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Lights Out | The Long Night

The office shuddered with the impacts of  sodden arms and bodies.  Fleshy demons slammed against the glassy doors and windows that led to the balcony.  Men and women franticly piled as much office furniture and cube building material against as they could, attempting to blockade the office against the bloody fiends outside.   Panic and fear cemented into determination and bravery.

“Folks; as long as we keep watch and fortify the windows and doors, those things aren’t getting in!” in the gloom, no one knew for sure who was speaking.  “We keep them out there until morning and then, when we can see, we figure out how to deal with them, alright?”

Mutters of agreement came from the people near the window.  Deeper in the gloom of the office people were milling around each other, unsure what to do next.

All through the night, the thudding continued, slowly becoming more urgent and frightening as the ghouls wore away the flesh from their bones, slamming themselves into goo on the windows, smearing their humanity into nothing.  For hours they fell upon the glassy facade of the office, never ceasing, never taking a break.

The people in the office alternated between hugging each other for comfort and steely resolve against the unknown terrors outside.

In offices around the building, fires had broken out and more of the monsters that were thrashing themselves upon the Fledex building could be seen roaming the offices and streets in the smoky gloom below.  The people who now huddled in the Feldex building looked out into an alien world with a small chunk of Minnesota slammed into it waiting for an alien sky to light the dawn.

At approximately 3 am some of the phones in the building began to light up and ring; as if by magic.

Janice’s phone rang with the familiar tone for her mother; “Janice! Janice!  My God! I can’t believe that you are alright!  Where have you been?  I’ve been calling for hours!”

“Mom?  Oh my God.  Mom,  Don’t hang up!”

The celebrations inside of the office whipped the ghouls on the balcony into a frenzy, they surged as one at the window bone slamming glass and metal as one mass, a crack began to form in the glass of one of the doors.  The hideous tattoo of bone on glass was finally moving the glass.

“Mom, please.  Just tell me what is going on in Saint. Paul?”

“Janice, they are saying that there was some kind of explosion or something, it turned some of Saint Paul into dirt and sand!  Janice, where are you?”

“Mom,  I’m at work.  All of us are.  We’re not in Saint Paul anymore.   We don’t know where we are.  It’s night and we’re scared.  The phones stopped working hours ago and now they are working again.  If I get cut off again, I want to tell you that I love you mom, tell Dad that I love him too, okay?”  Janice sniffed, she could hear the same sort of affirmations going on all around her, people whispering and yelling their love to people at the other end of what was an infinite gulf. “Mom, I love you.”

IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, SAY YES” a voice boomed from every cell phone in the office.  “PLEASE, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, SAY YES

A scattered few yelled yes into their phones.

“I HEARD YOUR REPLY, THANK YOU.  I AM BROADCASTING USING THIS CELL TOWER THAT  I HAVE HOOKED UP AND POWERED UP.  MY NAME IS NOT IMPORTANT.  PLEASE DON’T TRY TO SPEAK OVER ME, IT MAKES IT DIFFICULT FOR ME TO TELL YOU THIS IMPORTANT INFORMATION.  WE ARE NOT ON EARTH, WE ARE ON A PLANET SOMEWHERE REMOVED FROM EARTH.  OUR BEST UNDERSTANDING OF THE STARS THAT ARE VISIBLE PUTS US SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE MILKY WAY AS WE CAN OBSERVE THE MILKY WAY IN ITS ENTIRETY THE SOUTHERN SKY.  WE HAVE OPENED LINES OF COMMUNICATION WITH THE EARTH VIA THE SAME TECHNOLOGY THAT HAS TAKEN A PORTION OF SAINT PAUL TO THIS PLANET.  AS LONG AS WE HAVE THE MEANS TO POWER IT, WE CAN SPEAK WITH PEOPLE ON EARTH.  THE GATE REMAINS OPEN.  WE WILL BE SENDING PEOPLE IN SMALL GROUPS BACK THROUGH THE GATE FOR AS LONG AS WE CAN ALONG WITH AN UPLOAD OF ALL OUR NOTES AND RESEARCH SUCH THAT PERSONS ON EARTH COULD ATTEMPT TO REPRODUCE OUR EXPERIMENT AND RETURN SAINT PAUL.   PLEASE DON’T INTERRUPT!  I AM NOT FINISHED.  NO WE CANNOT RETRIEVE ITEMS FROM EARTH, WE CANNOT DETERMINE WHY ENERGY IS ABLE TO CROSS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS BUT NOT MATTER.  ATTEMPTS TO CROSS THE GATE FROM EARTH HAVE BEEN MET WITH FAILURE AND NO FURTHER ATTEMPTS WILL BE MADE.  PLEASE APPOINT A SPOKESPERSON FROM EACH GROUP AND COMMUNICATE THEIR NAME AND CELL NUMBER VIA TEXT MESSAGE TO THIS NUMBER 444-231-8899.  WE HAVE AN ARMORED VEHICLE AS WELL AS SECURITY PERSONNEL WAITING TO  RETRIEVE YOU.  DO NOT LEAVE ANY SECURED AREA AS THE REVENANTS OUTSIDE WILL ATTEMPT TO DEVOUR OR KILL YOU.  THERE ALSO APPEAR TO BE NATIVES MASSING AT THE EDGE OF THE TRANSPORT ZONE WE DO NOT KNOW THEIR INTENT AND WOULD RECOMMEND THAT ANY CONTACT BE AVOIDED.  WE WILL AWAIT COMMUNICATION FROM YOU.  THAT IS ALL”

“Janice… Janice, are you there?”  Janice’s mother was there again.

“Mom, I think we were caught in some sort of experiment gone wrong, from the sounds of things it was a military thing.”

“Janice, what are you talking about?”

“Mom, there was a voice, it told us to sit tight and that we would be picked up by an armored vehicle”

“Janice, you’re in Hell”

“Mom, what?”

“Hell Janice.  You’re being punished for your wicked ways.  You lost your virginity and now God wants you dead Janice.”

“Mom, what are you saying?” Janice sobbed, “why are you doing this?”

“Wake up and smell the roses Janice.  You’re damned for all eternity!”

The phone went dead again and Janie slumped against a wall and slid down, crying into the crook of her arm.  People all over the office were wailing and screaming at the phones.

All of the phones in the office leapt to life at once, ringing with the same tone.  People tossed them away as if they were on fire.

The pounding and cracking noises from the balcony filled the darkness as the phones died again.

“What just happened?”  someone asked into the dark, “did everyone just have the same phone call?  Did your boyfriends just tell you that you were going to hell?”

“Yeah, my Dad just called me a slut and told me that I was gonna burn forever” a voice near the door replied.

“Fuck me, my Grandma just called me a sinner and told me that the devil was going to eat my eyes, I’ve just realized, she’s been dead for 15 years!”

Janice stood up and turned her phone back on.  It had been off the whole time.

It was 6AM.

Crazy Like a FOX! (UPDATED)

If you didn’t see this “thinking” coming down the pipe when Justice Roberts intentionally flubbed the Oath, then you should shake your head and get it on straight.  The Hope-Sauce won’t stop the serious nuts from trying to tear down their enemy by any mean necessary, imagine the rules-lawyering that will be deployed over that series of words!

Expect more of this kind of stuff over the next few weeks; it’ll be on snopes by end of week in an email circulated by the National Review’s readership.

In case you think I’m crazy:

Obama’s Oath: ‘Faithfully’ misspoken

Faithfully Misspoken: Close enough for Government Work?

As if on cue

Harper Conservatives — Good for Texas

Republish this everywhere; okay?

From The Toronto Star:  http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/570638

The Canadian Auto Workers is criticizing the federal government for awarding a $254 million contract to a U.S. company to build trucks for the Canadian Forces at its plant in Texas while it is laying off workers at its plant in Chatham.

“Somebody has to explain to us why Canadian workers can’t build military trucks for the Canadian military,” said senior CAW executive Bob Chernecki, referring to a defence department contract to Illinois-based Navistar International Corp. to build 1,300 medium-duty trucks for the Canadian Forces.

Asked yesterday why the contract couldn’t have stipulated the trucks be built in Canada, a spokesperson for
Defense Minister Peter MacKay referred the Toronto Star to the public works department.

“The workers in these facilities absolutely deserve the support of their government as we go through these very difficult and challenging times in our country,” said Lewenza’s letter.

“It seems the federal government has lost sight that in 2003 they invested in the Chatham facility, by
agreeing to provide over $30 million of assistance to Navistar to maintain these important jobs in the community and Ontario,” he told MacKay.

In 2003, the Ontario government gave $35 million to Navistar to avert threatened closing of the Chatham plant.

Chernecki called it “nonsense” for Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to promise to boost the Canadian economy
with infrastructure jobs in the Jan. 27 budget, while another department “is putting taxpayer dollars into the U.S. economy.”

A regional benefits clause requires Navistar to match the $254 million contract with equal investment in  Canada.

My response:

Dear Pres. Obama,

Just caught the news that the Harper Tories are handing out cash from our taxes to your citizens, sweet deal.  Tell you what;  apply this “bailout” towards any unresolved debt I have left behind in the USA as I feel strongly that my 10000 dollar tax bill for 2008 will easily cover anything I have left behind.  Use the remainder for your kids, I think they may need more school clothes  or something.

Hugs and Kisses,

Kevin.

Seriously; could the Harper Government be any more transparently pro-USA?  Its no wonder that the Harper Government is rolling towards Bush Levels of approval (35% right now) .

Why not just outsource the bureaucracy to some overseas form while you’re at it Stephen?

Way to minimize the Human effort involved

McClatchy Newspapers says this of Usairways Cactus 1549, saved by the pilot
McClatchy Newspapers says this of US Airways Cactus 1549, saved by the pilot

This image boils my butt; the pilot landed the craft. It wasn’t some miracle; human effort save all those people.  It would have been a miracle if the plane had landed without any intervention on the part of the Pilot at all.  Why minimize Human Achievement like this?

Weekly Roundup from 2009-01-18

  • I was on call all weekend, there was a problem with a router level device but received no calls, CURSES! #
  • Thanks guys, left me a bunch of work today. #
  • I have no idea what the hell these people were trying to do here… nothing is where one would expect it, crap is all over the place. DAMN! #
  • Wow, that was a fairly busy 4 hours… now to contemplate a better awstats script #
  • Cleaned up that script… leaving it in the hands of the actual user to test new version (as the data is somewhat important) #
  • City of Ember, not bad for a kids movie. Certainly better than Wall-E #
  • GAH! There is enough snow out there to cause the schools to close… damn #
  • Go DeFazio! http://tinyurl.com/8dsxxn #
  • I present, the Nosebleed http://flickr.com/photos/nitemayr/3195314196/ #
  • Agh, moar snow! I have to drive in this crap? Snow Squalls tonight too? Damn! #
  • Damn, came to the office after all, on the plus side, fun stuff to do tonight (packet diagnosis and SNMP troubleshooting) #
  • Congratulations to Raymi for her Best Diarist Win, I voted for ya #
  • However when a best <something I care about> is something I never heard of, what is up with that? #
  • Again: Congratulations to Raymi for her Best Diarist Win, I voted for ya #
  • Lunch/Dinner Time, BK or Subway? #
  • Okay, so “nothing” is what’s for dinner. Too Busy. Also Hungry. Good Combination #
  • Hey Look! It’s Wednesday now #
  • Dear London (UK); Re: Random Searches a citizen says: “We lived under IRA bombings and didn’t need this rubbish.” #
  • Another way to ride http://tinyurl.com/5sr72y #
  • Before we get a Prisoner Remake? NO! http://tinyurl.com/9t9jhl #
  • Hmmm, started day with a Fail whale…. Not a good sign #
  • He’s Dead, Boss, Boss? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28661103 #
  • Shoot, I think I just killed that one… #
  • Right now I have the carcass of today’s chicken dinner (chicken, rice, peas and potato) simmering in the pot, soup from scrap tomorrow! #
  • Anyone out there know an AV vendor that produces (good) Windows and Linux compatible software that can be manged from a single console? #
  • Holy Crap, did I ever sleep in today, bed at 3:47 up at at ll:40-something. Lazy Lazy Lazy, gotta get up early tomorrow to compensate. #
  • Dear South Carolina; Please see “The First Amendment” http://tinyurl.com/7mfsbl (and the 14th) #
  • I really have to save up some cash for this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/avcards/8c43/ I keep putting it off (looks like fun) #
  • I’m beginning to think that 007Ben doesn’t like photography anymore, someone go snag his lenses and such and send them over here #
  • WuG users (I know you are there I hear you seething) ; why do we use it? #
  • So why doesn’t lightbox work on my images now? #
  • I’ve just worked out that I only really get one day off per week. Seriously, only one day off per week. #
  • I have to figure out how to sell a 10 hour shift to my team… Monday to Thursday 10 hour days (4 until 2) then off all weekend. #
  • Somewhere out there Bryce Tordiffe is Wearing black today: http://www.comcast.net/articles/tv/20090114/Obit.McGoohan/ #
  • That grgrgr noise? It’s Bill-O winding up the outrage engine http://tinyurl.com/7a2ro2 #
  • Need to get back on the reading trail, reading too many comics #
  • Okay, got my lightbox working again… that wasn’t hard. Now to get it to be black instead of white. #
  • postsuper -d is your friend. Really. It is. #
  • “Yum update” LIES! #
  • Last night, when I left the office (2AM) it was so cold I couldn’t turn the knobs on the instrument panel in my car, they were frozen #
  • busy day thus far, fixed a script that was causing some heart ache… it really should be running on some box outside the environment #
  • I may get in trouble for fixing another techs work, but it needed to be corrected and he wasn’t exactly in the office to do it. #

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Weekly Roundup from 2009-01-17

  • Woke up to a wicked nose bleed #
  • I was on call all weekend, there was a problem with a router level device but received no calls, CURSES! #
  • Thanks guys, left me a bunch of work today. #
  • I have no idea what the hell these people were trying to do here… nothing is where one would expect it, crap is all over the place. DAMN! #
  • Wow, that was a fairly busy 4 hours… now to contemplate a better awstats script #
  • Cleaned up that script… leaving it in the hands of the actual user to test new version (as the data is somewhat important) #
  • City of Ember, not bad for a kids movie. Certainly better than Wall-E #
  • GAH! There is enough snow out there to cause the schools to close… damn #
  • Go DeFazio! http://tinyurl.com/8dsxxn #
  • I present, the Nosebleed http://flickr.com/photos/nitemayr/3195314196/ #
  • Agh, moar snow! I have to drive in this crap? Snow Squalls tonight too? Damn! #
  • Damn, came to the office after all, on the plus side, fun stuff to do tonight (packet diagnosis and SNMP troubleshooting) #
  • Congratulations to Raymi for her Best Diarist Win, I voted for ya #
  • However when a best <something I care about> is something I never heard of, what is up with that? #
  • Again: Congratulations to Raymi for her Best Diarist Win, I voted for ya #
  • Lunch/Dinner Time, BK or Subway? #
  • Okay, so “nothing” is what’s for dinner. Too Busy. Also Hungry. Good Combination #
  • Hey Look! It’s Wednesday now #
  • Dear London (UK); Re: Random Searches a citizen says: “We lived under IRA bombings and didn’t need this rubbish.” #
  • Another way to ride http://tinyurl.com/5sr72y #
  • Before we get a Prisoner Remake? NO! http://tinyurl.com/9t9jhl #
  • Hmmm, started day with a Fail whale…. Not a good sign #
  • He’s Dead, Boss, Boss? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28661103 #
  • Shoot, I think I just killed that one… #
  • Right now I have the carcass of today’s chicken dinner (chicken, rice, peas and potato) simmering in the pot, soup from scrap tomorrow! #
  • Anyone out there know an AV vendor that produces (good) Windows and Linux compatible software that can be manged from a single console? #
  • Holy Crap, did I ever sleep in today, bed at 3:47 up at at ll:40-something. Lazy Lazy Lazy, gotta get up early tomorrow to compensate. #
  • Dear South Carolina; Please see “The First Amendment” http://tinyurl.com/7mfsbl (and the 14th) #
  • I really have to save up some cash for this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/avcards/8c43/ I keep putting it off (looks like fun) #
  • I’m beginning to think that 007Ben doesn’t like photography anymore, someone go snag his lenses and such and send them over here #
  • WuG users (I know you are there I hear you seething) ; why do we use it? #
  • So why doesn’t lightbox work on my images now? #
  • I’ve just worked out that I only really get one day off per week. Seriously, only one day off per week. #
  • I have to figure out how to sell a 10 hour shift to my team… Monday to Thursday 10 hour days (4 until 2) then off all weekend. #
  • Somewhere out there Bryce Tordiffe is Wearing black today: http://www.comcast.net/articles/tv/20090114/Obit.McGoohan/ #
  • That grgrgr noise? It’s Bill-O winding up the outrage engine http://tinyurl.com/7a2ro2 #
  • Need to get back on the reading trail, reading too many comics #
  • Okay, got my lightbox working again… that wasn’t hard. Now to get it to be black instead of white. #
  • postsuper -d is your friend. Really. It is. #
  • “Yum update” LIES! #
  • Last night, when I left the office (2AM) it was so cold I couldn’t turn the knobs on the instrument panel in my car, they were frozen #
  • busy day thus far, fixed a script that was causing some heart ache… it really should be running on some box outside the environment #
  • I may get in trouble for fixing another techs work, but it needed to be corrected and he wasn’t exactly in the office to do it. #

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My iPhone Two Weeks in

Punisher iPhone

Two weeks in on the iPhone I’m very very very Impressed.  I was able to link it to my Outlook account and synch it over the air via a flawlessly easy to configure WiFi account, I was able to use SSH from the device to manage my home servers without an issue and I can play music through the speaker when I just want noise where I am.  It’s flawless save for the massive touchscreen and Camera.

The Camera sucks, it’s almost pointless.  either improve it or remove it.  It’s almost like they included a camera just so that competition could say “it has no camera” it’s no good in low light it is sensitive to shaky hands and requires the user to press the touchscreen to work, causing shake.  Oh well.  Maybe someone will release an app that will delay the shutter until the camera is still (I know, someone has already, but I don’t want to pay for it)

Installing apps is easy and painless, I prefer synching via iTunes, but have used the App store on the phone without issue.

The interface really shines when you get to use all of it’s features, like RJDJ which allows you to organically interface with sound, touch and motion to create sound scapes.  It’s amazing.

I strongly recommend purchasing a nice cover for your phone like the one I have on mine, if only to protect the very vulnerable screen.

All in all, an excellet phone that is leaps and bounds over the Windows Mobile devices I have used in the past.

Nosebleeds I have had

What a Five Head

Growing up, it was my little sister who bled all the time.  Her nose was like a Blood Pez Dispenser, dropping it’s wares all over the acres of the world at a moments notice with no warning or rhyme to why it was doing so.  She wasn’t a nose picker (That was Me).  I never got nose bleeds growing up, so whenever my nose would bleed it was an “event” for me.  If only for the copious amounts of blood that would come from a relativley minor injury and in some cases from a mystery source (up my nose).

The first nosebleed I can clearly recall was given to me by one Raplph Grass, who punched me in the face during a shoving match at the beach.  Dude was bigger than me, no joke and for the life of me he didn’t chase me off.  I stood up to him and took my bloody nose like a small boy with a bloody nose who then went on to get serious sunstroke from being out in the summer sun for about 12 hours that day.  So, Ralph Grass, thank-you for my first memorable nosebleed.

The next nosebleed I remember “for sure” was from Monique Duguay, who smacked me in the face with a snowball.  It didn’t bleed much, but I remember to never again confess to anyone how much I admired her, as she was clearly a bitch.  I don’t think that anymore, but for a while there, I was inconsolable on the matter.

After that it was a couple of years before anyone smacked me in the face hard enough to cause bleeding, in fact someone hit me SO HARD that I blacked out.  He was twice my weight and goaded me into a fight, where he walloped me in the face and made me lose my mind.  Oh well, I changed buses after that.  I really forget his name, his surname was “White” he was a teacher’s kid and we all called him Winston.  He was a big fat bully, simple as that.

Gillian bromfield punched me in the nose around the same time, when a cancer survivor is smacking you in the nose, you’re being an asshole.  Right?

I think I’ve had a couple mystery bleeds along the way since then, but nothing to write home about (or even a blog post about).  This last one over the weekend was a strange one because it bled like crazy for ages.  I ended up with a tissue up my nose for about 30 minutes catching the dregs of it.  It wasn’t volume, you understand, just persistence.

How about you?  Any memorable Nosebleeds?