Wings Over the Pyre

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Johnny Cash - Don't Take Your Guns To Town (Squid's Redoubt)

Well, if that wasn't a day.

If you've been following on Twitter, you know how much fun today was. He says with ironic, cynical detachment.

It probably should have been enough of a head's-up when we got down to the SJ opening in the four vehicles we'd dragged along and found a big jack-knifed rig blocking most of it. Apparently, the poor bastard had been barelling up 85 and didn't see or know about the three zoms that were clinging to the semi-trailer. The rest is kind of inevitable; they clawed their way along the side and top of the truck, got on the cab, and he plowed into an overpass support as it spun. Instant barricade and a little extra fire.

With a little patience and some injudicious ramming from a guy in a Hummer, we managed to clear stuff enough to go around the end. Slow going, and the dead cars along the way north and south never helped, but it only held us up a bit. By the time we got to Project, I was starting to get a little nervous, if only because seeing zoms clinging to the side of skyscrapers, the underside of overpasses, and the like is disconcerting. You don't typically think of zombies being a 3d threat, but the current crop seem to enjoy digging into almost anything with their claws. This was something that'd come back to haunt me.

Duh.

So, yes, Project. The zoms were pretty quiescent by the time we made it downtown, and busting through a few security doors we didn't have keycards for wasn't that big a deal. Power's still in to Atlanta for the next bit, I'd imagine; the power-stations are largely self-regulating, anyway. Then there was the issue of dragging the crap out of the facility without destroying it irreparably. That was where the hard part was, and it was hot, sweaty work even for me, who didn't carry more than a few cables and some manuals. Oh, yeah, and went crawling under a raised floor in the IT space, looking for a connection. Sometimes it sucks being a little guy.

By 5p or so, the zoms were starting to get squirmy again and they'd apparently figured out there were a few tasty morsels moving around on West Peachtree. I swear, they have some kind of mystic hive-mind thing going on, because we could literally see the wave of awareness spreading down the blocks, about walking-pace. If it's a network, it's a slow bloody thing. Anyway, were were pretty much done and just securing things.

That is, of course, when the fuckers decided to jump out of the manhole. In retrospect, I suppose I should have expected that, but three of the zoms dragged down two of the guys I was out with in seconds next to the lead truck, and then things got complicated. You don't need a play-by-play and I'm not even sure I could give you one, but insert a lot of running around and sweating and slashing zombies with whatever weapons we had on hand and you get the idea. When the trucks (the three left, anyway) rolled out, there were uglies hanging on the sides of all of them, and some very unhappy guys getting left behind.

What can I say? I hate bite-transmitted infection.

Blam blam, slashy-slashy, the one thing that's true about all zoms is their utter predictability. Keep your head on straight and you can just wait for the buggers to clamber to the cab looking for tasty, then blow their heads off or decapitate them as necessary. That does take some time, though, so by the time we were sure the trucks were clear of hitchers, it was later than I would have liked.

No brainer after that. Cart the crap back out, tip hats to the guys on the Perimeter, and home sweet home.

Current Mood: nervous
Current Music: Frantic Flattops, The - Black Widow, The (Squid's Redoubt)

Starchild expects me to say, "Oh. Shit. Zombies," right now. I refuse to give him the satisfaction.

Honestly, guys, I live in the South, in suburban Atlanta. Wave on waves of zombies? Just not happening here; there are enough hunters and general good ol' boys that the cemeteries didn't make much difference in the grand scheme of things. A couple pick-ups at each one and zap, no more threat from there. The big Civil War battlefields were a little more interesting, but the re-enactors ended up policing their own. Zombies, after all, don't actually use grapeshot cannon or massed musket-fire. Battlefields? No problem.

No, the real problem, as it always is -- Atlanta proper. A couple small urban cemeteries, a couple jump-up guys, and the infection starts moving through the urban population like wildfire. Zombies are persistant, and I mean that in both the state-expression and social sense of the word. Worst place to hide? Multi-floor skyscraper, trying to close off the stairwells. Aside from the obvious "how do you eat?" the Zoms will claw their way through barricades or into air-ducts like rats, working their ways up. You'll just die tired and add to the number pouring back out at the bottom of the day.

I live in the 'burbs, though, and if there's one thing you learn living in the Atlanta-Metro 'burbs, it's how much everyone hates ITP folk. That's "Inside The Perimeter" by their own naming. Snooty, rich, stuck-up pricks pretty much sums it up. Now it's in the best interest of everyone on the outside that the ITP folks stay there, so they've kind of implemented an idea I had as a premise for an anime script, way back when.

The Perimeter is a huge wave of fire. Cars are lined up nose to tail and set alight, burning thirty, forty feet high. There are a couple access areas at Spaghetti Junction and on the Southside along 85, but the rest?

It's beautiful.

Not really my idea, I have to admit, but I'm doing my part out here. A few of us strolled into the CDC to see if there were any suspiciously dropped blue vials or the like (only the gauche call it "looting," I think of it as "urban exploration") but it occurred to me that there was enough hardware there to at least try and figure out if it was your traditional zombie-virus or zombie-radiation effect. It's not like the things were hard to come by to use as test subjects, and only one of the other guys came out of it all with a bite, so net win, in my book.

No virus. No weird alien meteorite radiation, like the news was spewing. Disappointing, really.

That does leave a few options for causes, but I'll just have to grab a few books here (like the text on Chaldean sorcery that Heather bought me for Christmas; bet y'didn't know that'd be practical use, did you, hon?) and get ready in the next half-hour, because there's a jaunt into the Perimeter through the SJ Gate to hit the TV and radio stations, looking for enough hardware to build at least a mid-power station in the northern 'burbs. Somehow, I ended up overseeing that madness, but at least it's something to do. If they left me to myself, I'd probably just sit around and fiddle with invocations until I turned myself into a conscious super-zombie with control of other local undead as a nodal ...

Well, you get the idea.

Once I get downtown, I need to get Project and WSB hooked up as repeaters in the BLITEOTW network. Then I get home, pop my feed on from SAM4 and voila. Live zombie apocalypse talk radio, music to kill zoms by, and me at the helm. Not as cool as being a super-zombie, but a longer lifespan.

In theory.

Further updates from my Twitter on the go.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Richard Cheese - Baby Got Back/Sir Mix-A-Lot (Squid's Redoubt)

And so, at Morgasm's repeated insistence, I finish A Clash of Kings.

There are some interesting implicative undercurrents in the setting, which I don't think it's spoilerish to note.

• The prettier you are, the more useless you are.
• The less you want power, the more you should be given.
• Incest truly is best.
• Violence is not only the question, it's the answer and the most aggressive affirmative available.
• Civilization has a corruptive influence.
• The proximity of nature is a good indicator of the randomness of your behaviour.
• The gods are not only subtle, they're bastards.
• The most loyal and faithful women are whores.
• Wives are a dangerous weakness and active disadvantage.
• Being physically impaired demands you be royal-born, or else not born at all.
• Missing the coherent and very obvious upsurge in magical phenomenology when you have an entire academy studying the long-term weather patterns of your multi-year seasonal progressive cycle is not only possible, but strangely akin to global warming in that they can't see the forest for the trees.

Interestingly, the number of co-tenets found in RE Howard's Conan series is significant, even though they were challenged stylistically by Moorcock's Elric and other writers of the time.

I can see how Morgasm could confuse me for Tyrion, though. Short, cunning, mouth digs holes his ass has to fill, more comfortable in a nice warm stone castle than out in the ass-end of the kingdoms. Oh yes.

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Various Artists - Gothabilly: Razin' Hell - Johnny Dark / Grave Mistake

Reading Relicnews in order to get cool hints as to new strategies, I stumble over ...

Well, I'll let the text speak.

To: Lord-Inquisitor Von Grimm, Ordo Hereticus
From: Inquisitor Bigotin, Ordo Hereticus
Subject: Inquisitorial Purge BD-4992 "The Hogwarts Purge"
Transmitted: Inquisitorial Fortress, Bethor VIII
Transmitter: Astropath Ginla
Receiver: Astropath Wulesh

Salutations Lord!

I am pleased to report that the heretical witch-coven, the blasphemous sect known as "Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft" has been eliminated, and every member of this vile cult has been cleansed with fire and sword.

Accompanied by five squads of veteran Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, two hundred local militia, a dozen arco-flagellants, two Penitent Engines, and three squads drawn from the Order of the Holy Nimbus, we began our assault upon the fortress of the enemy at dawn's first light. Although the castle was hidden from normal sight by a myriad of hexes and foul enchantments, these wards were easily bypassed thanks to the psyk-out strike launched by the Persecution, and we were able to begin the assault.

( Inquisition Continues )

Which, really, just makes me want to figure out stats for a suite of Inquisitors and the Hogwarts crew in some system-generic wargame I own and run the Hogwarts' cleansing. Mind you, Voldemort would have issues with the Empire of Man; if anyone is likely to be Warp-tainted, it's him, but there you go.

Current Location: 30045
Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Harvey Danger / Little by Little / Incommunicado

The Villain knelt on the stone tiled floor, face a criss-crossed mesh of slashes from the Hero's blade, it held in a tight white-knuckled, trembling hand now. Blood dripped down the white leather of the Villain's breastplate and the cough that bubbled up through his lungs was black with the soot of the spell's backlash. In the doorway sprawled one henchman after another.

"You're filth," grated out the Villain, and spat on the floor. It sizzled a little. "You're nothing, you're garbage. No better than the pigs and rats outside." Dying or not, hatred burned in his blue eyes.

The Hero looked at him impassively. Five years he'd fought the minions and agents of this man, this broken man, who knelt here and who bled here. He said nothing.

A sneer curled the Villain's lip. "Kill me, already," he commanded. "Haven't you seen enough? You're a killer, a murderer, an assassin. I made you, filth, and you hate me for it. You're a blood-drenched rag. Wring it out, rat."

Cold steel began to rise as the Princess hurled herself from the corner into which she'd been forced during the climactic, Earth-rending battle. "No!" She clung to his sword arm, eyes streaming tears and ash. "You're no killer! I love you! Whatever you've done, you did it to save me!" Her nails, cracked and marred by the stone of the wall to which she'd been chained, slid down his sleeve, tugging as if a child. "You're better than him," she pleaded.

The Villain's eyes watched the Hero's blade droop, slowly, and he smiled a thin smile, readying the dagger in his sleeve. "Weakling. You're just a broken --"

His eye sprouted a fountain of blood from the Hero's left-hand dagger, and the Villain slumped forward, on his knees.

With a gasp, the Princess stared at the Hero.

"No, you're wrong. I thought you knew me, but you don't. I am a killer. I've murdered in the name of Good so long, I don't know any other life. I've killed a thousand and sent their souls to Hell. I wallow in the filth of decay, and think myself righteous because I stink differently."

A rough push caused the Princess to go sliding back toward the place from which she'd lunged, but no words escaped her. She gaped.

He continued.

"I thought you knew me. I was lying to myself. You won't accept I murdered in your name." A little curl of the lip expressed disgust, at himself, at her. "I wouldn't. I do, now."

The Hero knelt, and rolled the Villain onto his back. Gentle fingers closed the pale, thin man's eyes and he murmured, "Dream long, old Enemy. You made me."

Blade shouldered once more, the blood-caked man turned away from the throne-room and walked, with a bit of a limp and hard-set features, out the door.

"I have more killing to do."

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: Prozzak - Introduction to a Broken Heart

Eric the .5b pointed me to an odd little meme on a website:

OK, since the prev post was a bit sourpussy, let me try to be more constructive. So just what kind of meme would I like to see spread? How about this: If you could give the commencement address at a graduation ceremony, what would you say?

See, I’ve always been a sucker for commencement speeches. You get something special from that ripe moment when someone gets to impart what they feel is crucial wisdom to less experienced folks at a criticial juncture in their lives (ones delivered by Steve Jobs, Conan O’Brien, and Guy Kawasaki come to mind — Yahoo has a collection of commencement speeches). It’s the sort of “what really matters” stuff that, unfortunately, is usually glazed over in our day to day lives.

So, Mr./Ms. Commencement Speaker, what would you say? Um, tag or something.

"Thank you Mister Reichart.

Its a pleasure to be invited here to MIT to speak before this graduating class of future engineers, xenobiologists, and artificial intelligence psychoceramicists. When the letter arrived in my mailbox, inviting me here, I was shocked. I mean, its sort of de rigeur for mad scientists to be able to scream "They laughed at me at university!" accompanied by lightning, thunder, and a buzzing Jacob's Ladder, but since I'd never attended MIT, I figured I'd never get that particular notch on my bedpost.

I thank you for the opportunity.

Many of you here today will be looking into the future starry-eyed and lustfully, looking toward a time when you can pull down a hundred-grand a year for a think-tank, puttering around with projects you know won't pan out at all. And to you I say, bravo. Good thinking. Some of you are imagining work on the next antiviral drug or the next Mars rover that'll run for three-hundred years on a thimble-full of warm cat-piss, and to you likewise I say, bravo.

A lucky few of you are sitting there wondering if you can jack-off under those robes or whether the chick in front of you is wearing underwear -- or are the chick in front of them feeling loose, silky satin on your bare ass -- and to you I say, you are the destined and chosen ones, for you will accomplish mighty works.

See, really, the folks who accomplish things are living in the here-and-now. They're not lost in dreams of the future-yet-to-be, and they know what's important: money, getting ass, good food, getting ass, power, and ... er, did I mention ass? These are important things. Saving the world? Please, the world looks after itself; if it matters to someone that it get saved so they get a nice steak, can command an army, or get laid, it'll happen, it'll get saved.

Maybe you'll do it, maybe you won't.

The future is made by people with wants, with desires, and with hungers. They want things right now.

I want things right now.

The cute chick in row three'll do nicely.

I leave you with a thought to keep you warm tonight: All you dreamers, you futurists, you think-tank wanks ... everything worth having in your life was made by someone who scratched their balls or needed a better fitting bra at some point. Everything you love and treasure in society and in the world was thought up by some guy who was thinking of what they were going to do for dinner, or after. Everything good came from folks who needed some good ol' oral sex.

Try to be those people.

Good night, and good luck."

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Jonathan Coulton - Christmas Is Interesting

And so, the witching hour creeps forward, as Santa warms up the turbojets on his candy-apple red advanced warfighter-inspired sled, the reindeer hunkered down in the subterranean bunkers and staring up at the massive displays which data-mine the naughty/nice banks to direct the transtemporal flight. The hours tick down and tension runs high in the North Pole defense platform, in high polar orbit, flashing over the site within which reindeer stare, doe-eyed, at the banks of monitors, every ninety minutes. Elves stare just as grimly at the holographic tanks within which the personal data of every living thing is collated and correlated, the vast artificial intelligence of KARMA directing the multitude of sensors and taps.

Beneath, we poor creatures, subject to such intense and, ultimately, alien scrutiny, scurry hither and yon, engaging in the basic processes by which the universe converts chaos to order, the service of Lord Entropos, digesting the organic detritus of dinners vast and mild, energy dragged down from the higher realms of excited electrons to photons and heat as What A Wonderful Life burns out the stars for one more cycle of the aeon.

And then the night, where the warp and weft of the fabric of spacetime is turned to swiss-cheese because of the psychotic altruism of a single man devoted to the needs of children over the needs of humanity. He, too, feeds entropy, each hole he punches wide in the weave of space healed over by a scab of lesser stuff, weakening the whole, hastening the day of stasis, the day when That Which Dwells Beyond sees the body of its prey, our universe, lies still at last and not just cooling, and tears at the flesh that surrounds us, devouring the worlds and the dead dreams within.

Merry Christmas, Snappy Saturnalia, Fatal Festivus.

Remember, its your fault.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Great Luke Ski, The - Star Wars Prequel Homesick Blues

If you're not familiar with the work of T0 Morrow, well, you're missing out.

But not today. Today, I bring you a whole new holiday for the year. A time of joy. A time of extropia.

( Extended Story Within )

A touching, emotional story for all my charmingly emotional folks.

Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: David Bowie - Afraid

I admit, I'm a sucker for a bit of well-turned phrase, a glimmer of fascinating hubris of the pen. And I find it in the strangest places.

Like a Holiday Gift Guide ... of Porn:

You're going to buy that special someone a little porn for the holidays. That'll be so hot. You can crank up the heater and pop the DVD in right after the holiday party, while you're both still a little wasted on egg nog and sugar-drunk from all those rum balls. Proceed immediately to drunken Christmas sex.

Nice going, genius. Now you've only got to choose from the 12,000 titles the adult industry released this year.

Truth of the matter is, you've got your work cut out for you -- the porn industry is like a giant Lovecraftian diety, with more tentacles than an otaku she-male's favorite dinner date. But 200 adult DVDs crossed my desk this year, from Anal Princess Diaries to Ass Wide Open to Butt Pirates of the Caribbean. I can't say I'm an expert, but I'll help you find the tentacle that'll properly tickle that certain special someone.

There's a certain gonzo over-the-top flair to this author's constructions, a love of the genre and a joi de vivre that comes through in his breathless recitation of the most absurd titles which gives them a certain Hollywood panache. Its awe inspiring, truthfully, and an entirely unexpected thing to find lurking around in a discussion of what hot sex media to get your sweetie this Yule.

Read the whole thing. Its kind of disturbingly well-written.

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Various Artists - Waring's Pennsylvanians - Collegiate (Squid's Redoubt)

Not sure where this crazy little bit came from, actually. Possibly hybridizing the previous vampire inspiration, and the ongoing visual influence of anime on my psyche.

( Sometimes, the text comes of itself. )

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Muppets, The - Professional Pirate (Squid's Redoubt)

RightThinkingPeople is one of my favourite Canadian Conservative blogs (and no, its not an oxymoron ... really). Today, they had this particular amusing take on the recent spending by the Liberal government on hardware for specops teams:

Well, it's about time.

Canada's special forces unit has gone on a multimillion-dollar spending spree, outfitting itself with high-tech weaponry that is the envy of units throughout the military.

Good. I hope they’re buying the biggest, nastiest, most terrifying guns with the biggest, nastiest, most terrorist-vapourizing ammunition that my hard-earned tax dollars can buy. According to the Libs, Defence is getting $13 billion over the next five years, and since it’s my money anyway, I say we should be using it to turn every single member of JTF 2 (however many there are) into a nine-foot-tall, armour-plated, fuel-injected, turbo-charged, 350-pound cybernetic killing machine.

Whoo! Looks like I called that one!

From my Flickr icologue of the alternate-history Canada being formed from in-game screenshots of Dawn of War: Winter Assault:

The crash landing of the Space Hulk "Dominatrix" in the northernmost reaches of Nunuvit in the summer of '54 delivered an unexpected technological bounty to the hands of the Canadian government. Carefully picking it apart, they constituted the first Canadian Guard unit in '84. Subsequent research into the genetic and cybernetic augmentation technologies brought the Canadian Marines and their powered armour to light in '05.

Just in time to face the second off-world invasion force of Eldar. (The first was successfully repelled in secret, as a group of Orks burst from the depths of the unexplored Dominatrix not long after the Guard were constituted.)

Current Mood: creative
Current Music: Deadbolt - Creepy And Weird (Squid's Redoubt)

Just working out some concepts that have been kicking around in my head lately. As Liberty Libertine would put it, a drabble. (Though odds are good I'll blow right by the 100 word limit ... I can write a hundred words on toast.)

Needless to say, its not particularly bright in subject matter.

( Hollows Where the Heart Should Be )

Current Mood: confused
Current Music: Sudden Death - State Of The Art (Squid's Redoubt)

You know, I should never be allowed to write porn. I've completely and utterly lost the ability to write straight up smut, and instead end up with some thing with a complex implicit backstory, a blind protagonist, and both quotes from the Bible and obscure Latin term references.

Don't ask if you can see it. Its not done, and frankly its too bizarre for the usual suspects to be really into it. Maybe if I ever bring it to some kind of completion, I'll let the public have access.

There is something wrong with me, I swear.

Current Mood: creative

(incandescens, this one's for you. Hat-tip to Mike for sending the image that inspired this madness.)

My friends send me the most pleasantly amusing things. In this case, its a lovely massaged image of Harry Potter and his pod of freaks from an alternate world in which goth is the new black ... or something like that.

But these things give me pause to think, and this is a bad thing to be thinking about. In fact, it made me wish I wrote Potterverse fanfic, because then I might could do this setting premise justice:

Lord Potter and the Blood-Spilled Prince

In this "what if?" alternaverse, Harry Potter is born to wizarding parents and during the ongoing attempt to subdue the wizarding world. Lord Voldemort attempts to destroy the Boy Who Lived ... giving rise to the inevitable nickname. Burned with the lightning-bolt scar on his forehead which itches and twitches at the most inconvenient times, Harry is shipped off to live with the Dursleys.

Its at this point that the universe diverges. In response to the Dursleys' ongoing abuse and eternal disdain, Potter learns to cope not by becoming a limp dishrag of a door-mat, but fuels an immense internal hatred of those who would opress him and draws in emotionally on himself, fueling random supernatural outbursts which aren't directly attributable to Harry and which correspond to very traditional haunting phenomenon. The night before Potter is spirited away to Hogwart's, the Durleys attempt to have Harry exorcised ... with nearly fatal results as the poltergeist and pyromantic activity crescendos.

Arriving at Hogwart's and feeling freer than he has in years, Harry makes the immediate friendship of Hermione, muggle-blood daughter of dentists who's decided the best rebellion she can make against the established wizarding order is to simultaneously embrace her muggle-heritage and out-sorcerer even the most hardcore of her classmates, and Ron Weasley, whose family of wizards has emasculated him for years for not being the best, or brightest, or strongest, leaving him finally to turn to only belief in himself for support.

Inevitably, Potter, Granger, and Ron are sorted by the Hat into Slytherin House, because of their slyness, ambition, or aggressive drive. Draco Malfoy, child of Death Eaters and all too aware of the machinations of Voldemort's historic plans and brutality, turns his back on the service of the One Who Must Not Be Named and is sorted to Hufflepuff, along with Crab and Goyle, though it's a near thing. Draco maintains his utter arrogance and disdain for muggle-blood, even while clinging to the steady loyalty of his friends and housemates.

Voldemort's continued awareness of Potter and his friends, plus the prophecies which precede him, convinces Riddle that the boy must be eliminated before Potter usurps Tom's place at the head of the Death Eaters, and possibly the entire wizarding world if Voldemort is as successful as he dreams. For Harry's part, its enough to revel in the freedoms of Slytherin to explore the darker aspects of potions and black sorcery, but it is Ron who finds a certain calling in the Dark Arts, rapidly outpacing even Hermione in the nocturnal aspects of the Ars Magicae. Granger throws herself, body and soul, into the most arcane and mind-warping of researches in an attempt to shock and appall others with her recklessness, but despite her exceedingly precise machinations, it is Ron who begins to incite whispers and outright fear among the House when he passes, which both angers and excites the girl. The toll on Granger's mind mounts as she reaches for ever more excessively abstracted places, fighting both with Ron and for his attention.

Dumbledore recognizes the inherent danger represented by Potter and company, but sees the necessity of forging such a powerful weapon against the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters. Betting on Potter's self-involvement to keep him from actually replacing Riddle or taking over the world, he sets Malfoy and his company at direct odds with Potter and his to monitor Potter's progress and act as a continual reminder that things could have been different. Draco is only too happy to oppose Harry, and the rest of Hufflepuff are disturbed at their exemplar's clear antagonism and elitism, but buoyed by the fact that he leads them to success and even moral victory more often than not.

The rest, I leave up to you ...