« To the past
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Apr 11, 2012
One To Two, Two To Many
Two notes follow me, through my mind:
Law is a quiet one. Simple. Clean. Her hair is dyed a monochrome blonde, clean as her ordered thoughts.
Her clear, piercing blue eyes held behind classic, straight glasses.
Her grey, formal sweaters cuts her form neatly,
Her shy smile flickering from behind her book.
Our eyes meet with a quick; quiet glance,
She smirks softly at my humble, fumbling nod.
I walk by, and discord passes me.
Her hair is an odd fusion; Punkish Fuschia laid over burnt brown, showing the many stories she has—
If law is a quiet one, discord is as loud as a riot. Words, scribbled on her jacket.
Logos and mottos, slogans and soliloquies gather over her like a strong swarm of noise. Fight power, end Tyranny! Even her boots are loud, thrashing the floor, but her glasses, thought scratched, match Law.
Their eyes and their visions are not separate. But their hearts, that is where the difference lies.
What of me. Who do I choose?
Do I follow Discord’s wild embrace; do I dance with madness?
Do I beseech Lady Law; Do I contemplate beauty in quietude?
Mar 11, 2012
# 87359
Acessing secondary file directory……
h:/internal/specialized/staff/thompson/partition
Please enter password.
PASSWORD: Bishamon7en
VERIFYING…..PASSWORD ACCEPTED.
PLEASE ENTER DESTINATION
SHOW LAST LOG FILE? Y/N?
y
LAST ENTRY:
Hello. If you’re reading this, then that mean youv’e hacked my partition. This also means I’ve failed, as I would have erased this upon my success.
The fact that you are here, and I haave fialed means you are probably here to scrub this operation. I’m sorry. Whatever you think of me, I’d like to admit it’s for the greater good I engaged in these projects. I am a scientist, and a good one at that.
I am gogin to assume that Project #748 is the cuase of this mess. Decontamnination would typically invovle a nuclear strike, so you are liekly on a time limit. Better than me. I’m dead. Or worse, mutated to the point where I wasn’t able to think abot deleting this entry. Either way, I’m rambling and the clocks’ ticking. I know. Regardless, It’s gone wrong. So wrong. There are antigens scattered abroad that will allow you to hopefully stall the mutation. Take samples. Most importantly, don’t trust anyone. Even the information around here can be false at times. Or just insane. Good luck, whoever you are. My name is Thompson. believe me when I say I tried.
Feb 7, 2012
Le Cœur Veut ce Que Le Cœur Veut
I sit here in the walls of a self-inflicted prison,
Staring at your image through a window, longing
To release myself form the constraints I’ve been bound to
I’ve been chained an estranged, buried behind a wall of teaching,
Bound to a scholarly law that I wrote myself into.
Your smile causes my breath to cease,
It reminds me of that which I desire
A touch outside the papery walls of discourse,
A meaning beyond the chains of ink and paper.
I free my thoughts when I see your eyes,
I remember that I am free if I desire it,
But I am still gripped with a singular fear.
Despite your beauty, I cannot flee,
I cannot yet gnaw through my chains.
Although I chose this prison, and although I built it,
I cannot shorten my sentence, or end my resolve.
I cannot leave my chains, but I can work towards the door.
I can find my freedom in tomorrow as I wish for you today.
It is not art that wounds a man.
It is not beauty that tames him.
It is truthfulness and strength,
It is the heart’s beauty, which is unseen.
Sooner than later, I will dedicate my rhymes to your heart.
I shall feel free to speak my heart as well as my mind.
I shall linger in truth, and love with all my heart.
All I pray for is the simple gift of time.
All I ask is that my house may be set in order
Before I let my heart fall pray to you.
Will you hear my stay? Will you pardon my pause?
Can you, would you, forgive my hesiation long enough to hear me?
Feb 1, 2012
The meaning of love.
I’m not an authority on equality or fairness. In fact, I’m not certain anyone on this planet is. That being said, I’ve seen a lot of relationships, healthy and unhealthy. To me, I think everyone has their own ideas on what love means, on what life is, and all the rest.’
However, to me, love is ice cold strawberries.
Let me explain. You see, my mother was pregnant with me, and like most pregnant women, she got the occasional craving. Now, my dad, loving guy that he is, always worked to accommodate her about this stuff. She didn’t crave anything too weird, but she did love peanut butter. Go figure. Now, one time, she did get a tougher craving: Strawberries. Not frozen, either, fresh ones.
That wouldn’t be a big deal if the weather hadn’t been bad. But it was January in Arkansas, in the middle of a cold snap. Fresh strawberries were out of season and out of luck. So what did my dad do? He called around, and found a hot house that was about two hour’s drive away. Problem solved.
So, my parents went on their epic quest to grab strawberries. In January. In Arkansas. In a cold year.
Some of you are not acquainted with the anatomy of pregnant women. I am not going to get terribly explicit here, but suffice to say that the womb is right next to the bladder. This means that the bladder muscles tend to suffer slightly, which means that many pregnant women in their third trimester have an extremely difficult time holding it in to go to the bathroom later, depending on how the baby is positioned. Apparently, I was leaning sideways and playing kickball with my mother’s bladder. The end result of this is that my mom could go about fifteen minutes without peeing during the day.
Why is this important? Because my father, traveled through bad weather (cold, ugly, heavy rain) in Arkansas for over four hours with his pregnant wife. He paid forty dollars, in the 80’s, for a flat of grown fresh strawberries.
My mother ate two strawberries, and never craved another berry for the rest of her pregnancy. My point is simple. Love isn’t some beautiful parade of flowers and puppies. Love is caring, when it’s not easy. Love is tougher than nails and great for support. That’s what love is. So there.
Jan 18, 2012
Explaining Policies, part 1
Fellow Nevadans:
Our representative in Northen Nevada, Mark Amodei, has been a co-sponsor of SOPA for some time now. In light of this, I have sent him a letter, as follows:
“Mr. Amodei, you recently co-sponsored House Resolution 490. This resolution declares a personal lack of trust in Attorney General Eric Holder, mainly in regards to his immigration policies.
On the other hand, you also sponsor SOPA. This bill gives the Attorney General’s office authority to remove websites and data at will without prior trial or hearing, avoiding due process.
You support the state’s right to fight the US Attorney General on immigration policy. You have also denoted that the current language in the NDAA is vageue and dangerous. It’s obvious that you bleieve that the people should not be subjected to the whims of the Attorney General. Why then, do you trust his office to work on matters of speech and detain private citizens of their assets (websites are as importnat as storefronts in this economy) without due process? What is your train of logic here?
If you have a valid counter argument, I will publish it. I’m not a one-sided man, and if you wish for me to do so, I will be eager to honestly portray your response. Thank you for your consideration in this matter.
With respect, Michael McCraven”
I am calling Mr. Amodei out on his policies, and will continue to inform you when I have his response. We will see what develops.
Jan 18, 2012
SOPA, PIPA, and a career in chaos.
As I write this explanatory rant, a large number of websites will be shutting down, or hitting near shutdown, tomorrow. While most people will show soldiarity with this by staying silent, my website is a quiet one. So, I instead shall speak.
SOPA and PIPA are controversial laws, and dangerous ones. The major short issues I have are as follows:
Your website is under US, authority, period. It is deemed that any website, including ones under foreign ownership, can be served papers and shut down by the US attorney general. People who cannot have any say in the matter through voting or citizenship can be attacked for suspicions of piracy and have their sites shut down regardless of national allegiance. This violates international laws of jurisdiction.
Your site is subject to being shut down without trial. Your website can be shut down, and then you may appeal the decision in court. This legal phrasing is a violation of our rights to be free from unwarranted search and seizure. This violates our rights to due process. It smacks our constiutional liberties in the teeth. The grounds for the shut down is “the suspicion of piracy,” emphasis added. Not eivdence, and not a trial. Just suspicion.
Any portion of copyrighted material may constitute an infringement. This includes satirical parodies, covers, and comedic media outlets. This includes satire and academic use. This includes any streaming of content without permission (including AMV’s, partial rips for critical review, and “Let’s Play” videos).
Piracy is also bad, but so is linking to it. Search engines can be ordered to not provide results. Trackers, too. And if you’re linked to them, so be it. It’s on your head. If you provide links to those sites, you’re an accomplice. And then your site might be next.
IP addresses can be held liable in lieu of websites. For the less technically inclined of you, that means one person torrenting through amazon can get the entire company in deep trouble. Now, most larger corproataions have a wave of lawyers to make sure their corproate policy can handle this. Small businesses? You’re toast.
If the U.S. can’t shut your site down, we can still embargo you. So your server’s remote by proxy and your jokes are all safe, right? Well, yes, but expect to be denied any service from any online payment system in the US, including paypal and E-bay. Yeah, that’s right, no money for you. Advertising can also be removed (wave at your residual check as it flies away).
That list, among other issues, is the reason that so much of the internet is panicking. The mass media doesn’t cover this. Why? because they want it. They don’t want hulu, netflix, and th liek to cut into their pie. So they’ve created a high-rigor acid test that will nearly nuke the system. And we’re footign the bill. Call your congressman and ask him where he stands. Then tell them where you stand. Say that you’re sick of hearing of ridiculous lawsuits bankrupting people. Show them that you don’t want your taxes paying for extradition of foreign nationals simply to enforce copyright law. Get mad, and show them how it’s done.
This is my message. I am not Anonymous. I am not Legion. I am Michael. I am a teacher. I infringe copyright in the classroom, and I’m not going to alter entire curricular decisions based on legal chicanery and whining. Nevada, and those of you across the United States, prove me wrong. Help me break the unified support for these bogus laws, and inform Congress of your decision, right now.
Jan 9, 2012
“Drifters” part 1—Glimpse
If you’re reading this, things have spiraled out of control. My original name, given to me by my parents, no longer matters. I’m Glimpse. I’ve been around for years.
I know you’ve seen more superheroes than you can count, especially if you’re from back east. New York is crawling with them. Odds are, even if you’ve lived here in the so called “City of Talons,” you haven’t seen me. Or you haven’t noticed me. But I’ve seen you. I see everything.
I used to be a small-timer in Atlantic city. I was a “clairy”—a clairvoyant. I could see things that other folks can’t. After I while, I trained myself to see other people’s card’s—even the house’s. I got great at poker. Sadly, one night, I got sloppy. I didn’t lose enough to look like a lucky bastard. I looked like a cheater. Although a lot of western casinos have chased out their mob ties, the east coast still has a lot of leg-breakers.
I was marked. Two guys went for me, and roughed me up. Just because I could see their next move doesn’t mean I was good enough to avoid two opponents at once. It was a standard move—they kicked the crap out of me. But then they hit too hard. In the head. The brain is funny. It is the source of most psychic’s powers. For me, it had a built-in inhibitor, a limiter that allowed me to control my “sight”. Kind of like how your eyes focus on single things. Now, try to look at everything at once. Yeah, my mind did that. I looked at everything from every angle psychically for a hundred and fifty yards. I remember a sea of yellow thought and bad motion, demosn and nagels and cities—and then I came to my senses three weeks later in New York.
I walked with my eyes closed for weeks at a time, until I was able to get the shades from somebody. Since then, I’ve gotten better at focusing. My head still hurts like hell, though. The price of being an oracle, I guess.
I looked into the past, I figured out what happened to those wanna-be leg-breakers. One of them shot himself, and the other one was in the looney bin. Apparently, my eyes can reflect the universe now. It’s the other reason I wear the shades—I see more than most people can take. Look me in the eyes, and you might see it too.
But if you’re reading this journal, that’s not terribly important. None of it is. What’s important is that this journal isn’t about me, it’s about US. The Drifters. And our little war. Andromeda, Nevada—a stellar jewel in the desert, with a hundred thousand voices all aiming for a shot.
Dec 31, 2011
tumblrbot asked: WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER WHEN YOU ARE IN A BAD MOOD?
A good laugh, usually. Life’s a joke, and I’m the punchline :P
Nov 4, 2011
Nanowrimo, stuff, and plottaging
Yes, plottaging is a word. I said so, and I’m using, so therefore it is.
I’ve been thinking about Nanwrimo, and, to put it mildy, any other year, I’d give it a shot. I really would. But this year, nope. Not gonna happen. I’m too busy with many other things, including a rather complex personal life.
That being said, I have a different peldge for the month. Every day, I will write something. It will not be a unified narrative, a witty, charming masterpiece, or even likely 10,000 words total, much less 50 grand. But, in simplest terms, it will be something. Sometimes it will be what is required by my instructors, a crafted piece, or a specialized project. However, I will narrate these things I do, and as I do them, some of them will be posted here, on this wonderful internet ramble storage unit. The reason for this is simple. Despite all my rambling, and my seeming lack of normalcy, I am a writer. I am a bloody wordsmith, and I’m unbashedly prone to using words like brushes, wielding them like swords, and dancing with them like partners.
My name is Michael, and I’m goign to be writing things. Every day. They may not all make it on this blog, but at the end of the month, I will compile a list of what I did each day. Why? Because I’m going to write. Not a novel, no. But I am going to write!
Oct 26, 2011
N’kai, Son of Kaiten, The Prophet of the People.
My story? Okay. It ain’t pretty, but you seem nice enough to keep quiet. Here’s my story. It started with a man named Kaiten, a man who would easily answer to the call of low-life, vagrant, wanderer, con-man, and occasionally, priest of the old death-god Enma. Kaiten was a wild man, and because of this, he fell for a wild woman—an Orc. Her name was N’Gal-tun, a raider and pirate of the Gal’kana tribe.
Back after I was born, my mom was called by her tribe to war, and she knew that being a half-orc “whelp” in the tribe would be a miserable life, so she left me with my father. He—Kaiten, as some would call him—was a good man ad all, but he was also a fellow who followed trouble, and was followed by trouble. Some folks would call him an adventurer. I’d call him a lunatic.
Regardless, me and the old man tended to live on the road, moving from place to place as he was chased out of each town. I don’t hold it against him. He taught me a lot. He taught me how a good man picks and chooses his fights, and never fights alone or at a disadvantage when he can negotiate a better situation. He taught me how to kidnap people, and even how to find people who’d pay you to kidnap them. He even taught me how to con people and sweet-talk my way out of things.
Now, most people think us half-orcs are all born fighters. That ain’t a bit true. Most of us are just raised to use our muscles. We’re good at muscle things. Me, I wasn’t trained to fight, and I wasn’t trained to do a whole lot of heavy lifting. I was trained to read people, know what something’s worth, and figure things out.
In fact, I was always taught not to fight, because I was a half-orc. My old man would always say that if I fought them, I’d just become the big, dumb, thug they all wanted me to be. So I wasn’t a thug. I was just this kid, trying to get by, trying to live where ever we lived, trying to ply the old man’s trade.
One thing that always stuck with me about my old man was his honesty. I don’t mean he didn’t lie. He lied a lot, but he never breached a deal or welched on a bet, and I respect that. I try my best to stand by those two credos—keep your bargains, and stick to your bets. Anyhow, I still have a couple good memories with the old man.
One of the oldest stories the old man used to tell me was about my mom’s people, the Orcs. Everybody thinks the Orcs were always war-like. That’s not true. Originally we were seers, shamans, followers of nature and wisdom. We were also the keepers of many stones, stones which allowed us to foretell the future. That is where the word “Orc” actually comes from, the Same word as Oracle. Theyr’e both from this Orcish word that’s hardly used anymore, “Ourak‘thay-Kul,” which means “The ones that see what others cannot.”
Funny thing is, I’m one of them. Every Orc and Half-Orc has it in them. Most of us just chalk it up to street smarts, survival skills, or just funny sight, like how we can see in the dark. But I know the truth. We’re created to be more perceptive about things. Orcs are born to know what’s really going on. Dwarfs are craftsmen, elves are hunters, humans are warrior and merchants, gnomes tinker, and Halflings love life. Orcs, Orcs see things. We see the shadows and the light, both in people and in circumstances. That’s why Orcs survive. Everyone thinks it’s because we’re stronger or tougher, or that we breed like bunnies. But I know the truth. It’s because we see it coming. Our people were prepared for war. I do not know if it was the humans or the elves or the Orcs that started it. But I do know that nobody won.
But enough of old stories and myths. The next thing that happened was that me and my old man, after years of doing all sorts of things for a living, finally found a nice little place to rest. The city was called Therec Kesht, and it was pretty nice. My old man ran a small shrine to Enma, and we lived pretty happily, until a large Orc warband of a few hundred started trying to sack the city. You can guess how much easier that made my life.
Between dodging bullies and rocks, I spent a lot of time playing with some of the other “non-human” kids. I was the biggest and strongest, and I had a decent throwing arm. Sadly, a lot of the town gard hunted me down constantly, and pestered some of my friends. One of them was Mary. Nice girl, daughter of a dwarven couple who had moved there to help build siege weaponry and other technology. Her dad, Bertram, used to go drinking with my old man on the weekends, hustling half of the city at cards in the process. Anyhow, these two thugs in an alley jumped Mary, started to wail on her and called her an “Orc-lover.” By the time I caught up to them, she was half-beaten and they were gone. I did my best to drag this poor girl back to the temple, and they tried to heal her, but the town guard blamed me, before I even got a chance to explain.
My “trial” took about ten minutes. Because I was a child, the judge decided to give me only three years for beating an unmarried woman. The normal penalty was ten, but some people there wanted to hang me. I remember the prison pretty well. The guy who ran it, Thagrin, was a monster. He called himself “Grand High Inquisitor Thagrin.” This guy was bigger than a half-ogre and had the scars to prove he could fight. And people say I’m ugly. But I digress.
The old man heard about what happened in about a day or so, and tried every legal avenue and called in every favor he had to make my release earlier. Meanwhile, Thagrin grinned at me. He said he had never been so lucky to capture a young “Orcling,” as he called it. I did every thing I could not to spit in his face. He said they had to make new chains for me, because I was so small. This was back when I was eight, so I wasn’t all that tall, and they didn’t have children’s manacles.
I…I remember the flogging. The chains were being forged right down the hall as I was given my lashes. Hammer, lash. Hammer, lash. Perfect rhythm it was. After and eternity, they untied me form the pillar, the brought out the chains, still glowing red hot, and clamped them on me. I don’t know if you know what it sounds like to hear a half-Orc scream. Not grunt. Not some pansy, weak-kneed yelling. Not some barbarian randomly spewing gibberish and foaming at the mouth. No. Just the voice of raw, simple pain. Screaming. I was later told that everyone within the castle heard my scream. I believe it. Some nights, I still hear it.
After three days of failure from the law and repeated beatings from the prison guards, I remember the cell wall cracking open. I remember Mary’s father cracking the place open with a hammer, and my dad picking me up and dragging me through the city sewers. I remember smiling and falling asleep and waking up crying in a wagon bound for a port town a month’s travel away. I remember hearing the bounty on me had been canceled after a divination spell revealed the real culprits about three weeks later.
I also remember hiding a lot more. I always wanted to hide in the shadows, be left to myself, to the safe places, to the quiet parts where no one was. I was still a con-man, but I was more discreet. While we were in the caravan, I spent a lot of time with these gypsy bards. I learned to read Tarot Cards, my dad learned how many gypsy women could fit on one bed, I learned how good one of their husbands was at throwing knives, my dad learned how to dodge throwing knives, and we stole two horses and ran to a different town than where we were headed.
My dad got back into the pirate/thief/priest business. I used the tricks I learned from those gypsies to tell fortunes and swipe the occasional quick buck. Me and the old man would just lay low and enjoy ourselves, accompanied by the occasional kidnapping, palace-robbing, and anything else we could do while on the road. Eventually, the life my dad lived caught up to him, one of the princesses he kidnapped (she paid him for it—it‘s a long story) was found by the royal guard to be staying in his house as a “maidservant” and was promptly brought back to her home kingdom, along with my old man and myself. My old man claimed I was completely unaware of her heritage. It was a lie, but I went along with it, figuring I could break them both out later. Unfortunately, he was killed right then and there. I buried the body with a talisman of Enma, as is my father’s tradition. Maybe he’s the new judge of the dead, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m on my own, and I have no intention of finding out what happened to him in the afterlife just yet.
It’s funny, but I wasn’t able to pull together much of my dad’s things. Just some of his well-hidden money, his old prayer book, and some fortune-telling gear.
However, I did decide on one thing—the Orcs need to remember the seers and prophets, and I’m going to bring back those ways. I’ve seen too much barbarism, too much savagery. The way I see it, I’m the one who sees what others can’t and I’m going to write my story. When other Orcs see that story—MY story, we’ll learn to handle things. We might just stop being the monsters everyone wants us to be, and start being the men and women we ought to be.
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