Today is not my birthday. Again.

I don't have any cake, or any candles for that matter, with which to repeat the Flaming Lamington Fortress of last year, so I've made do with a couple of bits of bread and nutella.



Nom nom nom.

I'm split 50/50 on whether or not to acknowledge the date. Keeping mum is an admission that events some eleven years ago still affect me, and remarking on it here is the same, only public. But, well, any excuse to eat nutella, I say. Which is the whole motivation behind the exercise.

Free issue of Weird Tales

While I remember, for a limited time you can download the last issue of Weird Tales as PDF for free. It will set you back 13MB bandwidth and a couple of hours of your life to read it, which is a pretty good deal if you ask me.

Not as good as the real dead-tree object, though, I love the way the magazine is floppy, and falls open on the desk without a fight so I need not touch it to read it, and my fingers are always too dry and I have trouble gripping and turning the pages.

But you're not downloading it for floppiness. You're downloading it for stories.

Insects, Water, And

There's a honey bee in the bath tub.

Just one.

I look around, but can't find any others. I've no idea how it got in. The window is shut. The walls lack gaping holes. Mysterious.

It's trapped in a drop of water the size of my thumbnail. It's the only trace of water in the bath, and here it is, mired fast. I guess it was thirsty. Too thirsty not to fall in face first. It lies on its side, and as I watch, struggles to pull its wings free of the water tension. It spins. It fails.

First ants die in my kettle, now bees in the bathtub.

For a couple of weeks back there, I was good. And I mean good; not 'okay', not 'fine', I was seriously feeling good and great and peppy. I half thought that maybe feeling 'okay', the likes of which I haven't been for a long time, that simply not being in a clear-cut negative frame of mind was so unfamiliar that just 'okay' felt fucking awesome. But no, I was good. I felt cheerful, I felt hopeful. Who knows what brought it on, I don't know, I don't care, I only know that it was wonderful and I wish it was my default setting, I wish I had more days like that than I do.

I said to myself, walking through the carpark with a bag of bananas, that something good was going to happen.

That wasn't hope. I knew it as I know the ridges of my teeth. It was a truth. I went looking at people passing me, opening cupboards at home, because this good thing could be anywhere. I was certain of it.

Which should have triggered some alarms, because my certainty is generally fucked up.

Nothing good happened. That sunshine in my blood went away.

I'm okay.

Maybe it's this sleepfuck I'm going through, maybe it's this thing I read, that thing I discovered, these words I didn't hear, but water is rising. Maybe it has already risen, and I'm already under, and all I'm doing is watching ice form over the surface. As Kirsten said, it's coming up from below. I feel it tugging around the edges and that alone sends me into a panic, twists my gut, leadens my joins, I blaspheme, I don't want to go back.

I know these things come in cycles, nothing will last forever, everything passes, and I don't want to whinge...but after a year or so of poisonmind I was hoping for more than a couple of weeks of 'okay'.

I leave the bee where it is. It isn't strong enough. It's drowning in nothing.

don't you wish you'd never met her

It's like I'm at some party. I don't really know anyone here, and have managed to find niche and nook in the peripheral of groups, but I'm not engaging in any conversation and am drinking too fast. I'm nervous. Sleep is here. I caught a glimpse when I first arrived, and that was all it took. That one hard thump in my chest, and that shrinkage in my longer bones, and the party was doomed. At once devastated and ecstatic knowing I breathed the same air, inhabited the same space. Julius Caesar could have been present and I wouldn't have noticed. I've eyes only for Sleep.

Sleep doesn't even know I'm here. I force myself to remain, in this room, with this conversation about who knows what I'm not listening, because as much as I want to follow Sleep from room to room, I don't want to be some sad puppy dog chasing coat tails. It's enough to acknowledge the wreckage the sight of Sleep has done to me.

I watch as Sleep passes by the door, moving down the corridor, arms linked with some other man.

Another hard thump in my chest, further shrinkage in my bones. I can taste my jealousy, and wash my mouth with the last of my drink.

Someone else following Sleep pauses at the door, their gaze lingering and yearning. They turn and enter the room.

Oshitoshitoshit it's Insomnia. And there's an empty seat next to me.

Fuck.

I angle my body away, towards the group I'm not a part of, which helps not a bit. Insomnia makes a bee line for me, flops down heavily and too close and starts sounding off right away. Awkward sentences. Observations intended to be witty and clever but come off as try hard. Nervous laughter.

I feel like a toad, but I can't be seen with Insomnia, oh gods, imagine if Sleep saw me with Insomnia, it'd be a death sentence, a lifetime rejection. Not that it matters, Sleep is off somewhere sleeping with that man, but I can't, I really can't. I mutter something and get up, striding away with purpose and the illusion of direction.

I catch a glimpse of Sleep, lounging against a banister, one hand on a girl's arm. Thump. Shrink. Fuck. Keep moving.

There's a spare bench on the patio, and I slide on, giving those others at the table a nod. They read my posture, the jumpy dart of my eyes. One of them obliges and sits up, hiding me further.

Insomnia is not so green a hunter, and barrels out of the house with too much self-conscious bluster. A chair is snagged, steel legs screeching over the ground, and pulled up again much too close. Again, the prattle, the chatter, the inane comments that have no malice behind them but are so thoughtless as to be war-starting offensive. I give the others an apologetic shrug. Insomnia's embarrassing and embarrassed miasma chokes the patio. The group says something about it getting cold, and head inside. I follow.

There is Sleep, disappearing into a bathroom, pulling someone by the hand.

And this way, I destroy the entire party. With every passing encounter with Sleep, seeing that who I desire making out with every single other person present, bitterness hardens my joints and sets the line of my mouth. I sit myself at still other groups, knowing full well I bring about their doom as Insomnia, the one person I actively dislike, follows in my wake. The atmosphere is destroyed. People are leaving. I'm running out of cover. I run out of cover.

I sit on the couch where I started, staring at the carpet, and Insomnia talks to me. That voice is wearing away at my core, chiseling away the veneer of civilisation and polished manners, and fury raises its head to make a fitting companion of bitterness.

I tell myself this is fine. This entire situation is just fine. Sleep can go sleep with all the strays in the world. I don't care. Really. This is my choice.

I don't go as far as to make eye contact with Insomnia.

I'm fine. Really. I like it this way. I mean, I'm used to it. This is the way parties like this usually pan out, you know, I have a pathetic awkward loser magnet. People seem to think I want to listen. They just want to hear themselves talk, and need a cover. And Sleep, I mean, pfft. Who'd want that? Town bicycle, you know.

Insomnia never shuts up.

Five hours later, I'm in tears, but I can't leave, and Insomnia never shuts up. I'm on the verge, no, I am going to scream, the intent is there, the air is there, and Sleep walks into the room, nods at Insomnia, and holds out a hand.

I hate Sleep. I need Sleep. I'm starved and desperate and I take that hand without even the pretense of reluctance and let Sleep do away with me.

A couple of hours later, my alarm goes off. The bed is empty. Sleep is gone.

LOLarts

This is what happens when you only get three hours of sleep every night for a week; events pass you by. I mean to blog this earlier.

LOLarts just took place in San Francisco, an art exhibition celebrating LOLcats, something that started as an internet macro and has become something of an arts movement, generating it's own language, cultural gravitas, internal logic and a whole lot of laughter.

Andrew Macrae was one of the artists exhibited, putting his typewriter to work once again. He has uploaded the pieces on his art blog acid head war. His typewriter art has been featured twice by BoingBoing. Also, he rocketh muchly.

for archiving and propaganda purposes

• 17:56 Internal logic engine is churning nothing but contradictions. The mindscape is at war. #

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for archiving and propaganda purposes

• 12:50 @ronji i see that every other night; i'm guessing there's scheduled downtime which lands in the australian evening. #
• 22:05 I have escaped work with one (1) sausage in my bag. Although only a one off occurrence, this is a fine development. #
• 22:44 Honeysuckle is a fine compensation for having to walk home late at night. #
• 22:46 @MattStaggs This cheese kransky was born of the best sausage-makers in Melbourne, and it is MINE, PRECIOUS, MINE, IT CAME TO ME. #
• 23:09 @ciabatta *petpetpet* #
• 23:10 At the tone it will be 12:09am...dit...dit..dit...beeeeeep. BAKING TIME. #
• 00:02 @MattStaggs I hope your fresh and virginal Wednesday includes dinosaur biscuits. Mmmm. With little piggies. And fishies. #

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and then the tide came in

Sleep didn't acknowledge me till 5am last night, and the hours were long and nothing on my iPod was what I wanted to listen to. I suspect that will be making itself felt shortly. At least, I hope so. It'd be nice to sleep at a reasonable (ie, before 3am) hour tonight.

Ah, Melbourne. It's a chilly night, the rain has been lashing against my window, and my fingers are too cold to type properly. A good night for sitting at home with multiple cups of tea and a movie. Or doing tax. Meh.

Before I disappear into that dungeon of bizarre financial questions I do not understand I will share with you some things.

First; the Red Paper Lantern Medusa (for which I can find no wikipedia page).



The above link is to a Pink Tentacle article, which includes a video of raw footage shot by JAMSTEC, starting with a medusa and including a UFO at 6:11 and a poor jelly with its tentacles snared in the sub.

The JAMSTEC videos suggest that a variety of sea creatures regard the red paper lantern medusa as a safe place to establish temporary residence. In the video, the developing larvae of shrimp and sea spiders can be seen hitching extended rides on the jellyfish.

“We didn’t expect to find such a variety of organisms attached to the jellyfish,” said Dr. Dhugal Lindsay. “Humans apparently are not the only ones attracted to red paper lanterns.”

So, apparently hitch-hiking on a jellyfish is the done thing these days.

And at Zooillogix: Piglet Squid. Looong at that picture, I have the irrational urge to squeeze the little tyke till it pops.

ETA: Estimated tax return of $6. It didn't take long though, so I am thankful.

Find Your Way

While it wasn't probably wasn't included in design concepts at the time, hypertext is a choose your own adventure. The back button on browsers is a hell of a lot more painless than keeping one whole hand of fingers marking the pages of your last decisions, which is limited to five. The internet is one giant CYOA. Sometimes you die. Sometimes you find goatse. Sometimes you make it out alive.

I've actually done a proper one before, ish. I wrote out a html maze. Mapped it out on grid, inserted random numbers and lines, made sure there was actually a path from beginning to end, and then wrote one html page for every grid square, and made sure they all matched up, no matter what direction you came from. That was on geocities (anyone remember that?) back in 1996. YES. THAT IS HOW LONG I'VE BEEN FIDDLING WITH MY JUNK ONLINE.

Blogger being set up the way it is, I don't have the means of setting up a true, stand-alone static CYOA. Well, I could, but it'd be right pain in the ass getting all the urls set up.

The restrictions of doing a sort of live-action CYOA (a LARP CYOA? LOL? WTF?) worked to my advantage in this case. With each stage being rolled out once a night, the means of turning back, reneging a decision and choosing an alternate path are removed, which takes a huge load off. The fact that players won't see anything but the one path they choose is also a load off, as I discovered.

Here's the map of the first;



Which, as you can see, was a process of trial and error and I actually made it so I knew what I was doing, not you. And I still had no idea what I was doing.

At first I was skeptical on the idea; writing seven choices with branches, is that seven squared? Do I have to write 42 events when they'll only see 7? That's a lot of writing no one will see. To cut down, I started angling choices so that two different responses could lead to the same outcome - the ButlerBot completely ignoring you was useful for that. Using a scenario that was bare-bones simple - a conversation with only two participants and very little activity - was vital as well.

I also learned that at each level, the same information needs to be revealed, regardless of the decision that brought the reader there and what actually happens. Which I totally screwed up with the whole Lords of Heegurkurkur taking over the world thing.

Originally, there was only one way outcome out of all choices in all branches that saw you become a superhero, but I changed that at the last minute, for the hell of it.



Having learned all that, I was better prepared for the second one. The trick is actually to work backwards - establish the end point, and then deconstruct the steps to get there. Hence the narrative in this one made flowed significantly smoother. I also worked around having two streams with two sets of decisions by writing responses to each choice, and then having an overall 'next step' which all responses fed into, thus keeping it from branching out all over the place. Whether or not the pirate arrr!ed, dodged or shot the cowboy, the outcome was the same.

That said, bringing the two streams together meant I had to wait till the last night to actually write the end, and discovered I didn't want to do terrible battle with either, 'cause I liked them.

The last rule I couldn't break was inserting any choice that would see the reader die before the alloted time was over. My most powerful memory of reading CYOA in primary school was picking the book up and being dead within three page turns. Which kinda ruined the whole book and I didn't seem much point trying again after that. Although I would have liked to include some sticky deaths. It'd be easy to insert some, now I think about it. Just reveal you're dead, go back and repost according to the runner up choice. Hmm.

Anyway, there you are. I learned it so that you may use it. Now someone else write one! I want a go!

Doom. Doom. And also? Doom.

Here we see the Jules Verne burning up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. I would like to think that I would be just as spectacular to behold, should I ever make it back to Earth.

And should I ever make it back to Earth, I would find empty oceans;



As pointed out by deep sea news, this is already true. Tuna is already near extinct, catfish are discovering the joys of human flesh, beautiful platinum arowana are held in small tanks and sold for £200,000, and oarfish get themselves caught out of deep water.

If I'm lucky, I'll burn up in the sky and never see this.

But it is already true.

every time i lose altitude

It has taken me 27 years to figure out that yes, summer dresses are designed for summer. For the past 26 years I've been schlepping about in jeans and t-shirts on 40 degree days. I have no idea what I was trying to prove, but hallelujah I have seen the light. I barely noticed the mercury hit 33 today, 'cause I was too busy poncing about in my girly dress and bare feet, and being all, you know, not stinking hot and dying. I'm converted. Some more dresses and slip on shoes and I might even like summer. Pity about my blinding white legs.

Thanks for stopping by Jeff's blog while I trashed it. It went better than I expected, and look! I had no picture for the triumphant little old lady, so the mischievous KJ Bishop drew one:



I think she's adorable. No ninja or pirate could defeat that, not without the spectre of their mother and their mother's mother and their mother's sister and their great-great aunt rising up to haunt them with a vengeance. I love the milk carton, heh. Thanks Kirsten!

Sleep has been coy of late. She relents, eventually, but the nights are getting longer and I'm not seeing much of reasonable hours. It isn't too much of an issue right now, as I'm staring down a barrel loaded with a week and a half of afternoon shifts, but I suspect it will be a long season of sleeplessness.

I need to get back into the practice of making use of these hours. My insomnia muscle is out of shape.

desire the horse, depression the cart

Book of Longing was not the mindquake-causing work of emotive genius I was expecting. It was strangely unmoving, which was disappointing, but from that grew a stillness that was more than the absence of movement. The shapes created by the poetry and music fit in with the shadows One Hundred Years Of Solitude cast, and in that stillness the water was disturbed. Somewhere in depths we rarely venture something passed through. Something vast and so unknown it defies the imagination, and though we strive to give it form, it will forever remain a mystery. We know not what it was, what it is, what it might be. We are left only in the passage of its wake, and the water disturbed.

"Boo. Muthafucker."

Every week (or so) I do the dishes. Living alone and eating most meals at work doesn't generate dishes fast enough to warrant any further water usage. They get washed when either a) I run out of clean mugs, or b) I run out of space to stack the dirty mugs.

Total washed tonight: 21 assorted mugs and glasses, 3 be-sandwiched knives, 2 small tupperware containers for taking nuts to work, and the chopping board.

I dunno, that just seems sad. BUT I AM NOT ASHAMED.

Making a mug dirty right now.

One of the instant selling points about this flat was the bedroom window. It's huge. The view isn't of note, being other peoples' back yards and the rear of the shopping strip, but after the absolute desert wasteland view of my city apartment, it this window is like a magic window. I can actually see stuff out of it!

More than anything else, I can see the sky. The sky is huge, bigger than any other window I've had. My old bedroom window was sizable, but blocked when they built the units next door. The windows in Canberra were likewise cramped, or full of trees (not complaining about the trees, mind you).

If I have an evening at home, I can't not sit with the curtains open and the lights and computer off. I get myself a drink, turn some music on and watch the sky after the sun has set. Twilight is a strange time, full of shy colours and timid shades, all hiding themselves away. What starts as a silhouette against the fading light becomes lit up against the night. Once the stars are out, I wish on them, and then go back to work.

No, I don't need a TV.

"What in sam hell is a 'puma'?"

For the next few days I will be hijacking guestblogging MAKING A TOTAL ASS OUT OF MYSELF over on blog de VanderMeer. Which, on thinking it over, is nothing that you guys haven't seen before.

I'll be running another CYOA, which will involve two separate streams that will effect each other, because clearly I need that sort of mad organisational brainfart in my day. If any of you are interested in giving it a whirl, please head on over and I'll be forever in your debt if you show the uninitiated how we roll. It's significantly less crap than the last one, as I had a better idea of what I was doing this time around. I'll post the flow charts for both after this one has ended.

If you've just come from Jeff's blog, hi! Welcome! And how! Feel free to poke around, make disparaging remarks, and what not. This is a personal blog, so while I do talk about books and writing, I also talk about chocolate cake and ponies and the state of my toenails. Be warned. I'm about to do some personal blogging right now, after this line break. Ready?

Liz Gorinsky's eye for an interesting show saw us sitting on the floor of the Ding Dong watching gothic/industrial tribal tap dancers moonwalk. Most excellent. It got me thinking, and I've decided that there is nothing about tap dancing that isn't awesome. Not merely the deep rhythm and astonishing dexterity involved, but that they turn the earth into a percussion instrument, and who honestly doesn't enjoy stomping around making lots of noise? Tap dancing is muchly awesome.

Yet, not cool. Still. Liz said it came with that 1940s vibe, and I have to agree. Despite all contemporary developments and acquisitions, it still carries a huge suitcase of lame ass dork. I tried to put myself in the situation of coming out as a tap dancer in high school, and it didn't work.

Go you awesome tap dancers. Stomp that suitcase to the curb.

Confession: I have an intense artist crush on this guy.





Not only is his art so beautifully whimsical and simple and sad and delightful, but his taste in music resonates with my bones. I devour his art, then I devour the music, and then I pine away the time between now and the next time he updates his journal. Every musician he uses I note down and hunt out. His first name is Tobias, I have no idea what any of his posts say, and I kind of like it that way. Art transcends language, and feeling transcends art. More and more and more such pictures at http://tebe-interesno.livejournal.com/

Random: A' DEEZ NUUUUUTZ?!



The whole bag is full of crazy mutation peanuts. They're like, conjoined peanut twin pod babies. Must be a tough life, being a conjoined peanut twin pod baby. I eat you, put you out of your misery. Nom nom nom.

Fight or Flight! Or Saving.

I've been watching the current economic meltdown in much the same way I watch the footy season - I'm not. I own stocks in exactly nothing, I have exactly no debt, I don't even own a car to be bothered by rising fuel prices, I'm not even enough of a consumer to be particularly fazed with the idea of rising prices, and so it has nothing to do with me. Yet despite having nothing to do with me, it still affects my life, and that puts me out a bit. I fail to see why I should suffer the consequences of decisions that, again, had nothing to do with me.

Due to the current state of the Australian dollar, that tour of Tibet I've been eying off has risen in price by ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. My heart, it bleeds. Why for must the company list their prices in euros?

I can still afford it, but...uh, not if the dollar gets any worse. My stomach did that hard little clench thing when I discovered this, which indicated to me that I'd already decided to go, I just hadn't realised it yet. Given I still harbour ideas of moving states and going back to uni, I'd rather spend less on travel than more in the long run.

Oh, doldrums. I contemplated my other destinations of choice, being Mongolia and Russia, and didn't even do any googling. I've already an idea of tour prices in those countries, and it would only cost more.

But then I got talking with a co-worker, and remembered that Jetstar, a budget airline here, fly to Osaka. And checked their prices. AND GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST RETURN TO OSAKA FOR $700? I could do the bottom half of Japan! Hell, at that price, I could spend a fortnight just futzing about Osaka and Kyoto and Tokyo again. It seems wasteful, returning to a country I've already visited when there's so much of the world to explore, but the thought of going back made me so excited. Something of a false glee, I know, wholly contaminated by the fact that I had such a good time last time. To know that I can get there on such a cheap airfare is...wow. My stomach is doing flip-flops now just thinking about it. I'm concentrating on not digging out my guide book again.

I'm incredibly fortunate that the only way the current crazy economy will truly affect me is in my travel plans. I'm never going to have trouble paying bills or feeding myself. I'll never own a home, but I resigned myself to that a while ago. But I've come to realise that, right now, I need travel rather the same way I need quiet time and laughing time and the odd bar of chocolate. I need something to look forward to, and I need something to remind me that the world is an amazing place, I need something so unexpected it will shake me out of my head. A future without something new and unknown and astonishing is a bleak future, for any definition of 'something'.

My kettle has become some sort of ants' graveyard. It's where they go to die. Horribly. I don't really get why they aren't going for bread crumbs or checking out the water in the sink. Possibly because such activities aren't lethal.

Whatever. I drink the water that killed them anyway.

Shadow Queen

Deb and I were fresh meat together at Clarion South 2005, and you know, if no other good came from those six weeks at least I met her there.

Fortunately, a whole lotta good came from those six weeks, as she went on to write this...thing, this story, this...showcase of how freakin' vindictive she is. Which I mean in the nicest possible way, of course, but holy fuck. I haven't read a book with such relentless drive for ages. Matilde is ruler in waiting, but due to hostile intervention (that's such a polite way of saying it) has her home, position and family ripped out from beneath her, and must go about winning them back using wits alone. Deb has perfected the knack of writing her protagonist out of an impossible situation only by writing her into a different impossible situation, over and over. It's OARSUM.

Allen & Unwin are pushing it largely as straight fantasy, which I think is misleading. This is political, machiavellian, more than fantastic. And it's also fucking brilliant more than fantastic too. I got too caught up in reading rather than actually analysing and critting the MS, which is always a good sign. (Except for Deb, who had to put up with a lot of "OMG WTF NOOO!" in the margins.)

Book one is now available fore pre-order here, here, and here.

drone

Call it a compound fracture. Call it a repetative strain injury.

I can't tell the difference between what is good for me and what is not any more. I called time out and removed myself from the world and instantly felt better. Isn't that good for me? I just want to stop feeling bad. It's like when you're sick; the instant you stop feeling sick is a marvellous moment, and it's easy to confuse not feeling sick with being well again. It takes normal activities, like getting a drink or having a shower, still being difficult and challenging and taking more energy than you have to remind you that just becuase you don't feel sick doesn't at all mean you're well.

I have that every time I pull my vanishing trick. That I no longer need to worry about all the consequences of my interaction with others because I'm not interacting any more is a bigger load off than I ever imagine, every time, every single time. Once cut off, it seems like a lot of fuss over nothing. That I'm being silly. That I should just get right back in amongst it all. At least I've learned not to go with that urge. I've learned to appreciate an empty inbox and a phone with no new messages. Still I have no time, but this quiet is something I need. I have to take up as little space as possible, be as small as possible, as irrelevent as possible.

But I don't know if it's doing me any good. A respite, but not necessary helping. I mean, how does running and hiding accomplish anything? It doesn't. It never has. I've taken tenative steps. Maybe replying to email doesn't seem like such a big deal, that I'm being silly again. It's no small decision here. And maybe it was wrong. It just brought all this....this whatever it is, back to the surface. Disturbed the water. What is this, I don't know, stress and fear and anxiety because every thing I've said and done and every choice I've made this year has been...not right. Not necessarily wrong, but not right. It filters down through the channels to the small things, where now small decisions on what to eat for dinner, whether to take my umbrella, whether to reply, what to say, are all not right. A lot of them go so far as to be wrong. Then there's the waiting, and waiting, to see if what I said was wrong, if my doubts were founded, if I'm just being silly. I can't take the waiting. It is better to say nothing at all.

Gmail also appears to be eating emails. I could be wrong. I don't know. I'd resend them, but then, maybe all my emails are getting through fine. Resending would then be infringing on a person's right not to reply. I don't know. It's better to say nothing at all.

This isn't helping. I won't build up any sort of resiliance or immunity to the world unless I expose myself to it. But then...but then the world isn't like chicken pox. I'm not getting stronger. I jump off this cliff over and over because if I do it often enough, I might become immune to gravity.

But I'm not well. I was going to go home and see the family and the dogs but I have a cough, and I didn't want to wake mum with it, and if it isn't just hayfever I can't be sick around her. So I haven't gone home. I'm spending this day alone. I couldn't go home because I thought it was hayfever but maybe it isn't. I was sick last night. I lied, it wasn't motion sickness on the train. I know what motion sickness feels like, ant that wasn't it. It was a fast heat and sudden nausea, that which comes before collapsing. I thought it would pass but it didn't. I couldn't go home because the trains had ended. I didn't want to take a taxi becuase I was sure I was going to pass out. There was no one I could call. I had to stay there. I coudln't even sit I had to lie on the couch, and there was no one I could call ad nothing I could do till the first train of the morning. I think maybe I'm too tired. Too tired. I've slept, and I thought that would solve everything but I felt weak again in the shower, and I only sat at my desk five minutes before I started shaking again, and I felt sick again. I'm glad I have a laptop. I can't sit, so I guess today will be given over to watching movies in bed.

I'm not thinking clearly, I know.

But I don't remember the last time I did.

And I'm not immune to gravity.

c. HAMMER TIME.

“I beg your pardon,” the ButlerBot says.

“HAMMER TIME!” you roar, and manifest your true identity of SuperFuturoidThor! With Hammer! And knock the ButlerBot’s head off. Which is mighty satisfying. Infiltrating the networks of those fools who would bring about a New World Order through alliances with the Lords of Heegurkurkur is tough, and requires significantly more patience than the ButlerBot displayed, but someone has to do it.

“Whoa.”

You turn, and find that a Lord of Heegurkurkur has manifested in the middle of the pillows, and is sinking into the mattress. It looks rather like rice pudding gone bad.

“This isn’t part of the plan.” The Lord oozes nervously, eyeing your hammer. “Have you seen my sacrificial breakfast around?”

“Parsley!”

“Aw, come on,” the Lord whines, “not again. I said no parsley. Er. That’s a big hammer you have there.”

You beam proudly.

“I’ll just be going,” and so saying, the Lord of Heegurkurkur demanifests.

Oh yeah, saving the world before breakfast is something you make look easy, ‘cause it is easy. Time for crocodile steak.

Congratulations. You avoided the parsley porridge.
You have winnar!
Game Over