to dust in your hands.

You have the re-incarnated essence of golf legend Tiger Woods.

Mr. Woods sez My shit is tight!

>sisko tiger woods

You sisko Tiger Woods

Vancouver sez Take that bitch! AWOOOGA!!

New York dances a merry jig. Soon everyone joins in and then Pam bitch-slaps Seattle. Vancouver busts a cap in Seattle on account of how he siskoed him earlier, then yells "North Siiyyde!"

"Step off, bitch!" Pam shouts, because the shit’s goin’ down. And Pam is an ultra bitch what you don’t mess wit’.

<Texas has entered the scene>

<Vancouver siskos Texas>

The Vegas music continues to hum in the background.

Janine had been working on the quarterly financial statements for the last three hours. Deciding it was definitely time for a break, she pulled out the monthly income and expense sheets and pushed her chair back from the desk a bit. That was more like it. She felt a guilty pleasure at the thought of slacking off so obviously, but it wasn’t like anyone could see her. Well, there were the caged ones hanging from her ceiling, but she had them well in line.. they wouldn’t snitch on her.. she was pretty sure, at least. Janine picked up her broom handle and poked one of them.

“Get To Work!!” She yelled. There, that would keep them fearful for the next hour or two. Definitely enough time to review the income and expense sheet. Heck, compared to that dang quarterly statement, she was practically on vacation.

Janine spent the next two hours correlating the projected expenses with the actuals and then comparing them to the statistical averages. It was all going along nicely until she reached the stationery expenses. Hmm... very strange. The actuals were a full 18% greater than the projected. And that 18% difference was a full 67% above the average deviation. Janine spent another half hour working the numbers. That 67% actually became 68% when you accounted for the inflationary bias the projected expenses contained.

A voice inside Janine’s head seemed to speak up: So what, they used more stationery than they thought they would.

But Janine had a hunch; this wasn’t merely bad projection, something was going on here.

Janine’s first step was obvious: logistics. Among other things, the logistics department was responsible for the distribution of all supplies shipped into the compound. According to payroll, the head position was filled by a Norton O. Body. In actuality, it was filled by one Kelly Haryll. Kelly was officially a garbage-man... at least Janine was pretty sure that’s what he was. He had told Janine he was in charge of ‘removals’ but when she asked what he removed, he had just laughed and said “oh, things that have outlived their usefulness.”

The higher-ups in the revolution seemed convinced that having someone in charge of two positions gave an individual too much power. And a two or three day investigation would have easily revealed the double paychecks. But Janine would be the one to do such an investigation and she didn’t see anything particularly wrong with someone being in charge of logistics and garbageing.. er.. being a garbage-man. Nor did she see anything wrong with the percentage of Mr. Body’s paycheck that was regularly deposited into J.M. Inc. (Also known as Janine Melninchuk’s Swiss Bank account)

But kickbacks aside, Janine needed to talk to Kelly: “Hey there, how’s it going?”

Kelly looked up from his computer terminal. “Hey!” He pushed his chair back and stretched his hands out. “What’s up?”

“Well.. I need a favor. I’m trying to track down where all the stationery went last month... sort of a private little audit. Think you can give me a hand?”

“Sure,” nodded Kelly. “Just let me find my corpse.”

“What?” Janine asked, uncertainty covering her face.

“My corpse,” reassured Kelly. He pointed at his monitor. “I died, and if you don’t find your corpse, someone can steal all your stuff. So you gotta find it and get your stuff back before you log off.”

Janine looked at Kelly and then shrugged. Sure, why not. She sat down and waited

“Sooo... speakin’ of corpses,” intoned Kelly. “Ya’ hear about that Concorde crash?”

Janine nodded. “Yah, that was a real tragedy.”

“Tragedy?” screeched Kelly. “That was a thing of beauty! I mean who would suspect?”

Janine was taken aback. “Suspect? Suspect what?”

Kelly chuckled. “Hehe.. yah, that’s the idea.”

“What idea?” It seemed to Janine that Kelly had some odd interests for a garbage-man.

But Kelly changed the subject. “There’s that corpse. Now, it was stationery you were interested in?”

“Uhh.. yes. Yes it was,” Janine responded, only slightly reassured that Kelly was a competent choice for the position. “You see, it seems that there was a bit of a usage spike last month and I’m trying to figure out where it came from.”

Kelly thought for a moment. “Hmm.. let me check something,” he said as his hands flew about the keyboard. Before long the printer beside Kelly’s computer was spitting page after page of numbers into its hopper. “I know what’s going on, but let’s play a little game. I’ve printed out just the summaries, let’s see how long it takes you to spot it yourself.” The printer finished and Kelly handed her a stack of papers about as thick as a bible.

Janine smiled to herself, silly Kelly. She began flipping through the stack. “Hmm.. No.. Oh, hey, I see you’ve sub-categorized everything!” she squealed with delight.

“Hey, a guy’s gotta know what’s going where...” Kelly replied modestly

“Well, that makes it easier.. let’s see.. it’s obviously paper usage that’s up.. Hmm.. Oh, that’s it – shoot.. guess not...”

Kelly nodded “MmHmm, those quarterly projected adjustments had me going for a second, but then I realized –”

“It’s only the second month in the quarter!” They finished together.

“Hehe, how silly,” Janine laughed. “But I think I’ve got it.. it’s the R&D department, isn’t it?”

Kelly halted his stop-watch. “Bang-on! Wow, only a minute and a half! You’re pretty good Janine.”

“Oh, be quiet.” She blushed. “But seriously, where in R&D? I can’t seem to find that.” Janine put the stack of papers down on Kelly’s desk.

He shrugged. “Dunno. The R&D compound is as detailed as I get; they handle their own distribution of supplies. You’ll have to talk to them for any more details” He swiveled his chair back to face his desk. “But hey, Research and Development does use a lot of stationery.”

Janine thought for a moment. “No. there’s more to it than that...”

“Mr. Farnsworth?” Janine asked, speaking to a table of five young boys; all of whom appeared to be playing some type of card game.

One of them looked up. “Yes?” he asked, in a way that struck her as very rude.

“I’m Janine, from Accounting. I need to ask you some questions.”

“Listen,” he said, not just rudely, but obnoxiously so. “I’m about to tap over fourteen blue mana which will more than assure me a crushing victory against the obviously inferior decks of my opponents. Now if you don’t mind, I’m rather busy.”

Janine tried to stay out of office politics as much as possible. But one thing she did know, one thing everyone knew, was exactly how low in the pecking order R&D geeks ranked. She also knew where their sensitive points were. “Well, it’s just that I’ve been looking into the budget of Project: Lightsaber. It seems to me that the expenditures are rather high, but I guess I can just reduce funding without any consultations. Sorry to trouble you –”

“Please, call me Doug.” The table occupants had already scattered and Mr. Farnsworth was standing in front of her. “What is it I can help you with?” His tone had noticeably changed.

That was better; it seemed they understood one another. “Paper. Your department has been using a lot of it this last month. Why?”

Doug seemed crestfallen. “Oh dear, I’m really not sure.”

“What’s that?” Janine was losing patience. “You’re listed as being in charge of supplies here. It’s your responsibility to –”

“No, listen, I’m really not sure. We just put all the stationery in a cabinet – anyone who needs something just goes and gets it.”

“And you think this system is acceptable!?” Janine blurted. “What about theft? You don’t even have a sign out sheet! Where’s the accountability?”

“Theft? Oh, no.. I really don’t think any of the guys would –”

“Wait a minute!” Janine interjected. Her hostilities forgotten – she’d just had a brainstorm. “Are you following the recycling program?”

“Well... to be quite honest, at first we weren’t following it very well. But once you sent your men around, it’s been followed one hundred percent.” He smiled nervously.

“My men?” Janine asked.

“Sure. The guards that you sent. They gave some of the boys a few good beatings. The message got through; we’ve been recycling ever since.” He smiled again.

Flashback: Janine had instituted the recycling program about five months ago. About three months ago, she had re-sent the memo to James, one of the upper managers, and asked him to see what he could do about enforcing the policy.

Janine gulped heavily. Sometimes she forgot she was part of an armed revolution. But still.. her brainstorm remained a good one. She picked up a nearby phone. “Switchboard? Yes.. I’d like you to connect me to..” let’s see, who would have those figures.. “um.. Caged One A47, please. Thanks. A47? Hi, it’s me. Can you grab the figures for last month’s R&D recycling pickup? Sure..” Janine waited for A47 to locate the figures and read them back to her. “Okay, thanks.” Janine put the receiver back on the hook and turned to face Doug.

“Well, it seems the volume of paper recycled is 29% below the volume of paper that was ordered by your department. The paper arrived, but it never left!” Doug seemed to be getting nervous again, while Janine was starting to get into this. “Additionally, given that your department uses about 58% of the compound’s stationary, that 29% deficit becomes...” Janine did some quick mental calculations. “...about 17% ... pretty close to the 18% over the total projected that I uncovered.” She leveled her gaze at Doug. “This was no mere theft of office supplies, whoever took that paper first increased the amount ordered; definitely pre-planned.”

He looked about to faint. “Hey, it wasn’t me! I don’t order this stuff.”

She folded her arms over her chest. “Well, who does, then?”

“The computer! Johnny, one of our programmers, he wrote this program that does all our ordering for us.”

Janine was sure she was onto something. “Well how does the program work?”

“It bases orders on last month’s consumption.” Doug answered.

“I think I have a few questions for this Johnny character. Let me speak to him.”

Doug looked toward the floor. “Uh.. he disappeared about two months ago. He was taken away for failing to recycle some of his scrap paper and we haven’t seen him since.”

Janine gulped again. Still, it wasn’t like it was her fault. That was the ticket: it wasn’t her fault. Still, she was definitely onto something.

“Hey,” Doug seemed to cheer up. “What if it’s being used for one of the research projects?”

Drat! Then again, maybe she wasn’t.

Her time on the R&D compound had left Janine with questions. Ones she couldn’t answer. But she knew someone who could. The trouble was finding him; he was the type of person who was always underfoot until you actually wanted him for something – then he was gone. But Janine had learned, over time, how to find him.

Some people were creatures of habits. And Sam was a strange creature, with some strange habits.

She waited until morning.

And stood in one of the hallways. Waiting. Silently.

There! Southwest of her.

Janine rushed toward the sounds. First jotting east, to a connecting corridor, then south, a quick turn west, then south again. Stop.

Again Janine waited.

Listening.

She was close to their path, but still... not quite... Yes! South again, then west. She followed the corridor until it met another, then stopped.

And listened; this was it.

She waited.

Before long she could clearly hear the approaching screeches, along with the cries of surprise as the screeches grew nearer.

She watched as, from around the corner, they came.

Monkeys.

Bouncing from wall to floor to wall again, the herd ricocheted off hallway doors, ceilings, other occupants of the hallway, the carpet and especially each other. A mass of furry brown creatures in constant, frenetic motion. All the while howling at top volume.

Janine pressed herself against a wall and hoped for the best.

As the hairy, screeching mass swept past her she watched them. There he was. At the constantly moving center, was Sam. Screeching, jumping, shouting and occasionally biting in retaliation to the odd misplaced monkey-limb, was Sam. Despite a human birth and upbringing; somehow fitting perfectly into the adopted monkey tribe, indistinguishable even, was Sam.

Hoping for the best, Janine held her hands out in front of her and stepped into his path. “Sam!”

Sam stopped and hissed at her, but then seemed to snap out of some type of trance. “Hey Janine!” He said warmly. “Just a second.” The swarm was already starting to pass the two by. For some reason, perhaps her proximity to Sam, the monkeys had stopped bumping into her as much.

Sam shouted to one of the monkeys: “Marsel!” It came bounding over. Except for a few stragglers, the monkeys had already continued past them. “Marsel, you’re in charge. Finish the morning run. I’ll meet you at the training area.”

Marsel stared at Sam in confusion.

Sam, angrily, began to screech at him. Where she not actually present, Janine would have been unable to tell the difference between Sam’s screeches and those of the monkeys.

Marsel screeched back in response. It sounded... defensive.

Sam screeched again.

Marsel screeched back, then bounded off to join the now distant sounds of the pack.

“Damn it! He should be able to take verbal orders by now.” Sam turned to Janine. “So, what’s up?”

Janine briefly glanced toward where Marsel had gone. So many questions were pouring into her mind at the moment. She shook her head, clearing them all away. There was business to attend to.

“Sam, I’ve got some questions for you. About R&D.”

He suddenly seemed militant. “Hey, have they got my jet pack finished? I was supposed to fly to Brazil, like, a week ago.”

“Uhh…” Janine responded. Sometimes she forgot that Sam needed a little… handling. “Yah, I think it’s done. Now, as for my question. Are there any top secret R&D projects? I know there must be at least a few that I don’t have access to, but you would.”

Sam nodded.

“So I need to know if there’s any current projects that might be using up a lot of paper.”

“Hmm… Not that I can remember.” Sam pulled a small book out of his pocket and began flipping through it. He paused at one page and chuckled. “Oh…. That Liz, she’s a wily one.” He continued flipping until he closed the book. “No, I don’t see anything.”

“Are you sure?” asked Janine. “This is important Sam. There aren’t any papier maché monkeys or something?” She prompted.

“Wow! That’s a great idea! Are we making those? That’s awesome!”

“I don’t think so, I’m asking you if –”

“We should make those! Papier maché, why didn’t I think of that?” Sam opened his book again and began to write something in it. “This will work great in Afghanistan.”

“Sam,” Janine interjected. “So you’re telling me that there’s nothing they’re working on currently that should be using up a lot of paper?”

Sam halted his scribbling. “Nope. I’m sure of that. I would have known if they were making papier maché monkeys.”

Janine was regretting saying anything about monkeys. “And besides papier maché?”

“Nope.” Sam repeated. “There definitely aren’t any projects like that.” He pulled out his cell phone and started dialing. “Yet.”

Janine sat in her office, dejected. Her meeting with Sam had been fruitless and she was left without a clear idea of what to do next. She tried taking her mind off things by reviewing the weekly requisitions.

Someone was putting in requests for rocket launchers again. She nixed those in a hurry – the launchers themselves weren’t that bad, but rockets were expensive. And there was no way she could amortize those!

But in the end it was useless; her thoughts kept leading her back to the missing stationary. So what? It’s not even that much paper. But her mind would leave her no peace.

She started reviewing what she had learned so far. She knew that paper consumption was up in R&D. And thanks to the recycling figures she also knew that it wasn’t leaving the R&D division.

Janine turned her chair towards the computer and brought up the budgetary figures for R&D. Hoping for inspiration, she began scrolling through the data.

Sam had confirmed the paper wasn’t targeted toward any official uses. But someone must have created that increase in paper. She stopped scrolling when she reached the expense breakdown by project. Doug had told her it was a computer program that did the ordering. What if someone had modified that program?

She switched programs and began scanning through the list of project timetables – a list that could be broken down to display active members. Thanks to some of Janine’s earlier reforms it had become next to impossible to start any project without complete fiscal accountability. If she was going to be signing people’s paychecks she damn well better know why.

After running across a few promising candidates Janine had come to a conclusion: R&D has a shit-load of projects. She scribbled a note to herself to check into some of them (although she amended “a shit-load of projects” to read “quite a few active endeavors.” Then she wondered if she should perhaps write a bit more at the start, to clarify things. After that it became apparent she needed to back up her statements with a few figures. Half an hour and seven pages later, Janine emailed her completed memo to certain members of Accounting, Ops, Oversight, R&D, and Management). Finally, she came upon project J3725-B, ‘automated supply coordination utility.’ This was it.

Sure enough, maintenance entries were logged for a ‘John Westlock’ up until about two months ago. Janine paused. It’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. She continued – and discovered another ‘John Westlock’ entry (for 1.5 hours) from five weeks ago. How is that possible?

Then she noticed something: the employee code was different. That was it! Whoever was doing this had been unable to log the hours under the real John Westlock (possibly because his file was deactivated), so they created a second John Westlock. Janine smiled to herself.

Her fingers flew about the keyboard – tracing the false employee code. At first glance, it appeared to be non-existent. But a few minutes later it became apparent that that wasn’t quite the case. The duplicate John Westlock wasn’t an employee, he was a project.

If group members from one project assisted those on another project, it was possible that the project, instead of the employees, would be listed as putting in the time. Janine began to trace down this second project. It was an alias for another project, which seemed to be aliased to still others. The project wouldn’t be left holding those hours; they would be re-distributed to group members – but as a separate transaction!

Janine exhaled as she ran her fingers through her hair. There was no way to easily determine which employees had been loaned out to the secondary projects. Managers were supposed to keep records – but obviously that wouldn’t have been done. Whoever had engineered this knew their stuff; Janine was impressed. Because on top of everything else, at the end of the trail of project aliases, they had linked the program modifications to none other than A1138-R. Project: Lightsaber.

Project: Lightsaber. Janine sighed again.

It was the largest budgetary sinkhole that Janine, in all her accounting endeavors, had ever seen. It was the R&D geeks attempt to build a fully functional lightsaber, alá Star Wars, and involved (at last estimates) over 83% of R&D personnel to varying degrees. It was by no means an official project. Quite the opposite: the powers that be had done all they could to stamp it out. But they had eventually succumbed to the fact that (Janine briefly recalled the memo) “…other than killing every last R&D geek, there is no way to halt Project: Lightsaber. Even then, there is no guarantee that the project wouldn’t be revived by a fresh batch of recruits.” Management had instead attempted to ensure that Project: Lightsaber did not interfere with higher priority projects and that the geeks worked on it only when they should be eating, sleeping or doing other such recreational activities.

There was only one way Janine could track this down. If she were to tabulate each employee’s hours, as contributed to Project: Lightsaber and other projects, and compared those to the hours they had contributed in total, somewhere she would find an employee with a discrepancy of 1.5 hours. Janine shuddered involuntarily. With over two hundred geeks in R&D this was to be no easy task. She thought about trying to get her software upgraded to do the task – but that could take weeks. And it would be outsourced to R&D, she thought darkly.

There was only one group of people she knew she could trust.

It was time to mobilize the troops.

Janine picked up her broom handle and glanced above her at the caged ones. “Get up!” she shouted as she began banging various cages. “Play time’s over, folks. It’s time for you all to get some real work done!”

Approximately 37 hours, countless false leads, a veritable forest of printouts, a few naps and a near infinite amount of cross-referencing later, Janine had her man. William Arnold, emp#2491.

It had culminated with Janine emailing him a brief note. ‘Re: Failure to recycle. I know about Project J3725-B. Meet me in common area #7 at 13.30, alone, or face consequences worse than mis-filing an expense form during an audit period.’

Janine glanced at her watch. It was 13.38.

The common area, a small outdoor park, was relatively deserted. To the east of her were a couple of midgets having lunch. To the Northwest were a couple of monkeys and one of their trainers, Monique, on maneuvers. After Sam had overheard one of the soldiers use the phrase, he had insisted that they call all such monkey activities “being on maneuvers.” As near as Janine could tell, the monkeys, each of whom were wearing either an orange or green electro-shock harness, would climb up one of the trees and throw leaves at some of the other monkeys. Monique, meanwhile, cheered them on with cries of “excellent,” and “good form!”

It was 13.42 and Janine was starting to wonder if meeting Mr. Arnold had been the best of ideas. At the time she hadn’t given it a second thought. After such a long and difficult hunt, she had wanted to be the one to face him with the facts. What if he’s dangerous? She thought. Maybe she should turn her findings over to someone else.

That was some reasonably advanced book-work she had run across; what if there was more to it than she had discovered? She glanced around her. At least she had chosen a public meeting place – there wasn’t much anyone could do here.

Janine’s anxiety shrank somewhat as she thought things over. She squeezed the cell-phone in her pocket; reassuring herself that she could always call in support if she needed it. But she didn’t feel like letting one of the other departments steal the credit for her investigation. Not again. Not just yet, anyway.

Janine’s anxiety faded again as she saw Mr. Arnold enter the courtyard. Sweating, wheezing and making a desperate attempt to run, William Arnold burst into common area #7. Both the monkeys and midgets stared at him as he briefly stopped to catch his breath.

Embarrassed to do so, Janine waved him over.

William waved back, then pulled out an asthma inhaler from his pocket and took a few quick medicated puffs. He re-started his run.

Janine glanced at her watch again.

As he arrived, he burst out “I’m.. I’m.. sorry I..” Janine waved him to sit down on the bench. His thin frame collapsed on the seat as he took another desperate breath from the inhaler. “I.. I.. got here.. as.. as.. as..”

“Fast as you could?” Janine prompted. He nodded as he momentarily breathed through the inhaler. “That’s okay, take your time.” After a while his breathing seemed to return to a more even pace.

“Thanks. I just got your.. your message.” His expression was worried.

She took a moment’s pause to collect her thoughts. And let his worry grow. “It seems, Mr. Arnold, that you have been responsible for a few missing office supplies.” William’s complexion paled noticeably. “It seems you went to quite an effort to keep it unnoticed as well.”

“I can explain everything.” Janine leveled her gaze at him. He continued: “You see, a while back they came out with a.. with a new Player’s Handbook and De-Emgy - but they were so expensive! So Ted and I were thinking –”

“Ted?”

William’s eyes widened.

“You know,” mused Janine. “One person is a rouge element. Two people is a conspiracy. Much more serious.”

“Oh please, we can pay it all back. We haven’t even spent any of the.. of the money. We –”

“Mr. Wimples! No!” Both Janine and William looked toward the shouts. Monique was chasing after one of the monkeys, who himself was running quick circles around one of the trees. A second glance revealed the monkey to be excitingly mashing his fist against a metal box he was holding in the other hand. Monkeys in the green harnesses, meanwhile, were dropping to the ground as their muscles convulsed and lost their grip on the branches above.

Janine and William turned their gazes back toward one another. “Money?” Janine asked; her interrogation somewhat derailed. “You were charging people?”

“Well, yah. The stores wanted forty dollars a book! So Ted and I thought that if we could hack into Tee Ess Are –”

“Wait. I thought you said it was a De-Emgy? What’s a Tee-Eser? Is this about that card game you all play?”

William stared at her for a moment. “Um... not quite. The card game is Magic. This is –”

Janine waived her hand to silence him. “Whatever. But there’s a market for all this stuff?” Her hostilities forgotten, Janine’s thoughts were running faster than she could keep up. “What were you charging?”

William was caught off-guard; unprepared for this line of questioning. “Well, we charged fifteen dollars for the Pee Haych and twenty for a De-Emgy. And there’s lots of gamers, if that’s what you mean.” As if sensing there might be a way out of his dilemma, he added: “There’s a bunch of supplement books, too.”

“And what about the Tee-Eser that you mentioned, how much for one of those?”

He started at her a moment. “Uhh... about the same.”

Portions of a business plan were dancing inside Janine’s head, slowly falling into place. After some consideration, she spoke. “Right. This is how it’s going down. No more free paper, that’s coming off the gross. Your prices are going up, too.”

William nodded vigorously. “Absolutely.”

“You can also consider yourself as working for free in the near future. Ted too. And part of your net is coming to me, in exchange for my leaving your name off the investigation.” He nodded again.

Janine took a moment to size him up; he seemed easy enough to intimidate. “Those were some decent book-keeping skills you showed. Not accountant-quality, mind you, but still pretty good. Where’d you pick those up?”

“Well, my brother’s an accountant. I guess some of it rubbed off.” He smiled. “It just seemed natural, you know?”

Janine suppressed a smile of her own. “Well, you’re not bad. For a novice. You could get better – providing you stayed on the correct side of the balance sheet, if you get my drift.” He nodded again. “We’ll give you a chance; see if you can keep up with a real crew.” Janine fold her arms across her chest.

“Does that mean I have to live in one of those cages?” He seemed concerned.

Janine laughed. “Oh, I doubt that you’re that good. But don’t worry, one day you might get your own cage. If you work out,” she added ominously.

And as Janine ran over the details of her newest revenue stream, a feeling of relief crept over her. She had tracked down her mysterious credits, and turned the situation into a debit. Everything was working itself out.

There was only one thing left to do; one person left to talk to. The feeling of relief tightened itself back up into a ball of stress and Janine felt the vein in her forehead begin to twitch, ever so slightly.

Janine rapped her knuckles lightly against James’ office door.

“Janine! Come on in.” He motioned toward one of the chairs in front of his desk. Janine smiled as she sat down. “So what can I do for The Janine today?”

She shifted in her chair. “Well, it’s like this. I’ve been conducting a bit of an audit.” Janine noticed James’ eyes roll slightly as she said this. His face quickly returned to normal; the sort of gesture that would be unnoticeable had she not seen it so many times before.

“Audits! That’s great,” he cried with faux enthusiasm. “Glad to hear you’re keeping on top of things.” He took a sip from his coffee. “I’m just a little busy at the moment, though. If you leave a copy at the front desk, they’ll see I get to it.” He began shuffling a few papers about on his desk.

“Well, normally I would but there are a few irregularities I’d like to discuss with you.”

His voice strangely monotone: “Really.” It was almost like he was bracing himself for something.

“I discovered a bit of theft, actually.”

“Really?” His voice seemed to have regained some of its normal timbre.

“Yes.” Janine decided to have a bit of fun: “R&D stationary expenses were up by 18%, but that’s 67% more than normal deviation – well, 68% actually – for the month. They were quite devious really. Now R&D uses approximately 58% of our stationary. Per annum, that’s –”

“Janine.” James leaned forward. His forehead vein seemed to be developing a twitch of its own. “So what does that actually mean. How much was actually stolen?”

“Well, I can’t be sure, exactly. But I’d say... about sixty dollars worth.”

James leaned back in his chair. “Of stationary? Sixty dollars?”

“About that,” she replied confidently. Thinking further, she added “Although I understand the toner costs were hidden in a different way, so that figure might be a little low.”

“Oh, I’m sure. But really: sixty dollars? It’s just... I probably go though more than that in coffee for a month.” As if suddenly reminded, James glanced down at his mug, then refilled it from the automatic coffee brewer he had had installed on his desk. “But you’re right, we shouldn’t have people stealing from us.” James stood up, then sat on the corner of his desk; coffee mug still in hand. “Tell you what; how ’bout I send someone over to have a chat with this guy. Just let him know that we frown on this sort of thing. Who was it, anyways?”

Janine was briefly reminded of John Westlock. “Uh... I think I’ve dealt with the matter. But what I wanted to bring to your attention was what they were doing with the office supplies.” James raised his eyebrows questioningly.

“With nothing more than a dot matrix and a photocopier, they were running their own private printing press down there in R&D. Printing up all sorts of weird D&D books about Tee-Esers and such. Then they were selling them; undercutting the book stores.”

“Really?” James sounded positively interested. “Say... that’s actually not bad. Sort of a whole Tennasse Ford, company store kinda thing. I like it. So you’re thinking we make the whole thing official.”

“Exactly. And what I need from you will be a few laborers, while we prep to ramp up production. We’ll also be requiring an increased paper supply and possibly some better printers.”

“So what are we charging for these books?”

Janine briefly calculated what it would be after William’s regular, and generous, donations to J.M. Inc. “Oh... around thirty, thirty five..”

“Well let’s make it forty five, then,” he nodded.

“But that’s more than they sell it for at the stores!”

“Janine, Janine. You’re not thinking revolutionary enough. We’ll just make it mandatory that they buy from us.” As he paused, Janine wondered how he planned to enforce that policy. “Y’know, maybe we should branch off into forgeries. Those funny little trading cards they’re all so fond of. I’d hate to think we were turning this into some merely retail endeavor. You know, ‘revolutionary’ and all that.” James smiled at her.

She felt her pulse rate begin to rise. “Well, if you think so. I just think we’d have better luck if we stay with a proven business model.”

“I know,” James got off the desk corner and sat back down in his chair. “But these are frustrating times. We’ve got to get that cash flow rolling in. Fire engines don’t come cheap you know.” James took a sip of coffee.

“What was that?”

James’ eyes turned to meet Janine’s, then darted to his desk and back again. “What?”

“Did we buy a fire engine?”

James cleared his throat slightly. “Uh... why? Did you hear something?”

That clinched it. “Oh my god, you bought a fire engine, didn’t you. Why on earth did we buy a fire engine!? What possible use could –”

“Hey, Janine,” he said, interrupting her tirade. “It just came to me. Figure of speech, that’s all.” He chuckled slightly. “No one bought a fire engine. No worries. But I was thinking, you guys are a little low on funding, right? Well why don’t you take 10% of that markup we were discussing. You know, as a discretionary fund. For Accounting.” Janine continued to stare at him. “Uh... or maybe 20%?”

Janine decided to drop the topic for now. “Well, I’ll look into your suggestions. In the meantime, I’ll forward you the figures for the labor requirements.”

“Sure.” James nodded. “Sounds great.”

“And I’ll see you at Tuesday’s budgetary review?”

James winced, then smiled. “Of course, wouldn’t miss it!”

“Well, it was good coming by.” She concluded. “I’d best get back to it, though.”

“Absolutely.” James smiled. “Glad to help.” He seemed relieved to see their conversation drawing to a close.

Fire Engines, Janine thought as she got up.

Walking out of James’ office, she started preparing a mental list of things to check into.

Janine had another audit to perform.

The wind used to blow through my long long hair. As the sun’s warmth fell down from the sky to cover me in slowly stirring feelings of white. While the breeze played with the grass and the clouds where the two touched on the far far line of hazy imperfection. And the grass grew up around my silent body as the trees and flowers bent down to whisper in my ears of the things men and the moon did when the sun laid down to rest. I rolled around feeling the sun’s cooling warmth brush up against my skin as it stirred memories of feelings of times no longer here and I stretched as I smiled and washed myself with the deep deep blue of the patient sky and rolled in the purest white of the purest cloud as I watched the grass go by. I watched as the wind told me of all it had seen while the plants and flowers and trees wrapped me in their tall branches and big leafs and tiny petals going down my throat and nose as I tasted all of their scent and delicate coils of life until I turned over and listened to the ground tell me of its long long dealing with the sun and the stars balanced throughout the night sky. I listened intently as the ground showed me the history of the stars as they moved slowly slowly backward through the paths they had traced over the long long years until they reached the point they started from and faded until I was the only one left, surrounded by all the feelings of black as the now invisible wind blew through my short short hair.

Shaun Guthrie expertly piloted his space-fighter toward the hanger doors. The carrier space ship’s impressive array of weaponry growing larger as he made his final approach.

In the fighter beside his, Cliff also punched in the codes for their final approach. It had been a long hard mission of blowing up the enemy space ships; now it was time to come home.

Trailing them slightly, on the same approach vector as Shaun, Vladimir’s fighter limped into port as well. Damaged when one of the enemy had tried to blow him up. But instead he had blown them up; blown them up good.

“This is the S.S. Brunswick, I’ve got you on screen,” radioed James. “You’re lookin’ good. Welcome home Alpha Squad.”

After landing, the grizzled, war-hardened trio emerged from their fighter ships and convened on the elevator pad. Collectively, they decided it was time to relax and headed toward the pilots lounge that was on the ship.

As they entered, Shaun flipped up the collar of his fighter pilot jacket and said “I’ll see you guys later.” Then he walked over to where there were a bunch of hot chicks and they all started hanging off him because he was a fighter pilot and fighter pilots were cool.

Wishing him well, Vlad and Cliff sat down and had a round of drinks. Then Cliff got up and said “I’m gonna get me some babes too.” After he left Vlad decided he was going to get some hot babes. But he didn’t say that to anyone because no one was left at the table, so he just went off and got himself some babes too.

James wasn’t there because he was still on duty and helping people land their space planes. But later on he went off duty and then he had lots of hot babes too. And they were even more hot than the other hot babes.

The next day was pretty average. Vlad decided he would go down to the hangers and see how his ship was doing.

“Hi Vlad,” said Liam, who was fixing the ship. His gray overalls were spotted with grease and he had a wrench in one hand.

“Hi.” Vlad gently patted his fighter plane. “How’s she doing?”

“Well, it’s been touch-and-go. All the wiring was fused together and the landing gear and wings are all blown off. Plus the lasers don’t work because they were blown up too.”

Vlad nodded solemnly.

“But I think we’ll get ’er working again,” continued Liam. “It won’t be long before you’re back out there fighting the enemy.”

“Ya, that damn enemy,” said Vlad. The enemy were called Vishians. “Those Vishians are nothing but trouble.” And they were.

“It was their whole fault for starting this war,” Liam said angrily. “If they hadn’t attacked us, maybe we’d all still be on Earth enjoying things in peace. Instead here we are trapped in this tin-can existence, fighting tooth and nail just to survive.”

Vlad nodded that this was true and then said good-bye, heading back to where he was before.

Shaun was still hanging out with hot chicks and Cliff went to see a movie. Because there was a movie theater in the ship too, where lots of pilots went.

But the next day, the shit hit the fan! James called them to the meeting room to tell them about their mission.

Cliff and Shaun were already there. Cliff had a scar on his face on account of when he was injured and he was talking to Shaun about stuff like chicks and killing the enemy.

Then James came in with Kyle and Erron. Kyle and Erron were experts on Vishians, like how to talk Vishian and what they looked like. Vishians were like big octopuses and had eight arms that they’d use to strangle you, which is why you should never get too close to a Vishian. That was how Cliff got his scar. He got too close to one and it cut him with a knife, but then Wham! Cliff got it back and killed it.

“Okay,” said James. “Kyle and Erron are going to tell you about your mission now.”

Then Vlad came in, but it was okay because they hadn’t really started yet. So he high-fived Cliff and Shaun because they were fighter pilots too.

Kyle called up the display screen, which showed all kinds of information about their battle plans. “These are top secret, so don’t tell anyone about them,” said Kyle. They all nodded their heads in agreement.

Then Erron spoke. “What you have to do is, this is their home-world.” Erron pointed at planet Vishian. “And your job is going to be to blow it up while a bunch of other pilots get into fights with all the Vishian fighter pilots. So they won’t even see you coming.”

They all nodded that this was a good plan.

“Do we get any special weapons?” Asked Shaun.

“Okay, you can have some,” said Kyle. “We’ll give you some neutron bombs to take out their home-world. But you can’t be too close otherwise you’ll get blown into a million pieces because these bombs are so powerful.”

They all got excited about having those bombs. Vlad jumped up and started high-fiving everyone again, even Kyle and Erron. But not James, because he would have up and popped him one; that was just the kind of C.O. he was. You had to have discipline, which James did.

Later that day, after they’d had some lunch, they all got in their space fighters and took off. There were lots of other pilots out there too, so there was lots of chatter on the radio. But James would have none of that.

“Okay you guys, settle down.” James knew he was sending them out on a dangerous mission. And some of his men wouldn’t make it back. That was one of the toughest things he had to do: send good men to die. “Have a good mission and get ’em good for all of us back here. Because who even knows what the Vishians were thinking when they attacked us. But now its payback time!” Lots of pilots cheered at that one. “Good luck men,” he added.

Lots of pilots said good luck back, but not Alpha Squad. They were hard and they didn’t need luck, so they just switched on their hyperdrives and they were out of there. All the other pilots did the same and then they were gone; out into the void of space.

They jumped into Vishian territory and man were the Vishians surprised. They flew around all confused and a lot of them got wasted right off. But they soon re-grouped and then it was on!

People were blowing each other up left, right and center. It was crazy with so many ships out there. Shaun almost bought it but at the last second Cliff flew in and saved his ass. All three of them ganged up on this big Vishian ship and blew the crap out of it too.

“Vlad, look out!” Yelled Shaun, across the radio. Vlad expertly flipped his ship around and lasered his attacker; slicing it clean in half. The Earth ships had fins and big rockets, while the Vishian fighters were smaller and moved quicker; making them hard to kill. But that was okay, because the Earth ships had good lasers on them.

“Time to start the attack,” radioed Cliff. While the other fighters kept the enemy busy, Alpha Squad started their run at the planet. It was tough going and they had to fight off lots of attacks. But they made it through enemy lines until there they were: The Vishian home-world. Before getting to the bombing they made sure to shoot up some of the Vishian cities and satellites and even one of the space-stations.

Then it was time. “Prepare to fire neutron bombs!” radioed Cliff. But someone must have overheard them because out of nowhere a bunch of Vishian ships attacked them! Some other fighters came in to help them but even still, the best they could do was fight off wave after wave of merciless Vishian fighters.

They didn’t have time for this. If they didn’t get it on soon, the Vishians would be able to send reinforcements; they’d be doomed. Vlad radioed “Just fire when you get the chance. There’s too many of them.” But then they remembered what Kyle had said about the big explosion, so they all backed right off.

First Vlad fired, decimating much of the planet. Next Cliff, his shot taking out the entire lower half of the planet. Finally Shaun got off his shot and that one just fried everything. The three consecutive neutron blasts had completely wiped out the entire surface of the Vishian home-world.

Then all the Vishians died, because that’s how it works. As soon as you kill the home-world they lose their telepathic link and it’s all over. Their space fighters, filled with dead Vishians, were left floating in space.

The pilots didn’t even bother destroying them all. They just left them there, floating. It was time to go home.

To celebrate, they threw the biggest party ever. And they all hooked up with so many hot chicks that who can even remember them all. They laughed and they smiled. They talked about how they could finally go home. Liam showed up and Vlad shook his hand for doing such a good job at fixing his fighter.

Kyle and Erron were dancing and James made a toast that everyone clapped after. It was great.

But when it was all over, Alpha Squad met up for a last round of drinks. They knew what had been left unsaid during the festivities. Because they knew that the Vishians might not be the only enemy out there. Sure, they might go home to visit. But you would always find Alpha Squad where they were needed most.

Out there; fighting to keep us safe.

It's really just a cheesy little game, on par with Minesweeper, but what the hell, eh? It's like a maze game. You have a starting position, and you'll try to make your way to the goal. As each square is revealed, you will be able to move to other squares around you. If you reach a dead end, your life meter will drop one. Keep going until you run out of lives. Try and get a higher score. Oh.. and unlike minesweeper, each level is guaranteed to have a solution, but it's still got a lot to do with chance.

Well, there you go. Free Game (no nagware, no shareware). Instructions. Enjoy.

download wGENtI.exe [Win32 exe; 351 KB] [zipped; 183 KB]

I love rain. And as glorious lightening poured down outside, I sat across the table in warm feelings of muddlement.

Blistering sheets flew about the street and the ground was littered with the sparks of rain touching down.

The simple conversation comes in semi-fragments covering nothing in particular. But a few days ago I learned you were leaving.

And now we just enjoy the time that's still here.

I never quite learned what to do with you. It never quite clicked.

Your delights are so subtle and I take such joy as I notice them. No - nothing quite happened between us, but you make me happy to be around.

You make me want to be a better person. I'm aware of the awkward and naive way I deal with you and I wish it were different.

I wish it would keep raining. I love the rain.

You're leaving the city. And I never knew you.

I wish I had.

I wish I had known how to be around you. To not be so awkward and naive. I am so very glad to have known you. I like to think I have learned things from you, although sometimes I wonder how much I actually did. You are unique and beautiful - inside and out. You could make me happy, smile and un-self-conscious. Maybe you will always confuse me. But maybe it's good not to understand everything.

Sometimes you forget lessons you've learned. And when you remember them again, you kick yourself. Sometimes you remember a whole bunch of them all at once and you find yourself on an ego-high as you contemplate how wickedly brilliant you must be. I wish I could hold on to all the good things that seem to pass through me, but I know in a week or a month or a year, I'll have forgotten the lessons all over again. Apparently goldfish have a memory of three seconds. Each time startled by the bright neon castle as it appears inside your vision.

Some words are deceptively hard to understand. The really obvious words like Love, and Acceptance, and Forgiveness, and Compassion. Humility. Flexibility. Everyone has their own little personal view of how the world works. And recognizing that everyone else that you deal with thinks about things just a little different than you is one of the most important things I think you can do. Recognizing that that's just how it is, and that's valid. If we stopped trying to change other people, and just worked on ourselves we'd be a lot better off. But clichés take just as much work to understand. Things seem simple only when taken for granted. Understanding, that's a hard one too.

I spent time with someone I care about and I thought about someone I miss. I did something I felt was right and wondered if I'd done something else wrong. I wondered if I should be doing more and how much would turn out like I wanted it to. I wondered what exactly I wanted. I don't really know what I'm doing sometimes, and that scares me.

I want to reach out sometimes, only I don't know what I'd do once I finished reaching. Sometimes, I want to help people and I wish they'd reach out to me, but I bet you they have the same fears.

Sometimes. Sometimes I wonder about things, and other times I know things for certain. But they tend to flip flop back and forth. I want to do interesting, fabulous things all throughout my life but it's a remarkably tough goal. Sometimes all these things well up inside you and you feel like you're going to burst. But today, its in a good way and I don't even know why. I think that's a good thing, not knowing why. It makes you want to look for answers.

I like the cut of your jib

I dislike the cut of your jib

]]> http://feelingsofwhite.com/2000/01/the-jib-generator/feed/ 1 http://feelingsofwhite.com/1999/12/my-fridge-is-too-loud/ http://feelingsofwhite.com/1999/12/my-fridge-is-too-loud/#comments Sun, 12 Dec 1999 18:00:13 +0000 Legion http://feelingsofwhite.com/1999/12/my-fridge-is-too-loud/ And last night.. it got the best of me.

I mean it's really really loud. I may have grown hypersensitive, because I already had a previous fridge replaced. But it's constant incessant droning hum finally made me crack. I kicked it a few times, creating a few crater like dents in it's door. This includes one highly visible dent at the very top of the door.

Unfortunately there was a 3/4 full left-over beer inside and it splashed around wildly, coating everything in that ucky-beer-smell. One of the vegetable-drawers had also come out of it's track and had cracked a little. I grabbed some paper towels and began drying off the inside of my fridge but at some point (and it may have been before or after this) I realized that the fridge-door-handles were taunting me.

So I ripped the fridge and freezer door handles off. Then I used them to hit the fridge a couple of times (they shattered.. cheap pieces of shit). Then I opened up the fridge and hit the freezer-door-guard rails, causing them to snap out. The butter-door, for it's part, had long since popped out out of it's rightful place (the external pressures of my foot vs. the door being the primary reason). I picked up my sponge mop and made a few stabbing motions at the fridge shelves, which caused the end of the sponge mop to break off. Frustrated that my mop stick wasn't having the desired effect, I picked up a fridge shelf sitting aside the fridge (I only used 3 out of 4 fridge-shelves inside the actual fridge), and bent it in half.

At various points in time I took a few more running kicks at my fridge. My egg timer that had been sitting on top of the fridge had fallen off and broken itself, so I threw it off my balcony. I piled the carnage off to the side of the kitchen and as I slept that night, I fantasized about taking a pick-axe to the wall. Some fucking thing inside the walls constantly pings pings ping ping ping ping ping and random ping intervals ping ping ping ping. It might have something to do with the heating thingy, but I don't really care.

So today I'm headed off to the mall to proposition a salesman "You are going to make a sale today if you can show me a fridge that is not too noisy." I have decided that this noisy fridge has affected my mental health.

I still haven't figured out how to break this news to my landlord.