Me Three Shirts From Mail Order Far

In typical William style, this is a post about avoiding writing a post about what I am thinking about, which is that I went back to my church.  I will proceed to say that I won't say anything about it other than I don't exactly know at this point why I stopped going. Basically, there was no good reason, but almost three years had passed. There is a lot that I could say about that, but it is private, so I won't.

I had a digression here that had to do with something I purchased at office depot my senior year, if you were there (Dave, AChen, etc.) then you will recall that you felt I paid too much for it, but I felt that because it was exactly what I wanted, it was worth it.  The point is (a) I still have it, (b) there is no longer any thing for which I will pay the "no haggle" price because its exactly what I want. In fact, I am not sure there even is anything that I would point to and say "this is exactly what I want."

I don't think this is a function of being any more mature.  I think its the times.  I am just not convinced that anyone wants a new Lexus or a big-screen TV anymore, even if they could afford it, which (of course) they can't.

So, I got myself a Christmas present.  I got two white shirts and a french blue shirt for work: two from Amazon.com and one from Lands End. Total price is something like $55.  If I am an indicator of the market (and I am) then we are in for a long winter.

Peristalsis

AJ Webster once posed a thought problem to Dave and I, thinking the answer was obviously "Sleep."

The problem was to consider our biological functions. If we could chose one to make somehow unnecessary, what would it be?

To me the obvious answer was to replace peristalsis with some sort of internal vacuum to push food through our GI tract, although because this was a pressure based solution, it would make digestion in space and air
travel more complicated.

My runner up idea was to replace walking as the method of ambulation with some sort of cilia + air cushion "ground effect"

The obvious answer was not "sleep"
--
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Coinstar is now free

As long as you are getting the money to buy an amazon gift card or itunes gift certificate. Actually, this seems pretty fair to me, but a few things come to mind:

1. Whenever I see coinstar, I think about Trav's favorite snl commerical. I don't know for sure if it's his favoirte, but I'll say it is.

2. Something about the death of thrift being overblown.  I saw a TV show (Community on NBC), where the smart-alec character says "All money is spending money"

Time Verge Love Triangle Plot Matrix (click on post title to view better)

. Alex Bob Caroline Dead Alex . 1950 Born Born . 1970 Exverges from 2010 Gets engaged to Bob . 1971 Meets Bob Meets Alex Falls in love with Alex . 1972 Sleeps with Caroline the night before her wedding to Bob. Leaves Caroline at the alter after catching her and Alex in flagrante Sleeps with Alex, is left at altar. . 1975 Transverges his birth and the obvergent period since his advergence to 1970 to 2015. Birth Heartbroken and freaked out when Alex transverges before her eyes. . 1980 Rejects Caroline's effort to reconcile. Gain time travel insight Spurned by Bob . 2000 Commits suicide. . 2001 Kills Alex . 2010 Adverges to 1970 Dead Alex doesn't adverge to 1970 . 2011 Loses memory of meeting Alex Suicide Caroline does not call in love with Alex Dead Alex doesn't meet Bob. . 2012 Loses memory of Caroline's infidelity, but retains memory of remembering and wanting revenge. Remembers marrying Caroline. So here it can be said that from 1972 to 2012, Bob and Caroline were not marries but from 2012 on, Bob and Caroline have been married since 1972. Suicide Caroline does not sleep with Alex, marries Bob. Remembers memories from 1972 to 2000, but those memories start to disappear at present-time. Memories from 2000 to 2012 start to re-appear at present-time pace Dead Alex doesn't prevent Bob's wedding. . 2015 Exverges from 1975 . 2016 Tries to reconcile Caroline Caroline cannot remember Alex but remembers her memories of Alex after 1976 and is confused, rejects Alex. . 2040 Loses memory of suicide but has all memories of 2000 to 2040 both with and without memory confusion . 2041 Has a nightmare, doesn't know about what. Loses memory of killing Alex, but remembers memories of killing Alex Dead Alex not killed . 2049 Tries to reconcile with Bob Bob forgives Alex, but is confused. . 2050 Remembers being killed in 2001 and dies. Loses all memory and gains it all back. Has heart attack. Remembers commiting suicide in 2000 and dies Dead Alex reverges with Alex to 1970 .

Some rules for time travel (for a fictional universe, not based on physics)

First: You can't be in two places at once. More precisely, you can only be in one place at one time. If you are already somewhere somewhen, then you can't go there.
Second: When you leave for another time, you stop traveling through the present. In other words, while you are out in the past or in the future, time marches on.
Third: You have to travel through space to travel through time.
Fourth: How you travel through space is how you travel through time. A trip from time "a" to time "b" requires traveling between two corresponding points in space at a specifc velocity and angular
momentum.
Fifth: Time travel trips move you a relative time distance. So going from the entry point to the exit point at the correct speed with the correct spin will always exit you the same amount of time delta,
unless you are already in that space, in which case you will just continue to travel through the present.
Six: Do you need some sort of special vehicle? Strictly speaking, the proverbial "time machine" is not necessary. Your vehicle merely needs to be precise with respect to coordinate, vector, and spin. In fact, you don't need a vehicle at all,  just precision. Occasionally someone just disappears because they were
walking around a corner at the right speed for that starting and exit place and »BOOP!«
Seven: Occassionally a time traveller tries to visit those intersitial periods between when he left and when he came back. One of three things happens when they come to a time when they already will be there
either they go to the immediate time there after so if they enter at 1PM CST and will already be at 2PM CST for 38 minutes, they may jump ahead 38 minutes after an hour. OR they may snap back to their entry
time. OR they may end up in at a time relative to the entry time plus the length of time spent in another time. Its not clear what determines what will happen.

Some more notes:

"vergere tempus" is the latin phrase for time travel under these rules. It captures the bending, inclined nature of diverge or converge or just being on the verge of something just around the corner. Neither "jump" nor "go" really cut it for me. I want time travellers to adverge from their current trajectory in present time and exverge in another time, only to transverge over a time where they already are, but when they exverge again, they find that the obvergent time from where they already is skipped.

I have a whole love triangle plot worked out based on this.

WHAT IF .... Huey Lewis had written Blues Traveller "Four"

I am Oh-AH-Tu the Omniscient Observer of Alternate Musical Realities, a totally original but satirical character not at all infringing on the copyright of Marvel comics (see Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994).), and I am here to explore if Huey Lewis and the News had focused more on the prodigious blues harp skill of their front man. What would have been the result?

Look into my spooky glowing eyes as I wave my left hand behind me making life difficult for a cartoonist un-used to rendering foreshortening on MS Paint. I think we will need some sound effects to travel the 5th dimension.

Anyone? Anyone?

Oh, fine........

Deedlediddlydoo! Deedlediddlydoo! Deedlediddlydoo! WAHWahhwahhwah waaaaaaa....

For Starters, John Popper would have been the owner of a fanboy 'zine shop and died a virgin. Oh-AH-Tu sheds a rare tear for loser fanboys everywhere.

Okay... but what about "Fore"? It would have been called "Foure" and these would have been the tracks:

"Jacob's Ladder"
"Run-Around"
"Whole Lotta Lovin'"
"Stuck with You"
"Fallible"
"Freedom"
"Doing all the Crash and Burn for My Baby"
"Hip to Be Square"
"Hook"
"Jacob's Ladder (Reprise)"

It would have been a killer success that would have staved off the rise of the Seattle Flannel grunge scene in favor of a "white oxford shirt with top collar button opened, narrow tie losened, and Rayban Aviators" wearin middle-class Blues scene. Kurt Cobain would be alive today as a judge on "American Idol" but Eddie Veder would have been beaten to death by an angry mob of A&R people from the record label.

Eric Hewett and David Miller would have had a one hit wonder "Uncouth Knuth"

Is this world better or worse? I do not judge, I merely Observe.

The Prince Charles Style

Here's the url: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/world/europe/19london.html

So I don't particularly like Prince Charles. He wrote a book in 94 saying how sad and miserable he was. Dude, you are the friggin' Prince of Wales, suck it up.

And I somewhat like contemporary architecture, although I like the newer stuff, which is challenging, and I believe will ultimate change, the sort of excess that lead to the hot mirror Trav describes here (I'm brushing my teeth right now, I'll add the link later [added]). But thinking about the Archis at Rice, and as much as I liked some of them personally (I am talking about you, Mike Woods.) Archis can be a bit muck. Prince Charles is right: England is not LA or Berlin. England should look like England. And... Archis, get over yourselves. None of you are Roarke (or whatever anti-Roarke is now en vouge for Archis) especially not you Frank Gheary. And aesthics are not ethics, no matter how often they get confused in US politics.

My viewpoint on this follows the same thinking about the new Yankee Stadium (and more or less every baseball stadium since Camden yards) which architecture and design critics tend to decry for not being cool enough.

Finally, I am not an English Consttitutional Law Proffesor, but if Prince Charles can't shoot his mouth off and say "this new building plan looks like a dung heap" then something is wrong.

Kaneda and Sophia

Sometimes, like now, the cats wake me up to complain. Do you have food
kitties? Check. Fresh litter? Check. Is there an intruder? No. What's
the problem?

"Meow" says Kaneda
"N'yow" says Sophia

I wonder if Trav went through this hubris with Tex and Sharri Lewis.
The hubris of thinking you understand cat.

--
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Administrative note

If you see a post like this where the text goes lovingly over to the end of the screen and the word-wraps. I logged into blogger to do it. But if there is a loathesome carriage return (wow, where did that analog term come from? I meant to say line break. I have mechanical typewritter on the brain.) then I used gmail from my blackberry. But if the message and the headline are the same and the message is less than 150 characters, it was a text message. Possibly I was driving, which is both dangerous and illegal in California, but Monday night I was watching "Heroes" and saw a commercial that I didn't like.

I had a dream last night that I failed the bar and joined the Marines. Some sort of middle aged fantasy? I'm a bit young for middle aged, but I've always had sort of a middle-aged soul, I guess. Anyhow, the point was that my achilles is no longer injured in my dreams. So I guess that means I am on the mend.

As for Twitter being like the new Star Trek. I don't like Twitter any more than I liked IRC, which is to say that I don't like it. Star Trek is not like that. I think that the re-boot needed is to have more original cast Star Trek movies. In the new movies, there is no Space Travel and few special effects; just dialog about the human condition. Then a big space battle happens at the end and everyone is killed. Then the next movie starts with a lame explanation about how they escaped death, "boy people aren't going to believe how we escaped that. So let's never mention it again." and then they start over.

Metaphysical discussion with Dakota

Dakota just fell asleep. As she drfted off, her mind wandered towards
her aspirations.

"Dad, when I grow up. Do you think I could invent a time machine?"

"I don't see why not."

"I know all about the fabric of time"

"You do? Is it really a fabric?"

"No, its just seems like a fabric. Its really the space-time
continuum. And when you travel through it, you make a hole by, like,
curling the fabric around and everything is bunched up and then... bam!
you are someplace else in another time but nobody has a map yet so its
pretty unpredictable."

"Oh... I guess you do know all about it. Maybe you will invent a time machine."

"That would be great. I'd take a camera and get pictures of all the
presidents and then I could sell them to the government. I'd be like
'hey, this is what the president really looked like'"

"If you are going to see the past Presidents, why not stop Lincoln's assasination?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you know when its going to be and where, you could just go to
Ford's theatre and be like 'hey Mr President, watch out for that guy
coming up behind you, he's got a gun"

"Well, first of all, I'm not even sure if time travel is safe. I mean
what if I overshoot and end up with dinosaurs, or if the machine
breaks down as soon as I arrive, or if I try to do something and get
shot. "

"Inventors need to test out their devices before using it themselves"

"Good point, I will use a robot from my lab... I'll be sure to pick my
least favorite one"

"Good plan"

"But look, I don't think you can mess with the space time continuum.
If you did then maybe everything would be different. You might be
mommy. Mommy might be a boy. You might have been married to Marley's
dad. And also we would be living on another planet!"

"What? Why another planet?"

"I'm just saying! Look, you're missing the point, Dad! Those things
aren't real because that's not what happened. Just because you could
travel back in time doesn't mean you can change the past "

"Wow. I am going to put that on my blog."

"Ok. Well, goodnight Daddy"

"Goodnight, princess"

And with that she hugged her stuffed bear and conked out. Meanwhile,
I ponder her metaphysical proposition and am afraid.

--
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This happened when I got back from London, too

I left and returned to a totally unrecognizable culture dominated by
what Brandon Kirby refered to as "son of NirvanaPearlSh--"

here's evidence that I've dropped in from the moon:

I have no idea who Rihana is, or why she was savagely beaten at the
Grammys. I hope she's alright and doesnt get back together with her
abuser, who is also someone who I am supposed to know but dont. Seems
like a sad situation, its not clear why the media wont leave her
alone, but thats because (as I said) I have no idea who she is.

Apparently there have been 13 seasons of "the bachelor" and the last
bachelor had been on the "ms pacman" version. Really? When did this
happen? And when did it take such prominence in culture? Dude goes on
the reunion show to break up with the winner and get back together
with the runner up. I heard that he kept shouting "do over! Do over!"
At the finale but the producers ignored him so then he said "i'll get
my farventednugent or else my name is herb the guy who never tasted a
whopper" Seriously though, this epic jerkface behavior seems like it
should have been great TV, but people seem mad about it. "Oh no,
there was too much low comedy originating from pettiness vanity and
mendacity of reality tv".

John McCain understands twitter and I dont. This is the most
surprising turn of events ever. There are other things in my life that
one think I might consider to be a more surprising turn, but no: its
tweeting McCain, the Senator from "cant figure out his email".
Apparently he's tweeting about parts of the omnibus bill that he
thinks should be cut hoping that the power of his ugly sneers will put
an end to them. Ha. Sometimes I think he's the callow youth and I'm
the cranky cynic. Washington DC, and you can correct me if I"m wrong
about this Trav, is a city without shame. Ugly sneers aint gonna stop
nuthin other than keep your face from lookin pretty (which there was not
really much hope for in McCain's case to begin with)

One day until "Watchmen". I hope its good.

--
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more on the monkey business (senseless death of a showbizzaap)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/4677551/Pet-chimp-attacks-woman-and-police-officers.html I think that there is an important lesson here about Chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are not humans. It does not matter of they have been in a sitcom pilot or use the toilet, wear a monkey fedora, watch jeopardy, are genetically similiar to human, fill out the paperwork for your tow truck, get addicted to Xanax-based beverages, etc. They are still monkeys, driven by an entirely different set of biological and social perogatives and are stronger than the toughest UFC warrior even at the age of 80 in monkey years. Check this one out: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/nyregion/17chimp.html?_r=1&em The photo of this owner speaks to me. It seems to say, "Hey look at me! I'm a 70 year old woman with an unlicensed 200 pound intelligent and malevolent death-maker on a leash. Zookeeper? What do zookeepers know? They only have respect for wildlife from years of study and field work about the habits and habitats of the species they manage. Me? I let my monkey ride shotgun, we still get royalty checks from when he drank coke and burbed the national anthem on tv!" If there is a lesson learned here, it is this: don't go to Connecticut. Here's a Lyme Diseas angle on the story to bolster the "Connecticut is for sickos" idea: http://www.examiner.com/x-3035-Everyday-People-Examiner~y2009m2d16-Connecticut-police-shoot-famous-chimp I think this story can be summed up best by this Belgium newspaper headline which proclaims: "Agent schiet dolle showbizzaap dood na bloederige thriller" The photo of travis makes it clearer: chimpanzees have four fists and the desire to punch you with each of them. I especially like the stoic face of the nosy neighboor at the bottom of the article. As if to say, "I knew all along that something like this would happen. Now excuse me, I have to go to Williams Sonoma to buy more concentrated evil to install in that place in my heart where mercy might live had it not been snuffed out by my prep school." Here lies Travis, "misschien wel de slimste showbizzaap ter werel", his life, his owners life, and the life of an innocent third party destroyed. Macabre humor aside, I am most upset by the NYT article reporting that no charges are planned to be filled against the owner. If Travis' victim ends up dead because after his owner failed to control him, he called his friend, a 55 year old woman to be exposed to a deranged 200 pound chimapnzee, that's reckless endangerment and its a lesser form of homicide, but its still homicide. Also the crazed monkey, angered by being stabbed with a butcher knife by his owner battered a police officer. C'mon Connecticut DA, do your job!

Google news on blackberry is my morning snooze button

It works somewhat better in that I am starting to wake up. So here is
an article about an angry monkey named Travis

http://m.cnn.com/cnn/ne/us/detail/249729;.live7i

So a few things:

1. Hey there Ross freakin Geller chimpanzees and suburban Connecticutt
homes don t mix

2. I have had it in for Ross Geller ever since the check out girl
from Kroger said I looked like him. I think she was hitting on me.
What a bad come on. That's like hitting on a singer songwritter by
saying "wow you remind me of Phoebe Buffet, can you play 'smelly
cat'?" Wow single quote question mark double quote that's a blackberry
symbol button par-tay

3. So I like the way the angry Monkey used the key to escape. Did you
catch that this meant the home was locked from the inside? I bet the
monkey had been yearning for freedom since his earlier mayhem.

4. Did you catch that the police killed the monkey, not to save the
woman's life but because they were cowering in their cruiser with
angrychimp bashing their car with other parts of the car? What a
scene. Yowzs

5. "Chimps have complex emotions". Not really. It can't be all that
difficult to imagine the murderous rage that this monkey must have
felt after 20 years in a strange cage with a misguided woman who
always barred her teeth at her thinking that meant love but really to
monkey it means threat.

6. Did they have to kill the monkey? Probably not. Zookeepers could
have tranq'ed the beast and then the monkey could have ... Hmm. This
angry old monkey had no happy outcomes.

7. There ought to be a law banning, wait for it, the state of
connecticut. Stupid people.

--
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Were I pre-William Travis, I'd get annoyed, too

"Organic water" is nonsense. Or maybe worse. (There's nothing quite as organic as some cholera, giardia or guinea worm in your water.)

But thanks to William's post, "organic water" is now a happy memory for me. I'll seek it out, just to prompt that happy memory, calling out, "Yes, organic water! I'll take two, my good man!" (OK, I won't actually buy any, but I will call out.)

Were I Travis, I would get very annoyed

Just to preface this: I know nothing about since about 11th grade. Nevertheless, I saw today in the cafeteria something that looked like total non-sense


O R G A N I C W A T E R !


What makes it organic? Does it have some sort of carbon in it? So... its carbonated. Brilliant.

"I'd like my water with Benzene. Benzene is an organic chemical, so it must be good for me."

Ok... a little lunchtime cognitive dissonance.

Screens Not the Answer to Keep Birds Out of Jet Engines - NYTimes.com

Screens Not the Answer to Keep Birds Out of Jet Engines - NYTimes.com

At this moment Travis is just shaking his head sadly at the poor state of science education in this country that lead to the need for the perceived need by the NY Times to report on this.


Here are some more things which are not the answer to keep birds out of jet engines:

1) Decoys on the tail. Birds will see the decoy on the tail and say, "I want to head to the tail of the plane" thus avoiding the engine.

2) Lasers. "Bew bew bew!"

3) A return to the Halcyon era of Led Zeplins.

4) Exterminate all birds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pow Pow Pow!

5) Right before the plane goes down, hit "reset" Hey, it works on the simulator.

6) Videoconferencing. It will totally replace the need for business travel and make the world a smaller and more connected place. Ok you can't see this, but I typed that and then had a belly laugh for about ten minutes.

7) Padding on airplanes

8) Padding on birds

9) When the engine goes down during the flight, send the mechanic out to fix it. Hey, that's what IT does. Sort of.

10) Padding on the passengers

The problem with Christmas parody...

...is that Christmas traditions are already a bit too long already to sit
through half-thought out puns on top is excruciating. The epitome of
this travesty is any parody of "12 days of Christmas" Especially odious are ones which change the lyrics. Your funniest joke in this milieu is always "and a
cartridge for the Atari" and that joke ain't funny 12 times in a row. And though the
original song is timeless the parody that you came up with in 1981 is not.

I'm using the 2nd person again. That's because I am talking to you, NBC writers! You had a whole season to be on strike, you could have used that time to think up thinking funny.

But Christmas is a time of love. So here's the teachable moment:

What would be much better is aphoristic use of parody for Christmas traditions. For example like:

"Merry Christmas to mall and to mall a good night"

There that's adequate. No need to belabor it with a:

"twas the night before Christmas,
and all through the mall,
not a vendor was idle,
not even a stall..."

yada yada yada

Chap 2

Kitty, Jack, and Spider were watching the arrivals monitors.

"I told you the flight would be delayed." said Kitty.

Spider scurried about and finally said, "I am getting thirsty. We need coffee. That's right. Coffee will be just what we need now. You want cream and sugar, Kitty? Cream and sugar, right? That's what I thought. Good, Kitty. And Jack.... double espresso right? No? No. Ok... I'll surprise you. You'll love it."

And with that he was off. The obvious choice was to go to the Starbucks kiosk, but the line seemed to stream around the beige and green wonderland; all the way back to the Parking Garage entrance. Anyhow, Spider's choices were never the obvious ones.

"Oh serendipitous me!" He thought as he drifted south westerly towards to the "Dick Clark's American Band Stand Grill"  Besides the ersatz Americana decor, they had a wicked selection of refreshments that were far more interesting.

"Table for one?" Asked the hostess.

"Well... Connie," replied Spider, reading her name tag. "I was hoping for some drinks to go. I'll have a double espresso add a shot of Kaluha, a 'Mrs. Clark's Old Fashion Root Beer Float' with a double shot of Kalua a fogato style, and an American Dream 'Apple Pie' ... substitute Kalua for the Bailey's"

The hostess looked up from her pad, "I'm sorry, sir. For starters, I'm somehow doubt that you are going to show me a real ID if I asked for one, but in any case I can't let you get alcoholic drinks to go."

"Sure you can," said Spider, unfazed. "But just for a minute let's say you couldn't; what would you say to a song?"

"What?"

"Forget about the drinks, I've always had great admiration for American Bandstand. Remember the theme song:

    On the road for forty days,
    Last night in little rock put me in a haze.
    Sweet, sweet Connie -- doin her act..."

"Um, Sir, that's not American Bandstand, that's Grand Funk Railroad, and if you are not going to order..."

"Wait, wait, wait... we got started off on the wrong foot.  I can see that now, and I'm sorry. You know, its funny, these places.  Just because I'm the customer and you're the hosting professional, I think its all about me me me. But obviously you are a woman of class and virtue.  What am I doing? Just blathering on, that's what. I should listen.  Do any of your customers ever offer you anything? Offer to listen? Really... listen? Tell me you dreams, Connie; your hopes; your aspirations. Did anyone ever tell you that you have beautiful eyes? It's true, you know."

"You can't be serious, kid."

"I'm as serious as heart attack, dollface."

Something about Spider's absurdly earnest tone gave the hostess pause. Two divorces and a stint as a "lobbyist's aide" had prepared Connie for many things in life, but a gangly teen, young enough to be her son, calling her "dollface" was new and amusing.

"Why don't you sit down and stay a while, kid." Said Connie, absent mindedly pouring herself a shot of Kaluha, "I can tell you about my dashed hopes and broken dreams, if you want. I can tell you things that will break your heart and make you cry..."

* * * * * * * * *

 

"Great. Just great!" Kitty growled. "You could have said something."

Jack's eyes were fixed on the monitor. His countenance frozen in a half-grimace, half squint. Jack's face was lit by the eerie glow of the HD screens, which in turn seemed a touch more sinister, even sepulchral, by reflecting Jack's visage. A diameter of about 2 yards formed around Jack as the other airport travelers (whether consciously or not) simply chose not to stand near him. There were other flights which were late, but one by one all the flight status lines on the monitor changed first to "On Time", followed by a curt "Arrived", and then cleared off; as if they too wanted to avoid Jack's scrutiny.

Kitty tried to burn a hole into the back of Jack's round orange head with her laser stare. She scratched an imaginary piece of lint off her black Adidas "Super Girl" track jacket, peevishly inspected her perfectly manicured nails, then she returned to the important task of burning a hole in the back of her funny round-headed brother. It was bad enough that she had to rely on big stupid Jack to drive her around, but why did he have to be such a freak? If only Flappy were here, then they could just go, and people wouldn't keep, doing... doing that thing they do when Jack was around.

Places she would rather be:

    number 1: her bed

    number 2: a dark ritual with a coven of witches

    number 3:Bayonne, New Jersey

    number 4: the stanky pits of hell. Oh wait, that's number 3. Okay, how about... anywhere.

Finally she could stand it no longer. "Well?" She exploded.

Jack turned around and melted her glower with his dark unearthly orbs. With a spindly finger, he pointed at the monitor. The excitedly blinking "DELAYED" changed to a sedate but more menacing "See airline representative for more information"

Spider returned carrying a bevy of drinks. He blurted out, "that's a whole lot of text for such a small space."

Kitty's worst fears suddenly gripped her. She forgot all about how mad she was at Jack for being such a weirdo. She forgot how annoying Spider was (for almost three whole seconds). She could only think about Flappy. She never should have let him go for the whole summer; or at all, for that matter. Kittty took the drink out of Spider's hand and chugged it. The coffee burned the roof of her mouth, but it didn't matter. The pain was bracing, but soon her mouth felt numb and wave of warmth rushed through her body. She was ready to be back in control of herself again; poised. Spider looked at her, clearly impressed.

"Ok," she said. "Let's go find that airline rep."

Chap 1

The first thing that happens is traveling.

Scarecrow, a ghost, and a bat are traveling back to their hometown in Scarsrivers, Arizona. It's not what you think, the Scarecrow was using his frequent flyer miles to fly busines class to Sky Harbor, where he was going to get picked up by friends. The nice thing about traveling with a ghost is that you don't have to get him a seat. And the bat was check-in luggage; natch.

The bat got bored hanging around in the baggage compartment. After playing his his video games for a while, and reading all of his "Batman" comics, he decided to write a letter.

 

Dear Cousin Batz,

I had fun hanging around with you over the summer, but its now October and I've got to fly home. My friend are waiting for me to lead their Halloween plans. It going to be a great party. I am so sorry that you could not come with me. Maybe next year, your Mom will let you go.

I am flipping through my summer scrapbook. We certainly had some good times. I appreciate that you invited me and my friends for all the adventure. I didn't realize your cave was also an undiscovered archeological wonder. I sure hope that Bob Xuma finds whatever he is looking for.

Sincerely,

Flappy

 

"I wonder how Bob is handling his first airplane trip," thought Flappy.

 

The airline stewart felt a strange urge to bury an obsedian hatchet in the skull of the small, noisy children and to dismember their big parents in their silly t-shirts and graceless Northeastern accents. He eyed the exact spot where he could grab the dad by the wrist and twist to have him on the ground with tears of pain streaming from his eyes. The stench of the man's "Old Spice" emboldened him to want to plant a foot in his chest and stomp.  This feeling was very uncharacteristic for the stewart and he felt both embarassed and confused. In 12 years of working for the airline, he prided himself on having a very thick skin and not being rattled by, or judgemental of his passengers. Now, however, the adreneline had his heels bouncing like he was doing the pee pee dance. This was no good. Maybe he could repair to the galley for a drink to steady his nerves. Yes. A drink would be quite good. He thought of the nights in the arena when he would clam his nerves before a match with a flagon of cocoa mixed with the glands of a fatted fowl, and the delicious taste of the nectars of the gods after he had decapitated the last of his enemies on the fields of glory.

 

Bob Xuma was starting to overexcite his host and so he moved on to a sleeping passenger, who grunted restlessly. Bob was sorry to have riled the priest-accolyte of this flying temple bird, but the unnatural magic which propelled all of the congregants through the palace of the sun was really freaking him out.

 

"Would you like something to drink?" asked female flight attendant.

 

"No thanks," replied the Scarecrow. "I will, however, take some more straws..."

New Browser: PUNCHY

Ok, Trav, here's the logo for my pre-alpha non-release version. My browser is designed for people who want to surf the web while driving. The interface seems to work like this:
* think about where on the internet you'd rather be.
* listen to AM radio
* text message your friends while eating a hamburger and downshifting
I admit that this browser is mostly vaporware and even so, it crashes a lot. But that makes it just like Google Chrome.