Hank's office looked like it had gotten in a scrap with a small bulldozer; and had lost badly - several times. His only two chairs smashed to pieces, taken apart in a frenzy of overzealous discovery.
The air smelled of robot oil. The expensive kind you bought for large robots with impressive strength and limited morality subroutines. A robot that might have been able to leave a dent in a magtronic arcanium shelf.
Sneezly Simpernel leaned against the desk. His robot goon sat on the ground, great big robot head sized holes in the ceiling were clues as to why. Sneezly looked at Hank and Greg with large watery eyes. In another life, those eyes might have looked at you evenly while the owner of said eyes muttered irregular income declarations and forensic accounting. But this wasn't another life.
Hank took a slow breath. He had many ways to play this, but only one wouldn't get him killed immediately. He met Sneezly's gaze square, "Look here Mr. Simpernel, I've done nothing wrong, you can't just come up here and rough up my joint."
"On the contrary, Mr. Pirelli, you've done a grave injustice!" Sneezly looked him over, then slowly smoothed out his suit. It shimmered as only things that are sold by old finicky European men shimmered.
Greg took a step forward slightly in front of Hank. "My employer is in the wrong here, no need to vociferate so, Mr. Simpernel." Hank could hear the low thrum of Greg's main power unit spinning up.
Sneezly sneered. "I don’t need to do anything. Especially when your employer has been snooping around places he shouldn't, looking for things that don’t belong to him."
Hank spoke up, "I do what my client asks of me, Mr. Simpernel." He squeezed his left arm to his side, re-assuring himself that he still had his gun there. A sizeable piece of machinery that was dangerous only because since was so old, no one was quite sure what would happen if he fired it.
"Alright, you want to play it that way. That's fine. We've looked for it here, and, " he motioned to the robot, who crouch walked over to Hank, turned him upside-down and shook him. Change, his previously comforting gun, and a few embarrassing play cards dropped to the ground. "Now we are done. If we ever find out that you had it, we'll be back for a visit." Sneezly gave the half-smile of someone who didn't often smile, but had practiced a reasonable facsimile for the right occasion.
************
Hank and Greg both sat on the ground, both looking at the same non-descript spot on the floor.
"So he doesn't have it then."
"And we certainly don't have it." offered Greg helpfully.
Hank wondered briefly how much it would cost to upgrade his logic chip. "So... someone else has it? Crap.”. He added a little too quickly, “Not because I'm scared of Mr. Simpernel." He glanced at Greg, who of course, didn't care either way if Hank was a blubbering coward, "Ok, I am, but that's not what’s really worrying me. What’s worrying me is need to solve this case for the money. I owe money."
"You mean you Owe Money."
"Well, yes. Yes, I suppose it's that serious." It was eerie how robots could capitalize speech, but you didn't get a few quadrillion transistors without having some advantage in voice synthesis, he supposed.
"And let's not forget the client. You seem to be deeply concerned with the outcome of our work when there is a client is of proper age who exhibits appropriate phenotypic fertility characteristics."
The transmit buzzed. Hank ignored Greg's comment.
"Hi." said Hank. Somewhere in the ceiling a few directional speakers and mics found him and initiated the call.
"You've found my trinket?" the voice steamed with something that made Hanks voice go furry.
"Uh."
"You've reached a roadblock?"
"Some nasty people are after it."
"Oh, did I forget to mention that?" she purred. Why did women always feel the need to purr when they were about to put Hank into more than likely fatal situations. Never mind that it worked every time.
"Yeah. A little." Hank hoped the complete shut down of his verbal capacities was interpreted as raw sexuality and manly reticence.
"Well, that's why I hired you. You were the man for the job, they said."
"They are always saying that."
"You _are_ the man for the job, aren't you?
Hank started wondering if he was.
"So, what would you suggest now, then, Miss... uh... I never did get your name."
"Jane, if you please."
"Right."
"I suggest you start hitting your underworld contacts, and get back on the trail. I paid you, and expect my money's worth."
"We aren't a cliche, Jane, we don't have 'underworld contacts', but I'll see what we can do." He signaled to the transmit to hang-up.
He turned to the robot.
"So Greg, which of our underworld contacts would know what's going on?"
Friday, December 21, 2007
"Debt" Part 2 of 4
The next day the info was on the Desktop, a red folder that glowed and rotated. Hank tapped it twice, the holo-display paused for a brief second then opened the folder and tiled the icons: video, documents, contract papers, audio clips. It was the usual stuff: snippets of dialogue, fuzzy videos of the object in question. It was all useful as a wiffle bat to a mafia enforcer. That was OK though, he knew a guy who worked the graveyeard at the Metro Police evidence locker.
Freddy was what the human race would have looked like if we had taken a hard left early in the evolutionary tree and evolved from an overly ambitious set of raisins. He was sunken and wrinkled, and had the air of not really caring about anything. He did everything like an afterthought, Hank could almost believe Freddy didn't love the ponies as much as he did.
Greg kept lookout by pretending take himself offline for internal diagnostics. In the older models, such as Greg, it was expected (particularly anything from Maverick Light Industries).
Hank snuck inside the evidence room, apprehension played across his face. The room smelled of old mothballs and something that had gone mildewy and stashed under a hollow ceiling panel and forgotten. The lighting from a flickering panel gave as much light as a dimming Timex.
He reached the shelf, and right where the object was supposed to be was an empty cardboard box. The pit of his stomach did a few spins. There was more than one group looking for this little trinket, and one of them had found it.
The object was -- from what Hank could figure out from the info -- a small necklace with a piece of Perma-Ice as the pendant. Water wasn't meant to be worn, in Hank's opinion, but if people wanted to sell ice that was cooled by generators in another dimension, who was he to stand in the way of capitalism.
He looked at the shelf closer. There was a sizeable dent in it. A sizeable dent in a shelf made of tempered magtronic arcanium. Whoever was here was big, heavy, and didn't particularly care about leaving behind a trail.
************
The Zyoraption Mark IV was a sleek little number when it had come out; now it was just a sad craft driven by mid-life crisis addled men who were low on cash and high on crises. For Hank, it was just something to get around that was slightly faster than the average. It streaked around the airway, Hank focused on his nav-screen.
"I say, where are we off to in such a rush?" said Greg.
"The office. I think I know who swiped the goods."
"You don't think..."
"Yes."
"But he's a gadabout town, a nothing. They say he only puts on airs of his more shadowy dealings."
"It's a double cover. He acts like he puts on airs, but at the heart of it all, he's a ruthless mob boss."
"Clever."
Freddy was what the human race would have looked like if we had taken a hard left early in the evolutionary tree and evolved from an overly ambitious set of raisins. He was sunken and wrinkled, and had the air of not really caring about anything. He did everything like an afterthought, Hank could almost believe Freddy didn't love the ponies as much as he did.
Greg kept lookout by pretending take himself offline for internal diagnostics. In the older models, such as Greg, it was expected (particularly anything from Maverick Light Industries).
Hank snuck inside the evidence room, apprehension played across his face. The room smelled of old mothballs and something that had gone mildewy and stashed under a hollow ceiling panel and forgotten. The lighting from a flickering panel gave as much light as a dimming Timex.
He reached the shelf, and right where the object was supposed to be was an empty cardboard box. The pit of his stomach did a few spins. There was more than one group looking for this little trinket, and one of them had found it.
The object was -- from what Hank could figure out from the info -- a small necklace with a piece of Perma-Ice as the pendant. Water wasn't meant to be worn, in Hank's opinion, but if people wanted to sell ice that was cooled by generators in another dimension, who was he to stand in the way of capitalism.
He looked at the shelf closer. There was a sizeable dent in it. A sizeable dent in a shelf made of tempered magtronic arcanium. Whoever was here was big, heavy, and didn't particularly care about leaving behind a trail.
************
The Zyoraption Mark IV was a sleek little number when it had come out; now it was just a sad craft driven by mid-life crisis addled men who were low on cash and high on crises. For Hank, it was just something to get around that was slightly faster than the average. It streaked around the airway, Hank focused on his nav-screen.
"I say, where are we off to in such a rush?" said Greg.
"The office. I think I know who swiped the goods."
"You don't think..."
"Yes."
"But he's a gadabout town, a nothing. They say he only puts on airs of his more shadowy dealings."
"It's a double cover. He acts like he puts on airs, but at the heart of it all, he's a ruthless mob boss."
"Clever."
"Debt" Part 1 of 4
This is going to be a post of a short story I just finished for my critique group. It's a humourous sci-fi detective noir piece involving robots. Also, it gives me a few weeks where I don't have to think about what to post. Wheee!
I hope you enjoy it.
She walked in, more serious than a third heart attack with more curves than the back-streets of San Fran. She had a slink; a way of moving across the room that made every Tom, Dick and Harry eye her like their lives depended on it.
Hank knew she was no good, rotten, down to the core; but he also knew he hadn't had a paying client in three months and a Debt whose financer had gone from Breaking Knee-caps Mad to Dispose of Through A Woodchipper Wrathful; besides with legs like hers, discretion went out the window like last week's newspaper.
This was the problem of course. Every very major problem he'd had to shoot, beg, and drive very fast away from involved exactly this sort of dame.
Greg beeped awake. His dull green body clanged to attention. Hank could always see the shiny brass stamp on Greg's back when he sat up, "Maverick Light Industries, Inc.", it read, which was not entirely accurate.
In a voice that was what an American engineer thought a British person sounded like in the 18th century, Greg said, "Greetings! Pirelli's Private Detective Agency, no assignment too tawdry, no client too shady."
Hank cringed. He hoped she wasn't the sort of rotten to the core client who took airs.
She leveled a gaze at Hank -- looking past Greg like he was furniture -- and right then Hank knew he was the only man in the room, in the building, hell, in the city. It was him and this broad who could melt a city block with her gaze. Something in the back of his mind recognized the gaze, and deep in the basement of his brain, alarm bells were ringing. He shut them off.
Her voice came out lyrical, low, like she was used to talking to woozy men with suddenly sweaty hands and stammered speech. "I have a job that needs a man of your," she looked him over quickly, he tried not to black out, "discretion."
Hank bit on his lower lip hard, "I'm your man... We're your men, I mean."
She continued talking, he barely had enough time to get out of the way. Not that he'd want to...
"Dead bodies don’t scare you, do they Mr. Pirelli?"
"As long I didn't know them, or like ‘em."
"You don't know this person."
"We're not talking about hypothetical dead bodies then."
"No."
"It's not anything too illegal is it? We charge extra for that."
"The death is being investigated by the real cops, but there was something that the deceased had of mine. A trinket." She cast her eyes down, fiddled with her purse, then fluttered her eyelashes up at him, "But it's of enormous value to me, sentimental."
Ah, thought Hank, some ill-gotten gain that's worth a few million more than the client says, and has more problems than trying to collar a rabid bobcat in zero G. It could be nothing, but it never was.
The small pile of payment-due e-cards floated menacingly on his Desktop. They were friendly; how a firing squad captain might be before he gave you a poorly lit cigarette and asked you about last words. Rent, utilities, bills bills bills, and Greg was due for a power-core overhaul two years ago. And then there was the Debt. Hank was, in short, not a man who could be picky about his assignments, even ones that were so obviously meant to put him six feet under.
"We'll take it."
"I'll send a message to your Desktop."
With a last flickering glance at the room, she slinked out. Hank watched her leave.
"Hank. Are you certain that was a prudent move?"
"What's the worst that can happen?"
"You could be riddled with laser holes, specifically through your main fluid pump, and I'd be sent unceremoniously to a scrap yard."
"It's called a heart. And don't be ridiculous, they'd sell you back into service."
Greg sniffed, a buzzy noise that sounded like a malfunctioning voice amplifier. "Slavery, is what we call it Hank."
It was just a gut feeling, the danger, but it had happened so often before Hank knew it to be more of a certainty. Could he risk it? Necessity was the mother of Invention. It was also the slightly abusive foster mother of Putting Yourself In Harms Way and Acting Against Your Better Judgement.
Hank pushed the e-cards around his Desktop, they flickered and scattered noiselessly. They would not be ignored for much longer. And then there was the Debt that did not come with an e-card. It came with a craft-bomb that detonates just as you start your ship, or with a finger of a loved one in a small box. If Necessity was the Mother of so many things, Debt was the alcoholic step-dad with the taste for cheap scotch and way with Louisville sluggers.
I hope you enjoy it.
She walked in, more serious than a third heart attack with more curves than the back-streets of San Fran. She had a slink; a way of moving across the room that made every Tom, Dick and Harry eye her like their lives depended on it.
Hank knew she was no good, rotten, down to the core; but he also knew he hadn't had a paying client in three months and a Debt whose financer had gone from Breaking Knee-caps Mad to Dispose of Through A Woodchipper Wrathful; besides with legs like hers, discretion went out the window like last week's newspaper.
This was the problem of course. Every very major problem he'd had to shoot, beg, and drive very fast away from involved exactly this sort of dame.
Greg beeped awake. His dull green body clanged to attention. Hank could always see the shiny brass stamp on Greg's back when he sat up, "Maverick Light Industries, Inc.", it read, which was not entirely accurate.
In a voice that was what an American engineer thought a British person sounded like in the 18th century, Greg said, "Greetings! Pirelli's Private Detective Agency, no assignment too tawdry, no client too shady."
Hank cringed. He hoped she wasn't the sort of rotten to the core client who took airs.
She leveled a gaze at Hank -- looking past Greg like he was furniture -- and right then Hank knew he was the only man in the room, in the building, hell, in the city. It was him and this broad who could melt a city block with her gaze. Something in the back of his mind recognized the gaze, and deep in the basement of his brain, alarm bells were ringing. He shut them off.
Her voice came out lyrical, low, like she was used to talking to woozy men with suddenly sweaty hands and stammered speech. "I have a job that needs a man of your," she looked him over quickly, he tried not to black out, "discretion."
Hank bit on his lower lip hard, "I'm your man... We're your men, I mean."
She continued talking, he barely had enough time to get out of the way. Not that he'd want to...
"Dead bodies don’t scare you, do they Mr. Pirelli?"
"As long I didn't know them, or like ‘em."
"You don't know this person."
"We're not talking about hypothetical dead bodies then."
"No."
"It's not anything too illegal is it? We charge extra for that."
"The death is being investigated by the real cops, but there was something that the deceased had of mine. A trinket." She cast her eyes down, fiddled with her purse, then fluttered her eyelashes up at him, "But it's of enormous value to me, sentimental."
Ah, thought Hank, some ill-gotten gain that's worth a few million more than the client says, and has more problems than trying to collar a rabid bobcat in zero G. It could be nothing, but it never was.
The small pile of payment-due e-cards floated menacingly on his Desktop. They were friendly; how a firing squad captain might be before he gave you a poorly lit cigarette and asked you about last words. Rent, utilities, bills bills bills, and Greg was due for a power-core overhaul two years ago. And then there was the Debt. Hank was, in short, not a man who could be picky about his assignments, even ones that were so obviously meant to put him six feet under.
"We'll take it."
"I'll send a message to your Desktop."
With a last flickering glance at the room, she slinked out. Hank watched her leave.
"Hank. Are you certain that was a prudent move?"
"What's the worst that can happen?"
"You could be riddled with laser holes, specifically through your main fluid pump, and I'd be sent unceremoniously to a scrap yard."
"It's called a heart. And don't be ridiculous, they'd sell you back into service."
Greg sniffed, a buzzy noise that sounded like a malfunctioning voice amplifier. "Slavery, is what we call it Hank."
It was just a gut feeling, the danger, but it had happened so often before Hank knew it to be more of a certainty. Could he risk it? Necessity was the mother of Invention. It was also the slightly abusive foster mother of Putting Yourself In Harms Way and Acting Against Your Better Judgement.
Hank pushed the e-cards around his Desktop, they flickered and scattered noiselessly. They would not be ignored for much longer. And then there was the Debt that did not come with an e-card. It came with a craft-bomb that detonates just as you start your ship, or with a finger of a loved one in a small box. If Necessity was the Mother of so many things, Debt was the alcoholic step-dad with the taste for cheap scotch and way with Louisville sluggers.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Christmas Family Letter 2007
Hey, all four of my blog readers out there!
I know you are wondering what sort of perks you can get by reloading this page every week. What exclusive content can be gleaned from this lowly blog that you just can't get from offering me some gin and a friendly punch in the arm? Well, gentle readers, this is what you get, an (anonymized) copy of the Niteowl Family Christmas Letter! All for your greedy little eyes!
Now stop pestering me!
(jk! pester me! pester me!I need your attention! There are like, hundreds of millions of blogs out there, so thanks for browsing this one).
Another year has come and gone in the land of rain and ridiculous real estate prices, and the Smiths haven't changed too much.
Sometime around May or thereabouts, we moved from the wonderful and walkable West-City to the less walkable and sort of wonderful (but much more spacious) City East. We acquired a 3 bedroom townhouse through much hand-wringing and not a few close calls. We now have a stamp-sized backyard, a finely neglected garden, and an entire bedroom to ourselves.
Mary is working part-time at a long-term care facility, with Lola (grandma) Smith taking care of Jane on the days she works. Mary enjoys it, and has gotten offers for more hours at another facility, but reasons that if she's going to spend time with people that fart incessantly, can't quite clean themselves, and prefer bland food, those people might as well be her daughter.
Joe is still at the University as a Systems Analyst, and is eagerly anticipating his retirement in thirty odd years. His commute time has gone from the reasonable 30 minutes to the I Hope You Enjoy Reading 60 minutes. Luckily, Joe does enjoy reading, and tries to think of his commute as being driven to work in a very large taxi.
Jane has grown considerably. There are clothes that no longer fit, toys that are far too childish for her, and the whole idea of crawling is downright repugnant. She motors around with the brazen eagerness of someone who has never quite had a bad fall. She enjoys playing with pots and pans, measuring spoons, and pieces of paper, all the while ignoring her motion and pressure sensitive talking stuffed rabbit and various sundry toys (almost all which have not been recalled by China - as far as we know). When she's doing anything, she finds the activity much more enjoyable if she's babbling at full volume. We both suspect we might have suffered low-grade ear-drum trauma, but what's a little deafness in the 200-232khz range for your daughter?
Molly is still Molly. She sleeps, then when she needs a break from that, she finds another place to take a nap; upon being completely exhausted from that, she might wander to another place and grab a snooze. Between all this activity she tries to stay out of Jane's way, which is becoming harder and harder as Jane's foot speed reaches unsettling speeds. Molly has also gotten a fan in a little four year old boy four doors down who can apparently “talk about Molly all day” and treats every visit from her like she's a combination of the more talented Beatles, the Pope, and Santa.
Wishing you the very best of the season,
and every season, now that we think of it,
The Smith Family
I know you are wondering what sort of perks you can get by reloading this page every week. What exclusive content can be gleaned from this lowly blog that you just can't get from offering me some gin and a friendly punch in the arm? Well, gentle readers, this is what you get, an (anonymized) copy of the Niteowl Family Christmas Letter! All for your greedy little eyes!
Now stop pestering me!
(jk! pester me! pester me!I need your attention! There are like, hundreds of millions of blogs out there, so thanks for browsing this one).
Another year has come and gone in the land of rain and ridiculous real estate prices, and the Smiths haven't changed too much.
Sometime around May or thereabouts, we moved from the wonderful and walkable West-City to the less walkable and sort of wonderful (but much more spacious) City East. We acquired a 3 bedroom townhouse through much hand-wringing and not a few close calls. We now have a stamp-sized backyard, a finely neglected garden, and an entire bedroom to ourselves.
Mary is working part-time at a long-term care facility, with Lola (grandma) Smith taking care of Jane on the days she works. Mary enjoys it, and has gotten offers for more hours at another facility, but reasons that if she's going to spend time with people that fart incessantly, can't quite clean themselves, and prefer bland food, those people might as well be her daughter.
Joe is still at the University as a Systems Analyst, and is eagerly anticipating his retirement in thirty odd years. His commute time has gone from the reasonable 30 minutes to the I Hope You Enjoy Reading 60 minutes. Luckily, Joe does enjoy reading, and tries to think of his commute as being driven to work in a very large taxi.
Jane has grown considerably. There are clothes that no longer fit, toys that are far too childish for her, and the whole idea of crawling is downright repugnant. She motors around with the brazen eagerness of someone who has never quite had a bad fall. She enjoys playing with pots and pans, measuring spoons, and pieces of paper, all the while ignoring her motion and pressure sensitive talking stuffed rabbit and various sundry toys (almost all which have not been recalled by China - as far as we know). When she's doing anything, she finds the activity much more enjoyable if she's babbling at full volume. We both suspect we might have suffered low-grade ear-drum trauma, but what's a little deafness in the 200-232khz range for your daughter?
Molly is still Molly. She sleeps, then when she needs a break from that, she finds another place to take a nap; upon being completely exhausted from that, she might wander to another place and grab a snooze. Between all this activity she tries to stay out of Jane's way, which is becoming harder and harder as Jane's foot speed reaches unsettling speeds. Molly has also gotten a fan in a little four year old boy four doors down who can apparently “talk about Molly all day” and treats every visit from her like she's a combination of the more talented Beatles, the Pope, and Santa.
Wishing you the very best of the season,
and every season, now that we think of it,
The Smith Family
Monday, December 10, 2007
People You Meet on Transit #2
The Uppity
There are a certain class of people who take transit who either believe that they are Too Good for Transit, or else that I'm Only Taking Transit As A Stopgap. Maybe their errari is in the shop, maybe their Jaguar car-pool is experiencing a rough patch, or maybe their job as a mortuary transcriptionist doesn't pay as much as they think. They've deigned to wallow with the masses, as it were, muck about in the public transportation system and bear it. Hey, they might have a fun story to tell at their next Thomas Pynchon Book Club meeting.
There are a few tell-tale signs of the Uppity Up. The first is that their clothes costs more than all the bus-riders clothes combined. The second is that they invariably take a seat, then decide that in order to block the great unwashed from sitting next to them and bathing them in body-odour and/or the overpowering vapours of cheap gin, they take up a whole 'nother seat with their bag.
Now, it might be that their bag contains some secret service document that, if released, would spell the end of the free world as we know it, and lead to a second epoch of civilization, one ruled by a small set of cliquey, hyper intelligent raccoons. It might be they are carrying with them the only known live specimen of the Black Plague. These are all reasonable reasons to take up two seats when you are not, in fact, attached to your Siamese twin.
Every other excuse makes you look like an Uppity Up.
It takes a certain sort of willful ignorance to sit at your seat, your immaculate Italian leather atttache case laying smugly beside you, while what looks to be hundreds of transit riders hang on for dear life, each eyeing the semi-empty seat with covetous eyes and pure anger in their hearts.
People being what people are, generally don't say anything, and just wait out their short and painful bus ride, all wondering how plausible their defense for justifiable homicide would be if they plunged their umbrella through the Uppity Up's heart one or thirty nine times. Sometimes someone speaks up, and asks the Uppity Up, if they could possibly move their attache case so that the incredibly decrepit lady with the 30 pounds of groceries and the advanced case of varicose veins might sit down. The Uppity Up, will feign surprise, as if their vision had not been entirely obscured by the fifty transit riders all standing.
Monday, November 12, 2007
People You Meet on Transit #1
I know blogs are supposed to be about personal experiences and what not. I've tried to shy away from that, mostly because my personal experiences are as incredibly boring as you can imagine. I mean, it's life. We aren't zooming through the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. Life is life, you know, work, kids, family, COMMUTING. So, in a probably ill-fated attempt to find things to write about (see my attempts at book reviews, or thoughts of the day, or even random wikipedia entries), I present to you, People Who Take Transit.
One group that can always fill my quota for the word 'fuck' in a casual sentence are the construction workers.
"So, fuck man, I was, fucking, like, doing that fucking job, right? And fucking, fuck, like, I dunno, that fucking guy just wasn't listening."
"No fucking way. That's fucked."
"You still having that fucking thing. That thing you were fucking talking about?"
"Fuck yeah."
"Alright, alright, I'll give you call later."
"Fucking eh."
It's awesome. I'm not sure what the purpose of the word 'fuck' is in those sentences. They are kinda like filler. Like so many proust quotes at a New York socialites cocktail party, it's just fluff to fill out the speech.
I'm not sure what it is about construction workers or blue collar workers in general, but I usually feel the need to be involved in some manly activity, or to, in some way, justify my manliness in the face of such raw testosterone filled men. I mean, they run big engines, or 'rigs', their toolbox and its contents costs more than my new quad core box, they have union reps, they talk non-ironically about bowling leagues (probably not the last point, that's just their lives being filtered through my understanding of Fred Flinstone).
It's probably just me, being a white collar weanie, in my khakis and sweaters. And I'm certain that the feelings aren't reciprocated. I'm certain that the forklift operator I sat next to yesterday isn't suddenly thinking if he has read up on the latest differences between Plasma, LCDs, and DLP, or hoping that the nerdily guy next to him doesn't ask him if the latest ASUS chipsets are out.
There, is, if you will, a hierarchy of Things A Guy Should Be. Dirty, knowledgeable about anything that runs on gas, a passing fancy for military weaponry (you should, for instance, know the difference between an AK-47 and an M-16 and know that the most over used handgun in action films today is the Desert Eagle), and a sundry other things that I can't publicly discuss lest I be found out by the Guy Brotherhood and beaten with rusty carbuerators (I should probably know what those are). In this hierarchy, geeky things just dont' apply. Things I like to know about, are way down on the list. That is, if you take a broad cross-section of guys.
What am I getting at? I'm not sure. Maybe it's that the construction guys on transit make me seriously consider picking up the latest issue of Lowrider and have a quick browse through Wikipedia to figure out where a winch goes and how it works. Maybe this is just so much conversational 'fuck', if you will, in the great big blather that is the blogosphere.
One group that can always fill my quota for the word 'fuck' in a casual sentence are the construction workers.
"So, fuck man, I was, fucking, like, doing that fucking job, right? And fucking, fuck, like, I dunno, that fucking guy just wasn't listening."
"No fucking way. That's fucked."
"You still having that fucking thing. That thing you were fucking talking about?"
"Fuck yeah."
"Alright, alright, I'll give you call later."
"Fucking eh."
It's awesome. I'm not sure what the purpose of the word 'fuck' is in those sentences. They are kinda like filler. Like so many proust quotes at a New York socialites cocktail party, it's just fluff to fill out the speech.
I'm not sure what it is about construction workers or blue collar workers in general, but I usually feel the need to be involved in some manly activity, or to, in some way, justify my manliness in the face of such raw testosterone filled men. I mean, they run big engines, or 'rigs', their toolbox and its contents costs more than my new quad core box, they have union reps, they talk non-ironically about bowling leagues (probably not the last point, that's just their lives being filtered through my understanding of Fred Flinstone).
It's probably just me, being a white collar weanie, in my khakis and sweaters. And I'm certain that the feelings aren't reciprocated. I'm certain that the forklift operator I sat next to yesterday isn't suddenly thinking if he has read up on the latest differences between Plasma, LCDs, and DLP, or hoping that the nerdily guy next to him doesn't ask him if the latest ASUS chipsets are out.
There, is, if you will, a hierarchy of Things A Guy Should Be. Dirty, knowledgeable about anything that runs on gas, a passing fancy for military weaponry (you should, for instance, know the difference between an AK-47 and an M-16 and know that the most over used handgun in action films today is the Desert Eagle), and a sundry other things that I can't publicly discuss lest I be found out by the Guy Brotherhood and beaten with rusty carbuerators (I should probably know what those are). In this hierarchy, geeky things just dont' apply. Things I like to know about, are way down on the list. That is, if you take a broad cross-section of guys.
What am I getting at? I'm not sure. Maybe it's that the construction guys on transit make me seriously consider picking up the latest issue of Lowrider and have a quick browse through Wikipedia to figure out where a winch goes and how it works. Maybe this is just so much conversational 'fuck', if you will, in the great big blather that is the blogosphere.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Random Wikipedia Article : Jiffs
Oh, you just KNOW you are running out of blog post ideas when you decide to write about a random wikipedia article. This week's article will be about Jiffs.
This is apparently a perjorative term used by the British Intelligence toward the Indian National Army. I'm not sure why sides in a battle always decide to think of slang terms to 'put down' the enemy. It's not like the other side cares. It doesn't affect their ability or willingness to kill you with whatever weapon that their government has trained them in. It's a little like throwing marshmallows at the State Puff Marshmallow Man. I mean, it's kinda, oddly ironic and everything, but the Marshmallow Man doesn't really care.
And isn't there that whole spiel about sticks and stones? I mean, it's one thing to use names and words that have been taboo in your community and society for generations. I can understand (even if it is still, on an intellectual level, absurd) how one might get riled up about that. But someone who's job it is to kill you, calling you a name they had just made up? It kinda takes away the sting.
Some might point out that it's a way of dehumanizing the enemy. Of putting a false face on the other teenagers who are about to riddle your body with inconvenient holes unless you do the same thing to them first. I mean, you certainly wouldn't want to start calling them by their real names. "Oh yeah, I sure shot Hector up good there. Good and dead. And Johnny too, plugged him before he did that military objective thing that his high command -- that has never met him -- just ordered him to do." Yeah, I can see how that might be a bit creepifying.
That just might be an interesting defensive strategy. Give all your soldiers clearly defined named tags with a few factoids. So when they die, the enemy has to read out their name, and perhaps the fact that Mark here really liked the Rolling Stones but nothing from the Steel Wheels tour.
Man, that would sow all sorts of conscience within an army.
This is apparently a perjorative term used by the British Intelligence toward the Indian National Army. I'm not sure why sides in a battle always decide to think of slang terms to 'put down' the enemy. It's not like the other side cares. It doesn't affect their ability or willingness to kill you with whatever weapon that their government has trained them in. It's a little like throwing marshmallows at the State Puff Marshmallow Man. I mean, it's kinda, oddly ironic and everything, but the Marshmallow Man doesn't really care.
And isn't there that whole spiel about sticks and stones? I mean, it's one thing to use names and words that have been taboo in your community and society for generations. I can understand (even if it is still, on an intellectual level, absurd) how one might get riled up about that. But someone who's job it is to kill you, calling you a name they had just made up? It kinda takes away the sting.
Some might point out that it's a way of dehumanizing the enemy. Of putting a false face on the other teenagers who are about to riddle your body with inconvenient holes unless you do the same thing to them first. I mean, you certainly wouldn't want to start calling them by their real names. "Oh yeah, I sure shot Hector up good there. Good and dead. And Johnny too, plugged him before he did that military objective thing that his high command -- that has never met him -- just ordered him to do." Yeah, I can see how that might be a bit creepifying.
That just might be an interesting defensive strategy. Give all your soldiers clearly defined named tags with a few factoids. So when they die, the enemy has to read out their name, and perhaps the fact that Mark here really liked the Rolling Stones but nothing from the Steel Wheels tour.
Man, that would sow all sorts of conscience within an army.
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Day 8 : 2025 07 06 : A last hurrah
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