Short Story: Dr. McMillan, Part II

Yes, you heard me. Read me. Whatever. The second installment of my Dr. McMillan story is complete. This one's a little more verbose than the last one, but I like it just as much. There were some sections that I just could not wrap my mind around, and could not seem to get written properly, but it all sorted itself out in the end. So, without further preamble...the story.
*
*
*
*
*
It had truly begun during one of Dr. McMillan’s less scientific and more occult practices. He reasoned thusly; that all he had experienced in his world had not sufficiently prepared him for advanced levels of villainy. Indeed, it had barely been the equivalent of Intro to Diabolical Works 101. (When he was asleep one night, Dr. McMillan had dreamt that he had a tremendous plan to conquer the world, but he received a failing grade because he had turned it in late and had not prepared a three-sectioned poster-board detailing his idea. Upon waking up, drenched in sweat, Dr. McMillan resolved to stop eating lemon meringue pie after midnight.)

So he had devised a complex scheme whereupon he trawled the Æther, the mists between universes, searching for any guides or treatises on villainy that other worlds might have brought into existence. He had had to bring in an entire team of student wizards to aid him. Dr. McMillan had feared that his evil reputation might have precluded obtaining outside assistance, but the students were remarkably apathetic as to the moral leanings of their employer. Dr. McMillan had thought he had a surge of good luck for once, in getting help so easily.

Later, however, he rued his decision. The students were easy enough to control, provided that he gave them pizza twice a day and signed forms indicating that they were receiving work-study credit for their time, but they did not appeal to Dr. McMillan’s rather formalistic ways. They called him “Max” and left their work areas trashed, grimoires and powdered silver strewn every which way. Also, they had the annoying habit of snickering at him behind his back whenever they thought he couldn’t hear. Dr. McMillan swore that when he was in control of the world, he would take unruly students such as them and suspend them. By their intestines.

He thought he had borne fruit when his spells uncovered a series of instructive films that exhaustively detailed plans of great villainy and evil, but the villains always failed in the end. It was this irritating black-suited fellow who kept foiling them, in between sleeping with beautiful women and ordering martinis, whatever they were, “shaken, not stirred.” Dr. McMillan gnashed his teeth as he watched, seeing the smug smile that the hero always wore and remembering the exact same expression of conceit on the heroes who had demolished his fortress. He was so enraged that he ordered all the film discarded and burned. It was only later that it had occurred to him that he could have perhaps learned from their defeats. And the films had taken four months to retrieve.

Dr. McMillan was temporarily disappointed by this setback, but the creativity incumbent in the films intrigued him. Even more interestingly, they had all apparently originated on one planet. So he ordered his students to focus on that planet, and soon all sorts of things were turning up on his worktable. Dr. McMillan rather liked this planet. The people looked pretty much the same as they did on his world, for one thing. He would not normally have cared about such things, but upon discovering a booklet from a distant world that included such instructions as “Use your fifth pseudopod to activate the next three switches” and “Be certain to secrete a defensive shell of mucus, as retributive attacks will surely come,” he realized the importance of physical similarity.

Also, Dr. McMillan realized that though generally in the works on this planet, the villains ended up losing, they always did so due to one or two crucial flaws that the heroes found and exploited. Dr. McMillan realized that if he could find and eliminate these flaws in his own work, he would be unstoppable. After all, they all failed along mostly the same lines.

He watched film after film, read book after book, and began to catalogue the failing points of the villains he read about and watched. He had assembled quite a list in three weeks’ time, and passed around a copy for all the students to read and comment on. One of them spilled coffee on it, ruining it utterly. Through a haze of rage, Dr. McMillan attempted to access his computer and print out a new copy, but his operating system chose that moment to fail cataclysmically and wipe out his data. And the hard drives he had ordered for backup work arrived the next day.

So great was his dismay that Dr. McMillan retreated into his private study and did not come out for days. The students whispered rumors among each other, claiming he had died, gone insane, or fled in despair. Some even claimed that the incident had spurred him to greater heights of creativity, and he would surely emerge with a plan above all others in genius. Actually, none of this was true. Dr. McMillan was, in fact, suffering from a mild case of ‘flu. He saw illness as a sign of weakness and had been concealing it thus far, and was glad to use the excuse of anger to shut himself up for a while and recover out of the public eye.

When he did emerge, though, Dr. McMillan did have a plan, or at least a strategy. He could not have been the only one to compile such a list, he reasoned. But he did not trust his students, slovenly and lackadaisical as they were, so he conducted an experiment of his own in secret. He searched and he searched for a similar compilation, using what coffee-stained shreds of his own list as he could recover. He searched for nineteen days straight, barely stopping to eat or sleep and only once taking a three-day sabbatical in a nearby spa.

At the end of the ordeal, Dr. McMillan emerged, haggard, tired, hungry, but with nicely exfoliated pores. More importantly, though, he emerged in possession of The List. It was called “The Evil Overlord List” by those who had created it, but in the mind of Dr. McMillan, nothing but italics would do. And, he had to admit to himself, he was not yet an evil overlord. He barely qualified as an underlord.

Perhaps the italics were justified. The List was the single most important document Dr. McMillan had ever seen. Page after page, item after item, hundreds of useful factoids that would surely pave the way to his eventual global domination. Excitable though he was, Dr. McMillan understood that this was the first time that global domination was actually in his grasp; and if not in his grasp, then at least within his reach. If he stretched his arm out really far and stood on his tiptoes. But The List would surely tip the scales.

His first act upon obtaining The List would normally have been to exterminate all of the students with extreme prejudice and probably a great deal of evil cackling, but the principles Dr. McMillan had learned had warned him against such a thing. Number 20, for instance: “Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.” Likely, while he stood giggling like a loon over the ruined bodies of the students, a lone survivor would escape and spread the word, and soon Dr. McMillan would be up to his eyeballs in heroes. No, that much unwanted attention was the last thing he needed. So he quietly gave them all scholarships (“The Dr. McMillan Grant for the Furthering of Extraplanar Understanding”) and sent them on their way.

No more would he fall victim to those ruinous mistakes that had so plagued him and the scores of lesser villains before him. He would win, yes. Dr. McMillan would win. His first victory proved that beyond any doubts.
*
*
*
*
*
There. That's Part II. Part III will be up whenever I feel like it. Next time, he gets down to some serious hero-smashing, let it be known. But these heroes deserve it, trust me. You'll find the details next time.

REPLIES.

Vic: I feel that those parts I paraphrased are best kept between us, you know? And yes, thanks for paying for dinner on top of all else. Though we should both watch our spending. And for the love of Pete, will you stop it about Sanskrit? I'm not taking it. The end. Game over. Never in a trillion years. I love you, but stop.

Mom: I try. And yes, apparently my post was well-received by Kate and appropriately terror-inspiring in the others. At least, this is what I hear. As far as my bad memory, well...I suppose I'll figure out some way around it. With Vic's help, certainly. Being kind is certainly important, and she is. As far as I know, when I hallucinate, my head remains un-tilted. Yes, I know which game that is.

Dad: Thanks. And you'll have to put up with it, I suppose. For the greater good and all that sort of thing.

Kate: Sure.

Stephe: Good to see you on Sunday, man. And I'll hold my line on that heart and soul price until the day I die. At which point my heart will be dead and my soul will be otherwise occupied, so you're out of luck, I guess. Don't even start with me about FSU. I'm sick of hearing about cantaloupe, and now thanks to you I don't want to drink milk anymore. Thanks a lot, you jerk. And I don't feel guilty about spending money on food, I just feel panicked because my money supply is rapidly dwindling with no income in sight.

Kate: You replied more to Stephen than to me, I'll let him handle this.

Farewell for now.

A Few Personal Comments, And...A Few Impersonal Comments?

There are two things I want to get out of the way before I do anything else, in this here online journal. And they are as follows. The first is targeted specifically at people I know, so anyone I don't know personally (and even a lot of those people) can just skip it entirely. Or read it over, I don't know, if you enjoy seeing part of an ongoing negotiation devoid entirely of context. The second part is targeted at everyone, and you'll see why.

First. This is mostly towards Travis, Jake, Dan, Daniel, Matt, Nolan, and TJ. And, though you'e had less opportunities than most, Stephen. Yeah, you guys. Kate is upset because we keep calling her crazy. Let me interrupt your ferocious denials to say: I don't care who specifically said what to whom. For the moment, I am treating you as a unit. Apparently, she takes the word to mean "mentally ill" whereas we take the word to mean "wacky or peculiar." Different definitions can wreak absolute havoc, as well you may imagine. The simple fact is, cut it out, all of y'all, or two things will happen.

1. Kate will stop hanging out with us and find new friends, and
2. I will, personally, shove a two-liter bottle of Diet Cherry Mountain Dew up each of your right nostrils in turn. Randomly.

I imagine that you'll go along with this, because you enjoy spending time with Kate and also having a nostril that is not warped to freakish Mountain-Dew-bottle proportions. Although it'd be great for party tricks. Regardless. Stop doing it, for real this time. She asked us to stop, we didn't. Now I'm demanding it. Not through my force of will (considerable though it may be), but through a plea for being actual civilized people instead of the rabble of barbarians you usually act like. Not that there's anything wrong with being a barbarian - I mean, the food is better and you get to rampage whenever you like, but those loincloths don't leave much to the imagination - but in this instance, take a hearty dose of good manners and call me in the morning, k? k.

Whoever reads this that's in this group, only one or two of you as I understand it (if more read, I don't know because you don't comment), spread the word to the others that don't. And Stephen, I just know you've got something brilliant to say, so do me a favor and keep it to yourself. It's probably funny, but at the same time mean, so zip it.

The second thing is much more upbeat. It's basically that my girlfriend is the bestest girlfriend EVAR. That's with an -ar, so you know it's sincere. I am a stupid, stupid person, and I constantly forget everything I should be remembering. Anyone who reads this knows this. Anyone who knows me knows this. Anyone who's ever asked me to remember something for him or her knows this especially well.

I was walking to band practice today, with a mind full of superheroes and space adventures. I was looking forward to the trip that we in the UF marching band are taking to Jacksonville tomorrow, for the big UF-Georgia game. For those that don't know, the UF-Georgia game is held in Jacksonville because the rivalry between the schools has reached a blood fervor over the years, and holding the game in neutral territory became the only option for an increasingly harassed administration and security outfit who wanted to minimize the nigh-endless fights and squabbles that result from having a lot of people drink all day and then see their team either win or lose at a big game against their big rivals. Whew, that was a long sentence. Either way, the triumphant winners feel the need to rub it in, and the furious losers feel the need for vengeance. You can see why neutral territory is a desirable thing, in this place. Say what you want about FSU (I have. Often.), but at least their fans don't attack ours, and vice-versa.

But I digress. On my way to band practice, and the thought occurs to me that I didn't take my uniform into the cleaners. 'Oh, wait,' I thought. 'Yes I did. I brought it in on Tuesday. Heh, I remembered.' Feeling more cunning than fifty foxes that had combined into one giant mecha-fox, I walked on further. Then the realization hit me like a sandbag.

I hadn't picked it up.

Practice was in fifteen minutes. There was no earthly way I could get to the dry-cleaners and back before then. Being very late was not an option, I needed the practice to fully comprehend the difficult show we've been working on for weeks. I seemed out of options. And then, a lightbulb popped into existence over my head. I'm lucky I was wearing a hat, or I could have been seriously abraded when it fell on my head and exploded. Brushing away the slivers of glass and filament, I realized I could call my girlfriend and ask her to pick it up for me. I did so.

Me: "Hey."
Her: "Hi, love."
Me: "Listen, could you...do me a favor?"
Her: "Sure. What?"
Me: "Could you go to the dry-cleaner and pick up my uniform? It'll be closed by the time I get out of band practice and I'm leaving before it opens tomorrow." I leave at 8:00 AM tomorrow to get to Jacksonville.
Her: "...Okay. Do you have the ticket?"

I reached into my pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and unfolded it, correctly identifying it as the ticket in question. I praised myself for my clear thinking and foresight.

Me: "Got it right here."
Her: "That's great! You're so amazing, having all of that clear thinking and foresight."
Random Bystander: "Gosh, I wish I was as intelligent and handsome and resourceful as you are."
Me: "Well, not everyone can be. In fact, nobody but me can be. But you'll do fine. Good luck."
Random Bystander: "He...he wished me good luck..." *faints with shock and joy*

It was about then that I realized I had been hallucinating for the last thirty seconds or so. I reached into my pocket, pulled out...nothing.

Her: "Are you still there?"
Me: "Y-yeah."
Her: "Do you have it?"
Me: "...No. I left it at my dorm room."
Her: "So...just bring me your keys, I'll go and get it from your room."
Me: "That's great! Thanks!"
Her: "No problem. Meet you at the field. <3"
Me: I'll never understand how she actually pronounces a symbol like that. "Love you. Bye."

I proceeded onward. As I walked, I postulated what would have occurred had I not had her to help me in this endeavor. Horrible thoughts flashed through my head of arriving at the game tomorrow uniformless, with the director glowering at me and all the band people snickering behind my back. I would remain on the bus, a forgotten, an outcast, while the rest of the band performed. No doubt some wealthy benefactor would choose that day to award all band members wearing uniforms with crisp new $100 bills. We would lose the game horribly, and in
the post-game interview with Coach Urban Meyer, he would pin the blame on his team being demoralized because some dumb tuba player didn't even think enough of them to remember to bring his uniform. I realized I was probably exaggerating somewhat, but I like a little dramatic flourish even in my thoughts of doom, so it was all well and good.

I walked to the field that the marching band usually uses to practice on. That's odd, I thought. Where is the trailer that carries our instruments? Where is the drumline, underneath their usual tree? Where are the students milling about on the field, playing football or practicing their instruments or stretching? Where is, to sum up, the band? A growing horror stole over me as I recalled the end-of-practice lecture given to us yesterday.

Director: "Now, remember, we're not going on this field tomorrow. We're going to Coaches' Field instead."
Band: *murmurs of assent*
Director: "Where are we practicing tomorrow?"
Band: *scattered voices summing up to "Coaches' Field."*
Director: "Correct. It'll be our last practice before game day, so it's important to remember that. You don't want to be late and miss practice.
Band: *mumbles with an undertone of "sure we do."*
Director: "I'll choose to ignore those comments. Now you, Luke, where are we going?"
Me: "Coaches' Field, sir."
Director: "Good job, Luke."
Assistant Director: "Excellently done."
Band: "Three cheers for Luke! Hip-hip-hooray!" *large banner unfurls from nearby parking garage, reading "GOOD JOB LUKE - He Remembered."*

I have got to do something about these hallucinations, I pondered. They're even infecting my flashbacks. But the result was clear: I had goofed up and gone to the wrong field to practice. I called my girlfriend again.

Me: "Er, I just remembered. I'm not supposed to be at this field today, I'm supposed to be at Coaches' Field."
Her: "Where's that?"
Me: "Uh, pretty far from here. Near the O-Dome."
Her: "Well...I'll drive you. I'm here anyway."
Me: "Thanks again. You have no idea how much you're helping out poor dumb ol' me."
Her: "I know."

I piled into her car and we sped off to practice. Traffic held us up, but even so I was only five minutes late, which is nothing really. After practice, she had the uniform waiting for me, and we went out to dinner. (At an inexpensive place! Hardly any cost at all! I'm budgeting, darn it all.)

The end point is that my girlfriend is sweet and amazing and covers my screwups with absolute grace. So I just wanted to share that with everyone.

Hm. It occurs to me that I promised you impersonal comments, but I'm just about out of creativity. So...er...dictionary.com defines "impersonal" as "lacking human emotion or warmth." So it occurs to me that we could solve both the overpopulation and starvation problems in this world by simply turning certain people into a food source. But that's just a modest proposal.

RESPONSES.

Jake: For a man who's used to getting up around 10:00 or 11:00, it's a heartbreaker, I assure you. I remember the high school days of getting up insanely early...I'm past them. You have another year and a half of them. Nyah. And your comment of "lowering yourself to hobo status" made me laugh uproariously.

Mom: I've noticed. When you and Dad both order shrimp, he never eats for the first twenty minutes, as he's too busy shelling an enormous pile for the both of you. I don't like mussels, but I have tasted crab, and I prefer lobster. Some foods are really worth getting involved in.

Stephe: I just don't like cantaloupe, okay? It's always either rock-hard or mushy. And it has no real flavor. But I do like kiwi, though it can be a bit sour at times. Seeing as how white I am, the little Vitamin D I need is adequately supplied by the milk I drink. ...You eat the tails of shrimp? Ew. And you're right about the butter. And the ketchup. But not about the lobsters. They are worth it. And I'm really not sure if that last comment was intended to be an insult, or what...I mean, I am just puzzled. It's pretty funny either way. And it's a fine length. Is THIS long enough for you?

Jake: You mean, in a highly-anticipated and speculated fashion that probably won't actually occur?

Later.

Short Story: Crab Meat. Plus Some More.

I was going to write a more serious essay today on the nature of power and how it relates to the human condition, but, nah. I'm just not that serious a writer, you know? I just wish I hadn't gotten a page into it before I realized it was garbage and deleted it. Sigh.

No, I'm going to try something else. Someone said something to me the other day, and the phrase he spoke struck me in such a way that I immediately wrote it down. It was insightful and evocative, while being at the same time completely stupid. Not many can accomplish a feat like that, and I praised his unique phrasing. It's the first line of the story. Enjoy.
*
*
*
*
*
Crab makes everyone a hobo.

Think about it. Crab is a dish, if not served only in the classiest restaurants, at least restricted towards restaurants in the upper echelons of respectability. It is highly regarded as a shellfish, more so than shrimp or oysters or similar. Crab has been served at numerous high-powered events, even several presidential inaugurations. Clearly, your average crab eater is at least decently well off and from the middle to upper middle class.

But then watch people eat crab. They crack it with implements, and tear it apart with their bare hands. Juice and butter drip down their wrists as they wrestle with their meal. The meat inside is found and torn out with ravenous fingers or tiny forks. Chips of carapace and bits of meat fly everywhere in the process, and the whole procedure is generally a messy and unkempt affair that leaves a demolished crab scattered across a plate and often a few secondary plates, and the eater smelling of shellfish for the remainder of the evening.

What kind of behavior does this remind you of?

Hoboes are not regarded for their clean and efficient eating methods. If a person is desperate for food, he will do pretty much anything to get at it. Rooting through garbage cans, finding styrofoam containers with half-finished meals, McDonalds wrappings with the remnants of a cheeseburger, even old cans with some stew or beans still on the inside. Disgusting, people say. Revolting. That someone could descend so low. Quite often, it isn't the hobo's fault, but that's a topic for another time. But people see the messy eating habits of the hobo and shake their heads.

And then they go out and they have a nice bit of crab for dinner. The setting is different, the circumstances are different, but the result is the same. Crab is the great equalizer, that brings all men and women, rich and poor, high-class and low-class, to the same slavering, carnage-filled eating methods. It can even be seen as a throwback to primitive times, where people tore apart animals with their hands, barely cooked (if at all), stuffing the meat into their mouths and discarding the bones.

Think about that. And while you do, think about life.
*
*
*
*
*
...Okay. That was neither as long nor as good as I originally thought it was going to be. So, I'm sorry for inflicting that on you, and I'll give you a few more thoughts that you can more safely digest before commenting. (Digest. Ha. I made a funny.)

My best friend just called me and said he hit level 68 in World of WarCraft. Now he can fly, as he is a Druid and they get the flying ability at 68. I couldn't fly until I hit 70. I am bitter. At least I still get to do all the cool flying quests, like dropping bombs on demons and fighting giant birds, that he can't until he hits 70. I am soothed. Also soothing: I just broke 2,200 gold in WoW.

I've been waking up early the past few days. I woke up early Monday so I could finish writing my speech for Public Speaking. I'm pretty sure I did well, it was a group project and my bit turned out all right. The material on my subject was sparse, though, I had to turn a page and a half of material into a five-minute speech. I had to wake up early yesterday so I could take my dry-cleaning into the dry-cleaners, and also so I could go out to breakfast with my girlfriend. <3 And today I had to wake up at 7:15 in the flippin' morning so I could study for my physics test. Which, again, I'm pretty sure I did well on. I hope I got an A (80's an A in that class), otherwise I'll have to stay until December 13th so I can take the final. That would suck.

I actually have made an effort to eat more healthy. I've been eating fruit and drinking those V8 Fusion fruit 'n' vegetable drinks like they're going out of style. And come to think of it, what's the origin of that expression "like it's going out of style"? Why would you do something a lot if it's going out of style? Wouldn't you generally taper off an activity that's going out of style, at least, if you paid any attention or cared at all about whether or not it was in style?

So. Yeah. This one was kind of short. Well, they can't all be dingers. Friday's update will be better, I promise.

REPLIES.

Mom: I liked that phrase very much, myself. And POWERTHIRST is solely responsible for bicep-jets and door-fortresses everywhere. I am spending less money. Trust me.

Stephe: This has to stop. You write a long comment, I write a longer reply, you write an even longer comment...this escalation is getting out of hand. I'll be forced to devote entire entries to just responding to you. Not that I want you not to respond voluminously, I'll...eh, I really don't know what I was leading up to with this. So I'll be somewhat quick. POWERTHIRST rocks. I don't care how healthy you eat. My heart and soul are worth at LEAST $5.27, mister. And your last comment made me lolz. Yes, lolz.

Jake: Saturdays are my busiest days! I have all-day football games and practices to consider. Maybe Sundays. And POWERTHIRST, sadly, wasn't around back when I was a kid. Too bad, because otherwise I'd be good at SPORTS. And you'll find a way to defeat Stephen's machinations. Try using POWERTHIRST.

Kait: Enough with the cracking on Stephen. Why do I want to hang out with him for four hours? Because he's my friend, is why, and I haven't seen him in months. And I'm convinced he'll follow you around if you go to FSU, simply because he finds it amusing and has nothing better to do a lot of the time. That is, if he can fit it into his schedule of fortifying his apartment and bragging about how well he eats.

Vic: I don't like mushrooms, or cheap bulk fruit like cantaloupes. They just stuff fruit cups with them because they cost so little. And I WAS dedicated to the gym...for a while, anyway. Since you apparently talked yourself out of me doing the laundry at your house, I feel I have nothing to say on the matter. And your little birdie will have a job whether or not I take Sanskrit.

So long.

Short Story: Dr. McMillan

Hi, y'all. In lieu of a regular update today (because really, nothing even remotely interesting happened between Monday and today), I'll show you the beginning of this short story I'm writing. Actually, it'll probably end up being quite a long story in the end. This is just the very beginning, after all. It's about a mad scientist who can never quite get his plans for world domination off the ground, until he discovers something that may yet help him...
*
*
*
*
*
As was often the case with Dr. Maximilien McMillan, his inspiration was their expiration.

People who barely knew him often commented on his unusually repetitive name. People who knew him well never did, as there was so much else comment-worthy about the man. For Dr. McMillan was a Mad Genius, an Evil Scientist with Ambitions and Plans to Wrest the World from the Clutches of the Foolish Masses and Usher In a New Reign of Terror and Destruction, and all that sort of thing. At least, that was how he thought of himself. Dr. McMillan had a poetic heart, albeit that of a rather bad poet whose idea of dramatic flair was capitalization.

Privately, Dr. McMillan rued his parents for being so idiotic as to lumber him with the rather lackadaisical name of Maximilien McMillan. As far as villainous monikers went, “Dr. McMillan” didn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of his enemies; and should he succeed and become ruler of all he surveyed, “Lord McMillan” was not a title that could be taken seriously.

Dr. McMillan had given thought on occasion to changing his name to Dr. Terror or Dr. Oblivion or something rather more fitting to his role in the villainy business, but always ended up dismissing such thoughts. Had he not worked his way through eight years of graduate school to earn the right to be called “Dr. McMillan”? Was that not the name on his diploma? Any fool could get a haunted castle or a doomsday device and call himself “Doctor,” and nothing annoyed Dr. McMillan more than people who titled themselves “Dr.” who had not earned it. He considered using his real name to be proof that he really was a doctor, for what villain would possibly endow himself with a name like “McMillan”? And furthermore...

And so on. Dr. McMillan was given to long stretches of thought along the most basic of lines, which was one of the reasons he had not previously amounted to much as a villain. While he was an extremely able scientist, and a fair magician in the bargain, he was a bit of an incompetent when it actually came to wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting citizenry. He had only tried to complete his grandiose plans a total of twice, and both times, had failed miserably.

The first time, he had set up a massive floating fortress and sent it hovering outside Albenon, the capital city of Uthrect, the country he hailed from (and now terrorized on an infrequent basis). Dr. McMillan had not announced his plans for domination, reasoning that to take people by surprise with a show of overwhelming force would be more shocking. Later, when the smoldering ruins of civilization were spitting off their last sparks, he would stride into the spotlight and take credit, and all would know and fear the name of Dr. McMillan.

Sadly, this was not to be, as he had not even reached the city gates before a group of heroes teamed up and destroyed the fortress utterly. Dr. McMillan swore thunderously as he saw, through internal cameras, the heroes dismantle his beautiful creation from the inside out. He still cherished hope, though, that one of them would see his insignia and, horrified, whisper to the others “This is the work of Dr. McMillan!” Ideally, then, the others would gasp while someone dramatically scratched a record to a halt. But they had left without even considering who might have sent such a monstrosity. Indeed, from what the heroes said as they fought, it was obvious that they did not regard it as any kind of challenge and that it did not matter who sent it, as he was no threat.

Stung by this rebuke, Dr. McMillan went on to employ his second plan several months later. Using a combination of magic and technology, he had set bombs at crucial positions underground underneath the palace, main bank, and the three largest military installations in Albenon. This got people’s attention, right enough. Dr. McMillan gleefully straightened his tie and reflexively squirted breath freshener into his mouth as he gazed upon his viewscreen, just moments prior to addressing Baron Chauncey, Albenon’s ruler.

But the drama of the moment was rather spoiled. It had begun well, with Dr. McMillan cackling out his grandiose threats (and twitching very slightly when he saw one of Baron Chauncey’s court giggling at his name) and proclaiming that he was unstoppable, but his momentum had faltered when he saw the reception his comments were getting. The Baron and the members of the court were not gazing on him with terror and just a touch of admiration, as he had hoped. They were looking at him as one might look at a chained poodle yapping and growling defiance – bewilderment and annoyance.

Another handicap Dr. McMillan had was his appearance. True, the dress code vis-à-vis evil scientists was a bit lax, but he was fashion-ignorant to the point of being actively offensive. A plaid lab coat over a striped shirt and green shorts was his usual attire, and the polka-dot bow-tie had not done anything to increase his prestige this day. His physical appearance was also not what might be called intimidating, or awe-inspiring. The only thing Dr. McMillan’s appearance usually inspired was pity. A balding head of grayish hair, a truly ludicrous goatee, overlarge glasses that continually slipped down his nose, all united to make him seem more comical than terrifying.

“Doctor,” the Baron interrupted in mid-rant. “Doctor, I have to ask,” (in a tone, Dr. McMillan couldn’t help noticing, that seemed more bored and resigned to an irritating situation than anything else) “you make these threats and posture, but for what? What are your demands?” This question froze Dr. McMillan in place, his eyes darting back and forth in panic. He had been so worked up about finally completing a plan that he had completely forgotten to think of any. True, had he issued demands, they would have only served to keep the authorities busy while Dr. McMillan dispatched any would-be heroes attempting to stop his plan, prior to him detonating the bombs anyway and blowing the whole city sky-high, but it was more the principle of the thing than anything.

Dr. McMillan was barely able to croak a few last threats before he disconnected the viewscreen. Such was the humiliation that for ten minutes he paced and paced, thinking of demands that were suitably grandiose and difficult to fulfill, to further instill a sense of hopelessness and despair on the part of the Baron. By the time he reactivated the viewscreen, however, his delay had given the very same heroes from before a chance to reach and disarm his bombs. Humiliated, Dr. McMillan disconnected the screen and slunk back to his laboratory in shame.

All these failures were in the past, however. The inspiration, as was previously mentioned, had just recently hit him. He knew what he was doing, this time. No more would Dr. McMillan not be taken seriously. He had an idea. He had a plan.

He had the List.
*
*
*
*
*
Those readers who were around for a certain discussion I had a few weeks ago with my family and friends know, of course, what List this is in reference to. For those who weren't...well, you'll see in the next part of the story, when I post it. Which I will.

REPLIIIIIIIES!

Steven: Well, far be it from me to continually pander to you, Steven, but I felt that the time was ripe for me to actually fulfill the purported purpose of this journal. Yes, the band carried through, but I am uneasy to think about how we seemed in front of all those immensely talented other bands. Brawl will come out when it comes out, but that won't stop me from really wanting it more. As for your last sentence...*shakes fist*

Jake: No. No, it is not wrong. Perhaps a tad excessive - why destroy a perfectly serviceable building when you can just pummel the guy inside of it? - but not per se wrong. And your last comment was correct. Almost.

Vic: I only used veto power once, and that was to stop from giving money to a known traitor to this country. And I went along with a movie for you...Yes, it makes me feel old. It doesn't make you seem old, though. It's just one of those odd little psychoses that I have. And fine, I won't. Furthermore, no, it should not be "BOA?" See our earlier conversation.

Dad: I thought so. So did my friend Aaron to whom I related the conversation. Yes, I know, we've talked, but even so. You know how it is.

Mom: Yes. That was in fact Steven Nebb. Could it be any other Steven? And you think I'm TRYING to spend this much money? I'm paralyzed because I can't spend a dime without fretting over it. Yes, Staney is indeed the man. And I can hold my breath for about a minute and a half.

Steven (again): *shakes fist again*

Here's A Shocker: I Actually Write About My Life

Yes, yes, I know. I hear your amazed gasps. Even through the...no, wait, I did this joke before. The long and short of it is, I've decided to actually write about what happened in the interim between my last posting and this one. Stunning, I know, but I have to start somewhere. And now seemed like a halfway decent time.

This Saturday was time for the Bands Of America competition, or BOA as it was referred to by anyone who didn't want to say the whole name. Which strikes me as being extremely lazy, if you think about it. I mean, they're saving, what, a whole second and maybe a third of a breath of air by shortening it in that fasion. Come on. Is it that much trouble to just say "Bands Of America," especially to a person who doesn't know what you're talking about when you say "BOA"? People do this sort of thing all the time. They take shortcuts and just end up making themselves unintelligible. And another thing, when people say "ATM machine" or "PIN number," not realizing that they're actually saying "Automated Teller Machine Machine" and "Personal Identification Number Number," nor would they care if they found out, and you just know these are the same people who use that infernally grammatically incorrect phrase "I could care less," which means exactly the opposite of what they're intending it to mean, but for some reason has entered the common vernacular, which makes about as much sense as everyone deciding one day that "yes" means "no," AND ANOTHER THING, I

*SLAP*

Er. Right. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, BOA. (See, once it's been explained, you can abbreviate, but not before, and saying "You know, BOA?" three or four times won't help me understand any better, and why can't these people just *SLAP*) Sorry. Won't happen again. So, BOA was quite entertaining, even the bus rides to and fro. On the roughly three-hour bus ride over, the staff put the movie Spaceballs on the televisions. I love Spaceballs. It's spot-on in so many different places, yet it manages to pull it off seeming like a light-hearted comedy rather than a heavy-handed parody. That, and Rick Moranis for Dark Helmet was a stroke of pure...freaking...genius.

Once we actually got there, we practiced up and down on the marching field that had kindly been set up for us inside the stadium. The main problem at this point was that the stadium was not primarily a football stadium, it was primarily a baseball stadium. Which meant that a large majority of the field, instead of being Astro-Turf like we were at least sort of used to, was packed earth. (On a side note, I really don't know how they got the painted yard lines to stay on the dirt. You'd think they'd have been obliterated after one or two people walked across, but somehow they survived. Huh.) If you don't see the inherent conflict here, you've never been in a marching band. Unfamiliar terrain under the feet, especially terrain that switches very quickly while you're not expecting it, can cause severe problems. The inside joke is that the "Turf Monster" reaches up and trips you. Not wishing that to happen, our director had us practice for a while, and I believe we made it through with only a few critical injuries.

War stories aside, we went back, had lunch (Chik-Fil-A catering, whoo), watched the other bands march up and down. These were only high-school bands, but they were some of the best in the country coming from all over the nation. They were seriously good performers. I began to worry that we might be outclassed, and expressed my fears to a bandmate beside me. "That's not true at all," he remarked. "It's not that we might be outclassed. We very definitely are outclassed. Did you wonder why we're not doing a full show?"

Disheartening news. And yes, I had wondered why we were only doing our pre-game show, then arranging into concert arcs to play some of our previous shows. Well, there it was, I guess. Our shows have to be somewhat simple in order for us to be able to learn them in a week. I mean, they're not that easy, but you can't learn a multi-stage complex show with props and all that every week. These bands had one show for the entire year, and a rigorous schedule to maintain it. I'd say we were beaten, but we were there because:

A. We were invited,
B. Having a college band around made the high-school bands feel more important, even if many of them were better than us, and
C. It was fun.

It really was. Some of these bands, they were amazing. I mean, really. Dang. I only wish we had time to watch more, as all too soon it was time to pack up and head back to the buses, so we could change and get ready to perform ourselves. We did so, to great fanfare, and we actually pulled it off quite nicely. Our fearless leader, Stanley, declared "Play until your lungs pop out. Balls to the wall, boys and girls." With such a directive, we could only play our absolute hardest. When we finished the final song, my throat was aching, my lips were throbbing, my tongue was sore and exhausted, and I was so dizzy and light-headed from hyperventilating that I was barely able to shuffle off the field. But it was worth it.

A particularly memorable exchange arises. One of the trombone players angrily turned to me and demanded "Who was blasting [playing loudly and without finesse] back there?!" I coolly replied "Everyone." His expression was priceless.

On the ride back, we got to watch Girl Next Door, a fairly raunchy movie whose plot I will not synopsize here, but it was vastly entertaining to an audience of our caliber. One of our section leaders, Chad, for some reason is known as "pure" and unspoiled. So whenever a questionable scene presented itself on the television screens, we shouted for him to avert his eyes, so his purity would not be compromised. Great fun.

Sunday, I watched...argh, what was the name...some dang chick-flick movie with my girlfriend. Pretty standard fare, as far as those sorts of movies go. An overbearing mother tries to manipulate the love life of her daughters, her daughters recoil and lash out, hijinks ensue, valuable lessons are learned about trust and all that sort of thing, hug, roll credits. It was decent, as far as my opinion of chick-flicks stretch, but it was for her and not for me. Next movie we rent, though, will have explosions, giant robots, or kung-fu fighting.

Or all three.

We also went out to lunch, a nice thing to do, but a practice that is rapidly worrying me. My bank account is draining. Why are all these restaurants so expensive? I don't recall ordering sirloin of Bigfoot grilled over moon rocks or whatever justified these prices. Isn't this supposed to be a college town, with poor college kids? Shouldn't there be prices according to what the market will bear?

A horrible thought occurs to me. Perhaps this is what the market will bear, at least for now, and that will change soon...and I'm doomed to ever-higher prices as the restaurants jerk me around like a puppet on strings. I'll have to dole out more and more cash to get even the simplest fare, until I'll have to sell my blood just to get an appetizer and a slice of lemon in my water glass.

...Perhaps you think I'm being melodramatic. You're probably right. Perhaps you think I'm acting like an idiot. Sadly, you're probably right again. But, eh, my online journal, my ramblings. You knew what you were signing up for when you read the title.

Tonight my girlfriend and I went to see the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, Arun Gandhi, give a speech in the student union. I was glad to see that he still carries with him his grandfather's lessons of nonviolence, tolerance, and acceptance, and that modern politics do not seem to have entered into his message. We could really use more of that sort of thing these days, you know?

So, besides an uneventful lecture in History of Journalism and my missing of Introduction to Weather for the nth time (don't worry, he teaches straight from the notes and they're all online), that's it.

REPLIES.

Jake: All in all, I'd rather not contemplate you in the shower. Of course, now that you mention it, I'll never be able to chisel it from my mind. It's like trying not to think of pink elephants. And, er, if I had to compare you to any animal, a jackal wouldn't be it. I'd say more...a gerbil. Kind of interesting to keep around, but completely useless in any given situation.

I kid, I kid.

Steven: Well, your foolish claims of "manliness" notwithstanding, I have acquiesced and given up an entire post dedicated to things I've actually done. How about that, eh? Like them apples? And I still can't wait for Brawl. A school of thought suggests that it was delayed because they just got last-minute permission from some third-party to add a feature, and they need time to implement it. Do I hear Megaman?

Vic: That is, of course, your point of view. And my point of view is that I prefer the twenty-six rude letters of our alphabet, as opposed to the infinitely graceful and meaningful squiggles of another. Thanks. <3

Mom: Well, WoW isn't for everyone. I appreciate you trying to take an interest in it, though. And I'll surely set up a game of Toon when I come home this weekend, as I said. You're welcome to join in.

Peace.

Finally, Some Decent Temperatures! And A WoW Introspective.

It has finally gotten to be a decent kind of temperature around here. Yesterday, I walked outside to go to class, and I felt for the first time in months that bite in the air that meant summer was ending and fall was beginning. It was a beautiful thing, let me tell you. I mean it was amazing. I was elated, and full of vim and vigor. The whole day, I was in a good mood. Then I discovered that my girlfriend goes the exact opposite way I do in this scenario, becoming depressed during winter and happy during summer. So her mood is going to steadily decline. Oh well, I'll figure something out.

This week has been particularly interesting, as you heard from my last post. Lots of stuff going on. Thursday I was planning on going to the mall, but I decided to sleep in instead and just rambled around on World of WarCraft. Speaking of which, I am very nearly at level 70, the max level in that game. I'm at roughly 90% of the experience I need to get to the last level, and for those who know what I mean, I have only two rested bars to go. So I'm in a good mood there, as well. I believe it is evidence of my dedication to this concept that I'm writing in this online journal (see, not blog! I can watch my words if I'm prompted to!) instead of feverishly killing enemies and completing quests in WoW, like I really want to be. So consider yourselves lucky that I'm even writing all this down at all.

Boy. Nearly level 70 in WoW. I remember when I was first starting off with my character. His name is Warsmasher, he's a dwarven Warrior on Lightning's Blade, if anyone wants to know or send me a letter or something. I started off in Dun Morogh, the snowy area where all dwarf characters begin. Killing boars and bears to get past those first few hardscrabble levels...boy oh boy, I remember it all. I went to Elwynn Forest to get my first weapon for the big first warrior quest, and I remember wandering around for hours because I couuld not find the stupid guy I was supposed to kill to complete it. But the weapon I got was cool.

Leveling...I went to Westfall and ran Deadmines until I knew it by heart, which I still do. Miner Johnson, Rhahk'Zor the Foreman, Sneed's Shredder, Sneed, Gilnid the Smelter, Mr. Smite, Cookie, Captain Greenskin, Edwin Van Cleef. Hell yeah, that's all the bosses, even the unimportant one in the beginning nobody ever goes to. So after Deadmines I went to Duskwood, this really creepy dusky place in a haunted forest with undead every which way. I hate the undead. Hated 'em then, hate 'em now. I didn't stay for too long, just long enough to team up with nine other people to bring down Patches, this enormous elite flesh golem made up of like twenty-seven corpses sewn together. We were all low 30s and high 20s, so it took ten people, but we got 'im.

I went to Desolace for the 30s, which I profoundly hated and still hate, because its name is very descriptive. It's desolate. There's nothing there except dirt, dust, rocks, a few dead trees, and a freaking metric ton of enemies per square foot. I had to ally myself with one of the two centaur clans in the region in order to mercilessly slaughter the other, I believe I took the side of the Gelkis clan. The Magram clan experienced a severe population deficit shortly thereafter. I don't know why I don't just go down there now, that I'm thirty-five levels ahead, and lay a serious smackdown on all of them. Then I ran Scarlet Monastery until I thought my brain would boil out my ears, which it very nearly did. I'm getting damn sick of SM, and even now will only run it for money or if a friend of mine asks me to. (Even with level-appropriate characters.)

The haze of leveling in Azeroth finished, I went to Outland. Hoo boy, that changed my character's life. Hellfire Peninsula was fun as anything, except when those twelve-stories-tall Fel Reaver robots ran me over. Must have run Hellfire Ramparts twenty times, trying to get those damn Ironsole Clompers, these boots that only dropped there. I never did. It aggravated me. Then there was Zangarmarsh. I hate swamps, I've always hated swamps, but this place was kind of cool. The huge lakes were nice to swim around in, especially after I got those special Potions of Greater Water Breathing from a quest. So I bummed around there for a while. After Zangarmarsh came Terokkar Forest, very briefly. I don't believe I stayed there for more than half a level. Didn't really like the place, that much. It was just a little too far off for my tastes.

Nagrand...Nagrand was awesome. I've always thought of Nagrand as a cross between the plains of Africa, the hills of Scotland, just a touch of the forests of the Amazon, and throw it all into a blender and add a pinch of outer space. That's Nagrand. I liked it. Leveled for a long time there, especially near Oshu'gun, a diamond the size of a mountain. You can only imagine why I liked being around there. Blowing up the two camps that were vomiting forth a near-endless supply of demons was only icing on the cake. I spent a while in Nagrand. Then I went to Blade's Edge Mountains, but I didn't like that place at all. Too spiky, and too freaking difficult to get around in. Everything's either infinitely high up or infinitely far down and you die in the fall. I can't be having with that, not before I get a flying mount. After Blade's Edge came Shadowmoon Valley, briefly. That place has the same blasted look as Desolace and Hellfire Peninsula, but without any of those places' charm and decency. I don't like it much, myself, but there were many valuable quests to be had, so I went there and did them.

Finally there was Netherstorm, which is where I am now. It's pretty cool, a bunch of disconnected floating islands in space. There are these enormous shimmering domes which, when you go inside, turn out to be biospheres that hold little pockets of forest life. So that's awesome. The place is dramatically unstable, though, and will explode in a matter of months if nothing is done. So I went and did things, smashing the mana-forges that were siphoning energy out of the ground, which was what was going to trigger the explosion in the first place. Stupid jerk blood elves think they know everything, including how not to destroy the world. They're wrong, of course, which is why the goblins there are feverishly working on a rocket ship to take them away from it.

So I'm nearly 70. I probably will be 70 by the time most of you read this. It's been a great run, and I couldn't have done it without my friends, so thanks to you all. And sorry to any non-WoW-players for this, but I really felt like saying it.

RESPONSES.

Steve - You SAY you have shaved, but I just can't find myself believing it. Maybe you trimmed occasionally, but you? Clean shaven? I have to laugh. Yes, Sonic looks like he is going to be incredibly awesome, but the whole GAME looks like it is going to be incredibly awesome. Shame about it being delayed to February 10th, 2008, though.

Vic - But I do not want to take Sanskrit. It seems difficult, and tiresome. If I'm going to take a language at all, it'll be one that actually uses the Germanic alphabet, not lots and lots of squiggly little symbols. And yes, I would have been a little upset, but I would have given you the spot, because I love you and I wanted you to be happy.

Mom - I'm glad you liked the piece on music so much. I did think it was pretty cool, while I was writing it. And yes, I plan to play a game of TOON when I get back home next weekend, so that promises to be entertaining. Sure, you can join. But be ready, it's a wild and wacky game. As for the 1st ed D&D, it's just that the system itself seemed to be openly hostile and difficult for people to customize their characters. Why would anyone do that? It'd take a mighty DM indeed to make something good out of that. And fourth, I will call him. Soon.

Jake - I've thought you were crazy since the day I met you in Personal Fitness. Which is why I started talking to you. I like crazy. And you have no knowledge of the awesomeness quotient of the Death Knight class, you haven't played it yet. Now, the Mountain King class, if it exists, can only be a pillar of complete and total awesomeness. There's no other way for it to exist.

Bye.

Edit: Ding.

Tonight's Games - Holy Cow, What Fun

Well, well, well. Game Night just passed, and lemme tell you, it was one of the most fun times I've had at Game Night so far. Sadly, my girlfriend did not enjoy herself as much, because she doesn't like RPGs and was excluded from the final game (I invited her to take my place, but she declined, saying I would sulk. That's crazy talk. She's crazy for thinking it.) I'm sorry, to you, love, and I'll buy a big multiplayer game for next time so we can all play.

Now that that's out of the way, here's the description. We did three games this night. First and foremost was Toon, the cartoon role-playing game. The game describes it as if a traditional cartoon were made into an RPG, with characters having skills and attributes, goals, beliefs, etc. These skills range from Fight, to Drive Vehicle, Fire Gun, Fast-Talk (to talk someone into something), even to crazy stuff like Incredible Speed, Teleport, Coat of Arms (think Inspector Gadget), etc. All determined by four attributes: Muscle (strength), Zip (speed), Smarts (intelligence), and Chutzpah (charisma). So I had everyone roll up characters. The creations were such:

Matt: Gerbil Commander, a human who apparently wanted to rally people around his glorious cause, to fight for the GERBIL nation. His goal was to acquire a doomsday device and take over the world. He tried to Fast-Talk people into joining his cause constantly. He nearly succeeded with a few people, and did in fact manage to convince a robotic duck cop to join his side. He had Incredible Luck on his side, as well as the ability to detect a Doomsday Device at nearly any range. These often failed. Also, he had the original US Constitution, which he used like a magical scroll to justify all of his ludicrous actions. I'm not quite sure why I allowed him that.

As I say, he often failed. In Toon, failing is quite often much more entertaining and productive than success. Some people have intentionally low scores for some skills, so they can fail entertainingly and watch the results. His Zip, used for Fire Gun, was 1, on a scale of 1 to 6 with 6 being best. He described himself as "not being able to hit the broad side of a barn, even with a gun the size of a barn." He carried said gun at all times, as well as a laser that could not possibly hit anything (when he fired it, I had the blast fly in tight circles in midair to avoid hitting anything) and a lapel pin that emitted laughing and sleeping gas. He added that it made people laugh while they were asleep. This reduced me to hysterical laughter, so he got a Plot Point, which is sort of a currency in the game, used for increasing skills and such.

John: He was Paper Mario, which is like regular Mario, except he's made of paper. This comes from the popular Paper Mario series of games. He had a hammer, jump shoes, a fire-flower, et cetera, et cetera. His special skill was to have Luigi as a sidekick. The poor green-hatted plumber suffered terribly throughout the game, but that's just too bad. He's Luigi. His life is suffering, overshadowed by his more successful and more overweight brother. A few extra knocks on the noggin won't faze him much, I suppose. His goal was to rescue the princess; Princess Peach, of course. He had a special warp pipe, which would take him to wherever he wanted to go...when it worked. It almost never did.

Kevin: He was Diddy Kong, from the Donkey Kong series of games, the small and childlike companion of the mighty Donkey Kong. He had as his main weapon a peanut popgun, which he fired indiscriminately at every opportunity. Of course, his ammunition being peanuts, he rarely, if ever, did any actual damage. Sucks to be him, I suppose. His main schtick was Incredible Speed, but so often did he fail, that he was more usually seen whizzing past his desired location and hitting the wall with a *BLAM!* This became something of a running gag. Once, when he failed spectacularly, I decreed that he had Incredible Slowness instead, and he spent a long time shuffling to an area where most people had gotten to a while ago. His goal was to protect the crystal coconut, an artifact from the short-lived but much-beloved Donkey Kong Country television show. Yes, there was actually a show. Look it up. I'm not kidding.

Steve (not you, Steven, another Steve): He was Duck Dodgers, From the 24th and 1/2 Century. Naturally, his goal was to acquire fame and prestige, and his beliefs were that he was absolutely infallible and that he should naturally take credit for everything that happened. So he was mostly in character in that regard. He was slightly out of character in that he had some actual competencies in certain subjects, which the true Duck Dodgers lacked at all. His spaceship took him to and fro, to varying degrees of success. He did not start off wich much equipment, but when the aforementioned robotic duck was hit so hard he compressed into a tin can labeled "Beets," he took it and held it for the remainer of the journey. His main ability was Cosmic Shift, which is a very powerful ability which defines the essence of cartoon physics.

Some explanation may be required here. In this game, being stupid can help you considerably. If your character runs off a cliff, or goes underwater, or runs into a painting of a tunnel or similar, if he fails to roll better than his Smarts, then he does not realize the predicament he is in, and acts as if he is not bound by it (hovering, breathing underwater, etc). So a regular character can run into a painting of a train tunnel as if it were real. Only a character with Cosmic Shift, though, upon running into said painting, can cause a train to come out and plow over the flummoxed painter of this fake tunnel. Only a character with Cosmic Shift can, while sitting on a tree branch while another character saws it away, cause the tree to fall over while the cut branch remains immobile in the air. He used this whenever he could, and quite often to entertaining results, which is the whole point.

I had to come up with a plot that would satisfy all the characters' requirements, so I said that a villain had captured the princess and stolen the crystal coconut, escaping to the 24th and 1/2 Century. Matt's character, I assumed, would find a way to satisfy his goals no matter what I did. So there were memorable circumstances that took place. Those including:

- A planet was landed on that had a massive beanstalk leading up into the clouds. So Kevin's character promptly pulled out his peanut popgun and shot it down, dazing a callow youth who had been climbing it. Feeling sorry for the lad, he threw him a banana, which the youth planted. It grew into a massive banana tree that led up into the clouds, because darn it, the plot must go on.

- The characters started on a space station that would puncture and become destroyed if anyone sneezed. A crisis with Matt's character was averted when another cartoon character stopped him from sneezing by making him eat his own nose, but that did nothing to stop the vendor who approached. "Pepper! Tear gas! Get yer nasal irritants here! Get 'em while they're irritating! Free samples!" The sneeze was the inevitable result.

- John's character went into his warp pipe and attempted to reach the top of the clouds, only to fail miserably in his roll. The pipe instead dumped him straight into a nearby bottomless pit, causing him to Fall Down, to the accompaniment of the necessary Mario death music. "Doo-doo, doo-doo-doo, doo-doo! (Doo-doo-doo!)" Nobody can die in Toon, it just doesn't happen. If they take too much damage, they Fall Down, humorously, and have to sit out for three minutes. Then they come back in fresh and ready. Upon his resurrection, he sent in Luigi first, who vanished.

- When they had all finally gotten to the top, they had loaded themselves into Steve's character's spaceship, which despite going at Ludicrous Speed (leaving a plaid streak across the sky), barely made progress. A character, realizing the logic of the situation, came to the conclusion that if the tiny castle in the distance wasn't growing much larger (as they weren't getting much closer), the obvious solution was to paint a much bigger castle on the inside of the windshield. Amazingly, this worked, for they were right there.

- Inside the castle, which was giant-sized (I had planned to put an actual giant in, but I never got around to it), the characters found themselves in a level from Megaman, featuring Gutsman. The more nerd-oriented readers will immediately know why I picked Gutsman. Mario decided to attack Gutsman at the end of the level, so he hurled his hammer. He had to roll a 9 or under on 2 six-sided dice. He rolled a 12. So I decreed that his hammer flew past Gutsman, ricocheted off the wall, clocked Matt's character in the head, rebounded and smashed the trap Matt's character had set, then flew straight at Mario's head. I then decided it was time to a new idea. Luigi popped out of the ground, directly in the path of the hammer.
"Mari-"
*BLAM!*
Luigi was down.

Much more occurred, but those are the highlights, I believe. I'll tell the rest if you're really interested. I'll certainly remember them, the night was memorable.

Then we played a bit of 1st-edition Dungeons & Dragons. I now know why nobody plays it anymore. It sucks. Instead of rolling 4 six-sided dice and dropping the lowest to determine attributes, we rolled 3 six-sided dice and took the result. We did this six times. We were not allowed to distribute these numbers as we wished, they applied to our attributes in a specific order. The numbers then determined what classes we could become. Oddly, "elf" and "dwarf" were both classes that one could become. I don't know why. So we were locked into low ability scores, distributed in a way that stripped us of control of our character creation, then were told we could only qualify for a certain class if we had certain scores in certain attributes.

The mages in our group (two) each got one spell, which they could cast once per day. And it was randomly chosen with a die roll. I, as the cleric, got no spells, but was later told that I would gain a spell upon gaining a level. All the equipment in the game, costs, damage, everything, fit on a single sheet of notebook paper. The horrendously complex THAC0 system came into play. The thief and one of the wizards ended up killing the fighter because he was inept and it was funny, and the rest of us committed in-character suicide shortly later because it was the most tedious and boring experience we'd ever had while RPing. That, and for solving a difficult situation, we only got 50 XP each, and we needed 1,000 to level up. To heck with that, we said.

Then we played this card game called Infernal Contraption, which is way too complicated for me to explain now, even if I fully understood the rules, which I still don't, really. And that's all that I have the energy to discuss. It's late. I was interrupted in this writing by an annoying fire alarm that some jerk set off in my building.

SO ON TO RESPONSES.

Vic: You COULD just come to a Friday rehearsal. We're having one this week. Of course, I told you this in real life, but I promised I'd respond, and by cracky, I will. And I warned you against taking Sanskrit. But would you listen? I love you.

Kelli: I DID?!? *scans previous entry* ARGH! Well, that stinks. I'd edit it, but I want my mistake to stand for all time. And congratulations on being able to eat things, that's obviously a step up from when you...er...couldn't? Being sick sucks.

Steve: An interesting way to put it. And yes, Olde English is overrated. Thank you for complimenting my work, even with a "Doubt it" disclaimer. And shave your beard, for goodness' sake. I know you haven't. Play your SSB:M and shave your beard. Oh yes, Sonic's in Brawl, so how about that, eh?

Later.

Oh, one last edit: Ask me about the wickedly insane awesome Halo video when next I come down, people I know back home. I'd link to it, but I have to show it to you personally. It's worth it. I'll have it bookmarked.

Short, But Sweet: Musings on Music

Today's blog entry is a short little number, a piece I wrote once while almost in the middle of a class. Anyone who's a writer will understand how a particular piece of writing can just leap into your head in a flash and demand you write it, not letting go until you have done so. It was all I could do to contain myself until the end of the lecture. Here it is.
*
*
*
*
It was an ordinary phrase, musically speaking. A little crowded, perhaps, a little packed. When someone looked at the sheet music, he or she saw an awful lot of notes, mostly connected by those little thick black bars that make any musician, upon first looking at them, sigh in a combination of fascination and dread. If he was a wind player, he would be wondering how he was going to play it without growing an extra pair of lungs and two more tongues. If he was, say, a guitar player, his fingers would send twinges of clairvoyant pain down his spine, recalled from a future in which stinging agony could be the only end result.

If he was a drummer, he would be searching for his good sticks and asking all the other band members why they looked so glum.*

But no musician could look at it without imagining how amazing it would be when he finally got it right. And when a group of musicians finally did get it right, no audience could listen to it without wondering how it was that what they were hearing could possibly be played. The phrase seemed to bulge with music, seemed to overflow. It was as if a simple four-measure phrase contained more sound than it was possible for it to hold, as if the notes were bumping and clanging against each other in their haste to be heard. It was complete and utter chaos that somehow managed to resolve into an elegant, if cluttered, seven or eight seconds of aural marvels.



* It is considered wise not to imagine the mental state of a drummer, even at the best of times.
*
*
*
*
That's it. Short, I know, but I like it.

And as for the party for Fred...I really don't want to get into it. I just...I don't. It was sad, but good. That's all I want to say.

ON TO RESPONSES

Mom: I have to say, I couldn't quite foresee such a response when I originally wrote that out, I was just looking for padding. Still, if it helps, read it over again when you feel you have sufficiently calmed down. And yes, that movie stunk.

Vic: I'm sure that with sufficient ingenuity (and perhaps a wad of bills) you can find a way to get to the game. If not, eh, no sweat. Just come to one of the band practices the week prior and stand on top of the garage. <3

Steve: Forsooth! For thou hast, er, astounded me...(thee?)...with thy noble prose, and...uh...by my troth...You know what? This isn't working. I'm going to smack you down, that's all you need to know. And yes, your zig-zag patterns have not gone unnoticed by me. Maybe you need to start thinking in a straight line.

Rain, Rain, Go Away...After Band Practice

It has been raining with incredible vigor all this week. It ranges from a slight drizzle that does little more than annoy people, to a ferocious downpour that makes it seem like the sea is trying to reclaim the land via air drop. The rain has been pretty much the defining feature of this week. Not much else has happened, at least since I last wrote.

One amusing story took place during band practice. It was raining some when I got there, but when we all dragged our tuba cases out and were just starting to open them, the floodgates opened and it began to pour in earnest. So we all piled into the trailer, where the drums and tubas are kept.

A little explanation is needed, to set the scene at this point. The trailer is fairly large, but there is a wooden board, bolted to the sides of the trailer, at about chest height running through most of the middle. This is to make it so that tubas can be stacked both below and above the board, as space is at a premium in this trailer. There’s a lot of equipment to hold and it isn’t particularly large, as trailers go. The board stops one or two feet from the back door of the trailer, so as to allow a little room for loading and offloading. The back door comes down like a drawbridge. Picture this in your mind. Now picture this still half-full of instruments, rain dripping through the roof, people trying to cram themselves inside.

Now...picture a dinosaur rampaging through New York, a T. Rex, smashing and destroying all in his path, and only a squadron of giant flying robots has the power to stop it. Why? Because it’s fun, and I figured you’d picture anything if I told you to.

But back to the story. There shouldn’t be room in the back of the trailer, if you closed the door, for more than three people. About nine of us were stuffed inside, trying to close the door from the inside, and then discovering why you cannot do this. We picked a sacrificial freshman and told him to run outside and close the door. He did so, because he is an inoffensive sort that would probably give you his wallet if you told him to in a stern voice. He crawled back in through the side door and wriggled through the tuba cases to where we were standing.

A few minutes passed, in which we laughed and speculated whether or not Mr. Watkins, the band director, would let us all go home. No such luck, as it happened. Our leader, “Keith,” poked his head in the side door, beholding the nine of us, damp and overexcited. He decided that immediate action would be required, but he still managed to compose himself with dignity, grace, and above all, tact.

“GET THE [censored] OUT AND GET TO PRACTICE!” he roared.

“NO!” we replied cheerfully. “It’s raining out there! We could get wet!”

“I don’t care!” bellowed Keith. “Get out of this [censored] trailer and get your tubas on! Come on!” He disappeared, to general fear that he was going to open the big door in the back. Cries of “Hold it shut!” and “You CAN’T from the inside!” echoed around the cramped trailer. I would have tried to help, but I was laughing far too hard to be of any assistance.

Much argument ensued. Eventually, it was impressed upon us that we would, in fact, have to go to practice. It would not be held on the marching field, which was rapidly disappearing underwater, but instead would be held in the nearby parking garage. Faced with the undeniable fact that prolonged exposure to rain didn’t augur well for tubas (or their open cases, which would get moldy if wet), Keith agreed to a compromise. We were to run out in shifts of two, grab our cases, haul them inside, open them and assemble the tubas in the trailer, then bolt for the garage. This proved difficult, at first, with the sheer number of people involved. With a lot of huffing and puffing, and a considerable amount of swearing, eventually we all got assembled and hurried for the garage.

The garage had been used for band practice several times before, when the rain became too extreme. It worked relatively well for shielding us from the direct rain, but it had its drawbacks. For one thing, it always seemed to be twenty degrees hotter and a good deal more humid inside the garage than it did outside; the humidity quirk being an impressive feat this day, given that it was still raining heavily. Also, there was a car near where the brass players practiced (the brass, the woodwinds, and the percussion had all split off into separate groups) that had an insanely sensitive car alarm. Whenever the air near it was sufficiently disturbed – say, by us playing together – this apparently triggered its systems, and it would wail and shriek until we stopped. If I ever find out which car it is, I will endeavor to rectify this problem. Perhaps with a sledgehammer.

The third problem was unique to this day. The sewer system, as we found out swiftly, had been overwhelmed by the sudden influx of water, and was completely useless in terms of drainage. This, combined with the fact that the floor of the garage was slightly lower than the ground level outside, made for an indoor river that sluggishly expanded its borders.

Somewhat more explanation is required here. We had formed a “concert arc,” a semi-circle of band members facing inwardly at the director, in the middle. The river gradually expanded into a lake, widening slowly but unstoppably. As nobody wanted to be caught standing ankle-deep in rainwater runoff and sewer water, the arc was split asunder, with nervous-looking students on the banks of the lake. This caused much consternation on the part of our director, who was observed to have an expression that clearly communicated the concept “I wish that this just wasn’t happening.” Those on one side happened to be trapped, as it were, because they had walls on three sides of them and a rising body of water on the fourth. Those of us on the outside jeered at them for being “marooned” until we were made to join them. This dismayed us.

The futility of the whole thing apparently got to our band director, who ended practice an hour early. And that’s all I’ve got, in terms of stories. As for personal replies...

Mom: http://bcvgms-4.ytmnd.com/ for the specific music.

Jake: Less personal comments, more personal REPLIES to comments. Dig? And I’ll take as many Elementals as I can get my grubby little paws on, capische?

Steve: I was going to look between those and find out, but I’m too lazy, so we used the music at this page: http://bcvgms-4.ytmnd.com/ And I choose Goblins. Yes, we waited a long time, but now Lorwyn block empowers us both with ridiculously broken Goblins and Elves.

Kelli: I mean, as I say, personal replies to comments. Not actual personal comments. And when Steve said elves vs. goblins, he meant we had a specific challenge ongoing, to see who could build the most broken deck with all cards in Magic (even the really old and broken ones). Feel better. Strep throat blows.

Vic: <3 And, as before, personal REPLIES, not COMMENTS. And you probably won’t see the show, unless you come to Jacksonville for the Florida/Georgia game. (Don’t even ask me why the game is there.)

Moving Right Along, Then

Monday's post took a lot out of me to write. I wrote the first line, then sat and stared at it for over an hour. Just staring. It has been a little difficult for me (and I can't even know how hard it's been for those closer to him), but I have to move on. It'll be his funeral and party on Sunday. I'll tell you about that when it's done. For now, though, I want to resume normality. I know Fred wouldn't want me to be paralyzed with grief. So it'll be my traditional style until next Monday.


Right. I got my scores back from the two tests that I took. I got a B in History of Journalism (a little worse than I expected, but meh), and an A in Introduction to Weather (Woohoo, I kicked ass). If I get an A in the other two Intro to Weather classes, I'll be exempt from taking the final exam. Which, obviously, is a desirable goal. I mean, that's that much more time I don't have to study and one day I don't have to worry about an exam. I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch into two more A-graded tests, but if all the tests were like the one I took, I should be fine. Those online notes do help out.

Halo 3 has been an absolute blast. Though, actually, I haven't been playing it as much as I normally would have. See, I'm on a drive to level 70 in World of WarCraft, just having hit 68 last night. For those who know what this means, I'm fully rested all to 69, and I'll bet that I'll maintain that status to 70 as well. Hope so, anyway. Now all I have to do is find a good area to level and quest in, in the meanwhile. I can't decide between Blade's Edge Mountains (really annoying to get around in without a flying mount), Shadowmoon Valley (looks okay, if a bit desolate, but everyone says it sucks), and Netherstorm (in which I think I REALLY can't get around without flying, as it's just a bunch of disconnected floating islands). Asking people gives me only contradictory answers.

Through much wheedling from my girlfriend, I finally cleaned up my room. At least, a bit. I do have to thank her for this, as she was correct to wheedle. I couldn't live in an environment such as I was casting around myself, for very long. She and I recently went to see the movie Feast of Love, which I stupidly ruined by making snarky comments throughout. Frankly, movies like that, it's hard for me to resist. I suppose I should have just sewn my mouth shut and been done with the whole ordeal. If you're reading this, sweetie, I'm sorry.

The whole new Lorwyn set from Magic: the Gathering was released last weekend. Yes, this was the weekend of our ignominious last-second defeat against Auburn, but I'm doing my best to block that occurrence from my memory. Honestly, though, people are treating it like the end of the world. As I was wont to share with people afterwards, not that many listened, "We lost to Auburn last year and still won the national championship. Come on." But, you know how people are.

Lorwyn promises to be both lots of fun and utterly, utterly broken beyond belief. The planeswalkers, the Elemental Incarnations, and the champion a creatures all will unite to break Standard as it has never been broken before. I suppose it was a long time coming. The Magic dev team probably remembered the whole Urza's debacle some years back (now THAT was overpowered), and more recently the Mirrodin nonsense, and longed for just some really stupidly powerful stuff, y'know? Should make drafts interesting, at least. Especially when done with Chaos Magic rules in play, heh heh.

So what else? The show we're playing in marching band is a lot of fun. It's really amazing, I think. It seems as if the band director approached me a few months ago and said "Okay, Luke, what would be in your ideal show?" The first song contains Saturday morning cartoon themes, including Looney Tunes, Flintstones, Jetsons, what have you. The second is video game music, from Super Mario Bros. (both overworld and underground), Legend of Zelda, Ms. Pac-Man, and even Tetris. Look up the theme song to Tetris on youtube or something, I can guarantee you'll be humming it all day long. That is addictive.

The last song is superhero music. Starts with the Spider-Man theme ("Spin a web, any size; catches criminals just like flies!"), goes through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, and yes, the incredibly amazing Superman music. From the movies.

I'd just like to add this. The person who designs the formations for the halftime shows we perform seems to like abstract art, as we never form recognizable patterns. Well, we do, but very rarely. We formed a zeppelin for a Led Zeppelin show we did last year, and we form shapes in pre-game, but those are the only exceptions I can think of. If we don't form a mushroom, a star, a coin, a Mario hat, or something during the second song, I will be upset.

If we don't form a giant "S" emblem during the Superman song, I am going to actively harm something.

We don't even get the cool parts in a lot of those songs. I say "we," the tuba section. I play the tuba, y'see. We get important bits of the Jetsons and Flintstones music, some core playing during Zelda, but we don't even get what we by rights should get: the octave-leaping rhythms in the Super Mario Bros. underground sections! Isn't that the lowest of the bass? Why do the flippin' trombones get it? It just isn't fair. I tell ya, we get no respect. No respect at all.

But, enough blithering. Er...

That is...

...uh...

See, this gets a little more difficult every time I write this. My life just isn't that noteworthy, most of the time. Important stuff does happen, yes, but not necessarily of the sort I'd like to lay bare to the entire Internet, see? We're learning interesting things in History of Journalism, anyway. For instance, Joseph Pulitzer, made famous by the Pulitzer Prize; and William Randolph Hearst, made famous by all the newspapers he owned, the Hearst Award, and Citizen Kane...they were both jerks. They ran competing newspapers in the beginning of the century, the New York World (Pulitzer's) and the New York Journal (Hearst's).

They were both sensationalist, yellow-journalism-using, scoundrels, but Hearst had a lot of money from his family to back him up, so often he won the little disputes they had. For instance, Hearst wanted a good Sunday section for his paper. This was back when Sunday sections were not generally had in newspapers. He went to the offices of the World and offered all of the Sunday workers there double pay to work for him. They agreed. Pulitzer got wind of this and offered double of that to come back and work for him (Pulitzer). They agreed. Hearst got wind of this and offered double that pay to come back and work for him, Hearst, again. Unsurprisingly, they agreed. Pulitzer gave up at this point, and Hearst can be said to have triumphed, but I think that the real winners here were the writers.

It's this sort of cut-throat competition that typifies the history of journalism in a nutshell, I believe sometimes. Maybe not even just the history. Modern journalism can be seen to be much like this, if you look. Competing papers cut into each other like knives. Opposing news networks are forever denigrating their competitors, if not openly. The whole business has transformed from a way of transferring information to the public into, well, a business, with the whole concept of "the public's right to know" sort of shunted off to the side. Sigh. And this is my field. Sometimes I want to be a cavalier, crusading in and smashing down the dark and fetid walls of ignorance and arrogance that block real journalism from emerging...bring the whole field back into the open light and have it once again be just about bringing news to the people. Other times, I want to sidestep the whole mess and work for a non-traditional news outlet, such as Game Informer or Electronic Gaming Monthly. It's anyone's guess as to which of these I'll end up doing. At this point, it can honestly go either way.

Tonight is Game Night. It should be fun. In fact, I should start getting ready for it, I reckon. So see y'all later. Thanks to all those that comment, you really do inspire me to continue. I may even start doing personal replies later on, if I get enough comments to justify such extravagances.

Toodles.

In Memoriam

Fred Marsh, my godfather, died last night. He was 57.

He had been battling cancer for a long time. By the time he knew he had it, it was too late for anything to be done. It had metastasized before they even knew it existed. He fought for as long as he could, but there was never really anything that could have been done.

But if there had been, he would have done it.

Fred and his wife Linda had been friends with my parents for over thirty years, I believe. They had met in college. They...I don't know enough about that period in his life to really write much about it. I know they had a son, David, who was born just shortly before my sister was. I know that there was a falling out between Fred and Linda and my parents because of this, because both Linda and my mother had been trying to have a child for a long time and Linda succeeded first, and my mother was very upset. That's all I know. That's not really his story, anyway.

Fred was a man who loved to laugh. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was his defining characteristic, but anyone who knew him knew about his sense of humor. He couldn't seem to let a conversation go by without letting slip a few witty remarks. Not at other people's expense, though. Never to harm. Only for fun. He was a naturally cheery person, and this cheeriness reverberated from him so strongly that it was impossible to be sad or upset in his presence for very long.

He bought me the fourth Harry Potter book for my twelfth birthday. I remember I was staying at his house at the time, I used to go up to stay with him and Linda every so often. I couldn't stop reading it. Harry Potter books have always had a great fascination with me; the first time through, I can never put them down. At three o'clock in the morning, I remember him finding me reading by flashlight and telling me I should go to bed. But not with any heat. He let me sleep in, and finish the book the next day.

I remember going with him and Linda to a vacation spot in Vermont, the name of which I cannot remember for the life of me. Had something to do with thieves...Thieves' Creek or Robbers' Gorge or something like that. David was with us, I think. Time erodes memory. We wanted to go to see Niagara Falls in Maine, but for some reason this was unavailable. The time I spent there was a lot of fun, not least because of Fred. Fred could make a root canal seem like a good time, if he was there.

I don't know this. I wasn't there. I don't know if I'll ever know for sure. But I would bet everything I own that he kept a smile until the end.

He took me to the Ben and Jerry's factory, in Vermont. We went on a tour of the place. I answered questions about the ice cream and got a free sample to take home with me.

We went minigolfing. We explored a woodsy area with a ravine that I nearly fell into. Every time I came up, he would take me and his family to Legal Seafoods, an amazing restaurant. Doubly so in New England itself. It must have cost him a lot of money, it's not a cheap place. Even so, we always went.

I'm going up to his funeral this weekend. Fred specified that afterwards, he didn't want a traditional ceremony. He wanted a party. A party to celebrate the good times of his life, not to mourn and mope about his death. Yes, I'm sad. I've cried some, I'm crying a little now as I write this. It's only right. He was too good of a person not to be sad at his passing. But he didn't want us to be paralyzed with grief. He wanted us to remember the good times, and think of him with smiles, not tears. And so a party we shall have.

It's traditional at this point to say "He was a good man, he left an impact on those around him, yadda yadda yadda." Well, the reason things become traditional is because they work. Yes, he was a good man. But he wasn't just...A lot of men are considered "good" just because they aren't actively bad. They're just inoffensive. Maybe they give to charity, maybe they buy a round of drinks for their friends. Maybe they adopt a puppy from an animal shelter. All good things, certainly, but that's not what makes a man truly a good man. That just makes him a man that does good things.

Fred was a good man because he loved life, and he shared that love with everyone around him. He always kept his spirits up. He was happy, and not the kind of fake happiness people put on like a mask to hide despair. He was genuinely happy, and believed that the world was a place that could do well with a little more laughter. He believed this so strongly that it burned, like a flame that was bigger than he is.

He did touch those around him. I'm convinced that I'm an actively better person for having met him. He taught me not to take things too seriously, to always try to enjoy yourself...to keep a smile on, a real smile. To keep a good attitude. I remember that his basement had a bunch of cartoon books that I read over and over again. That's probably what started me reading humorous material, which started me reading everything I could. Without him, I might not be a writer. And this is just my story. I don't know how he left a mark on everyone else, those are their stories.

I remember him telling a joke and laughing, laughing so infectiously that I started to laugh with him even though I didn't get it. I laughed because he was. If he was laughing, I thought, there must be something funny. There always was, with him.

I remember him smiling.

I can't remember him any other way.