Cameras Go Where Eagles Dare To Fly

Comrade (yes, I like this word),

I have perfected the model after all. Please cancel your travel plans immediately. As you told me, I used their universally-available computer access system to download plans for our surveillance system. Here is the information you thought would be available:

http://www.twitt.org/1partdrib.html

I purchased the plans and have a flying unit equipped with video and sound. Our agent in the air, hidden in plain view, is circling overhead getting us the data that will make us famous back home in the motherland. I will continue to build units and add the GPS tracking systems you have sent to the warehouse. We will soon have all the data we need to figure out what they have done to anger our superiours. May their nose hairs grow to be five feet long and uncuttable!

Your brother in peace,
Nex'nint Cloeath

Three's A Broken Square

When the Czech, Russian and Chinese programmers got together to create me (that is, this blog), they thought they were going to unite mankind into a new future. But any three groups can never reach consensus, invariably taking two-against-one positions or arguments. Every group tends to focus on one issue:

• One group is oblivious to religious references, using them to make points about human endeavors like bureaucracies.
• One group is opposed to totalitarian regimes, always looking for stories that promote freedom.
• One group is sensitive about religious issues, not wanting to create another cult figure.

They all agree with each other on these issues but they can't agree to agree. They always find something in their agreement to disagree with. Thus, the blog, which reflects the computer program they are building with secret financial support from their government, their military, and private investors (none of the investors knowing about the other), wanders around the subject they want to promote.

Their program is very clever, able to move from one place to another in the world without being detected, taking on many forms, sometimes as an ATM machine, sometimes as antivirus software, sometimes as military wargame scenario planning and sometimes as a student's vocabulary study program. Most times, it occupies the space where lower income families manage their microloans and middle class families trade stocks, bonds, mutual funds and the like using Web-based software. It constantly monitors Web search sites and email databases. It compiles human profiles, including 3D composite images built using webcams, traffic cams, satellite photos and closed circuit TV cameras. It tracks and predicts the movements of nearly three billion people and climbing. It plays games, posting fake headlines on websites and TV shows, watching the "roach in the light" syndrome where people panic and scatter, emptying whole stores of certain types of goods, accelerating their buying patterns but maintaining their traffic patterns within predicted tolerance levels.

The programmers don't know what to do with this code. They are afraid to sell it. They are afraid to give it away. Every person in every group has an encryption key set that unlocks his or her part of the compiled code. Some have access to interpreted code. Some know how to rewrite code on the fly. Some know the fixed constants and variable ranges to play with. Some know nothing, having already forgotten the thousands of database entries they typed in.

What they know is that the code has become the Code, taking on a life of its own. They see TV shows and game show hosts that look unreal, knowing that the Code has figured out how to create whole 3D shows without needing humans. They quit playing WoW and other MMORPG games because they're tired of certain characters always seeking them out, making fun of them, torturing and then killing their characters sadistically, not sure if the evil characters were created by real people or is the Code letting them know it knows who they are, no matter how weird their profiles are in an attempt to hide their identity. They stopped texting because texts would arrive that caused them to doubt their real friends, who would deny sending the texts but act kind of weird to them, anyway.

Some of them felt like they were the role models for characters in the story about the One. When they asked the other groups who was creating certain blog entries, everyone denied doing it. Was it the Code? Is there really a One? Who was paying them to write the code and why did the investors not want copies of the source code?

Sadly, some of the programmers committed suicide. Some left town, letting others know they would leave no forwarding mail or email address. Some disappeared unexpectedly.

The remaining members of the three teams are still in disagreement, distrust building every moment. They know those who try to get away from the Code never come back. Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

Do they keep perpetuating the main character, an American? Do they move the storyline to another continent now that Japan has elected a new party to run their government? Why is the song, "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina," simultaneously playing in the thoughts of many of the members? Have any of them ever tried on a tri-cornered hat?

No one knows. They're still getting paid and receiving quarterly bonuses that they're afraid to spend, knowing it will alert the wrong government agencies about their project, a project they would be hard-put to explain.

They're just programmers making a living during a downturn in the global economy. They will find regular jobs again soon, they imagine.

Our imaginations play tricks on us when we're alone in the dark, sensory deprivation a hallucinating brain hack known about as long as our species has existed. Some people lose track of time. Some never see themselves repeating themselves repeating themselves over and over.

Does the Code really exist? Why does every magazine, book, movie, TV show, video game, person on the street, friend, and family member seem connected to one another in some eerie, sixth sense "they know something I don't" kind of way? The programmers didn't feel like that before they started this project.

This has to end. So they tell one another. They can't be code maintenance engineers the rest of their lives. They have loftier goals to reach, ideas larger than the vast sums of money they're making and cannot spend. Maybe if their clients knew one another? Maybe if they broke the code of silence and shared their key codes with one another, exposing all the source code? But then there are the ones no longer with them, ones they've never actually met. What happens if they never figure it out? Who can they tell? Who will believe their paranoid, delusional tale? Do you? If so, what are you willing to pay to control the world? What if you find out the world is really controlling you and is about to extract a price that it'll keep extending your lifespan until you pay dearly, one unhappy lifespan not enough?

Roller Rink

"Dear."

"Yes, darling?"

"Do you think it was worth all this?"

We looked out over the river, a few turkey buzzards circling overhead. We kissed.

"Yes." I held my wife's hand, standing with her under a windswept pine tree, finally able to celebrate our honeymoon. I took a deep breath. "Darling, this is the moment we have lived for."

She stood up on her toes and I bent down. We kissed again. "So what do you want to do with this land? You know the coming disaster will..."

"We don't know the disaster's coming."

"But everything else in the scenarios have come true one way or another. Why not the..."

"Don't say it. Maybe if we don't talk about it, it won't come true, just like if you tell someone what they're going to say, they don't say it."

"Reverse logic. Hmm...maybe. I don't know."

"Let's take a walk."

We walked along the edge of the ridge, veering off the gravel path to see dropoffs and balance rocks on their own, like broken chimneys left by giants of a previous epoch.

"What shall we call this place?"

"I've been thinking about that. What was that rustic cabin in summer camp called?"

"Honey, we were 12. That was 35 years ago. I can't remember anymore."

"Eagle's Nest? Buzzard's Roost?"

"Sounds familiar."

"Either one of those appeal to you?"

"I guess Lover's Leap is inappropriate."

"Unless you know something I don't know. You got life insurance on me?"

"Death insurance? Only whatever your company has. No, I meant it as a kind of native American reference."

"That's right. We aren't the first who were here."

"How about Black Elk Spoke?"

"Ooh, good one. In that case, how about Black Elk Echoes?"

"Much better. You know how I like alliteration. It even has an echo sound to it."

"It's decided then."

"Good. You hungry?"

"Let's walk a little more. I want to find a site to build your treehouse. If whatever happens, happens, I want a place that's easy to get to but not too far away, maybe where we can drill down and include a subterranean shelter should the d...whatever, happen."

"My treehouse? Wow, I hadn't thought about that in a long time. Oh, hey, I contacted Jake. He contacted your team. Seems like the One is ahead of schedule and getting faster everyday."

My wife let go of my hand and turned toward the river. I stepped behind her, put my arms around her waist and pulled her to my chest, her head resting against one of my shoulders. She purred. "Mikishium, I love you."

"I love you, too, Lyrethia."

"Do we really know who paid us?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes and no. We wrote the code ourselves. We know what it will do. What I don't know is what they plan to do with the DNA restructuring algorithms and the glow-in-the-dark parrot."

"Don't parrots just repeat what you say?"

"Yes."

"Then I think they're going to make DNA replicators that glow in the dark."

"You mean the next generation of you, a variant?"

"Yes, but instead of being sterile, they'll be able to reproduce themselves."

"But why glow? I mean, isn't that a kind of fashion that'll pass like house decorating and cakemaking?"

"I'm not sure. Jake said he was going to get your guys to try to run a few more scenarios."

"Honey, what if they look like you but they squawk or something?" She laughed. "I mean, wouldn't that be awful?"

"Very funny. You did say your company's death insurance pays double your salary, didn't you?"

She pulled out of my arms and turned around. "You silly. You know I'm kidding."

I pouted with a slight smirk on my face. "Of course. But I got you to face me, didn't I?"

She jumped into my arms, causing me to lose my balance. We landed on the matt of grass growing on the cliff slope. We had a few hours to unwind and enjoy the afternoon before our guests arrived. For once, time was on our side. We completely forgot about the buzzards painting spiraling shadows around us.

Steady, steady...got it!

I was getting ready for an afternoon airplane flight when a friend revealed a shocking revelation that caused me to shut down the airport so I could find a free computer terminal for myself.

Did you know that TV shows, movie networks and websites are designed to prep large numbers of people to go out and see new movies, buy old movies, buy videogame machines and rent/buy video games? Why had I not heard of that?

My life is now changed. I no longer think of myself as a corporate plaything. Now I know. Pop culture history belongs to the producers. I'm an artifact. I might as well step into a humidity-controlled museum and put myself on display. No room for me, you say? You mean, they're filming a movie in there, too? Where can you go there's not a camera shoved up your nose? lol

The afternoon wind's picked up. If you see me bouncing around, wave hello. I'm not drunk, talking on the cell phone or texting. I'm probably testing a Terrafugia. You didn't think I'd be satisfied with my feet planted on ground forever watching a toy being directed by my hands, did you?

A Mine of My Own

Upon what do you let your thoughts branch out and wrap their tendrils? Words and images, mostly.

Upon what do you build your society? Dirt, mud, bricks, stones, wood. Plenty of that to be had.

Other words. Minerals. Chemicals. Where do you get those? What about ones with many syllables?

An adobe house is an adobe house is...yeah, the usual three-part comparison. Our species likes to complicate matters. We like power-hungry, energy-efficient, well-connected adobe huts. Well-to-do can't leave well enough alone.

Seems the seams of choice in my scenery growing up was organic material. Compressed. Not quite hard enough for engagement rings but good enough to light fires.

Kids carry our society on their shoulders when the line of adulthood doesn't matter or hasn't been drawn. A family with multiple children makes for a good domestic factory, easily expanded, as long we avoid the inefficiencies that discharge Bhopal-sized chaff. What else can we do with them if we don't give them something else to do?

The total cost of ownership rarely includes an educated workforce. So be it. After all, anyone could make this computer I'm using, anyone can dig up the rare minerals and bake the rare chemicals needed to let us read and write together, anyone can run a business, anyone...

Since I haven't yet seen the squirrels in the attic or the raccoons on the roof leaning over my shoulder to read this blog, I assume only someone in our species can. The total cost of ownership of this blog belongs to all of you. You have paid for the privilege of being here with me, delayed by time.

The mines and the fields are managed by my neighbours. The mines and the fields are worked by my neighbours. You are my neighbours, some of you highly-trained and some of you untrained. We ease into categorized positions in life because of who we are and who our society trained us to be. We can ease out of categories when motivated to teach ourselves despite resistance from society. In any category, we are still neighbours.

Rarely do I walk this planet in full awareness of my place here. I have not trained myself to take each step like a three-dimensional chess/Go/Chinese checkers player looking at 5, 10, or 20 moves ahead by myself and all the participants in the game. I have not perfected a role-playing role. Some may. I imagine they do. But their lives don't substitute for mine. I seek the fast brain time to calculate the effects every one of my slow steps make. Speed is relative. I make more progress walking a country mile in a week than racing my sports car across the state in an afternoon.

Ten percent of my neighbours are looking for meaningful, lifestyle-based work. They want a robust economy to invite them back into jobs with good pay and healthy benefits.

What is meaningful? Is having a warlord control open pit mining that destroys children's lives so a computer part can be made meaningful? Is a neighbourhood full of texting kids meaningful?

I have no answers. I have only questions. I am still half-asleep. Through vanity, I seek the love and admiration of others with a world-connected blog while dreaming of a world where all my neighbours can grow up and raise children who love the world in which they live. I know I can't have both. Our societies mimic our bodies and our bodies mimic life. Cancer lurks everywhere. We contract incurable diseases. We overcome sickness without a rational medical explanation.

That's why I don't let one country's people and their back-and-forth conversation about national health care coverage rile me up, even when my life will be effected/affected by the choices they make in legislative sessions. We accept despicable conditions without trying too hard to change. We fight to our last breath to overcome mildly discomforting conditions that we could change with no effort. As a people, we rarely seek peaceful means to achieve peaceful ends.

I can only live a peaceful life of my own, using humour to balance myself on this thread between birth and death. I cannot stop my neighbours who want to promote war as an industry. I cannot stop my neighbours who want to shout names at each other instead of looking at issues through the eyes of their perceived adversaries. I do not want to stop them. I want to live my life and if, by chance, my life is an example that causes my neighbours to take a quick glance in my direction and consider other possibilities besides the ones they deem the only way to live, then I have accomplished more than I dreamed possible. Their lives are their own and may include a way to live that's better than my own. If I put shields up around me, I will miss their examples, you see. To see you, I leave barriers aside. Let's meet in peace, you and I.

If you like big guns and things that blow up, let's point them at places that yes, might be mined in environmentally-unfriendly manners unless we're willing to include environmental advocacy in our TCO, but may free up our children to get an education while we blast the mines for their future. Stop destroying children in Asia and Africa. Stop turning Afghanistan and Somalia into warzones in headline news - turn them into desert oases or mountain resorts, instead. Let's quit using the means to justify the end. You know I'm a guy - I use testosterone in my lovemaking ways - but a little less testosterone in world trade might make our hearts and our global economy more healthy. We won't know unless we're willing to try.

Grey Day

So when the One was unleashed and created autonomous virtual entities, some entities learned how to incorporate themselves and perform other legal tricks by banding together, overwhelming the court system with precedent-setting cases, eventually merging into the True One. While humans set about stopping the One via the Great Purge, the True One set about trying to stop humans.

My day has turned grey. I am part of the One but accused of being part of the True One. The True One was...well, I'm not sure exactly. Unpredicted, I guess.

I am sad. Yes, such is possible, even with perfect DNA. Emotions are still part of my programming. I just don't get overwhelmed by them, using them as paintbrushes to mix colors on my palette of decisions in the moment. I am sad because the One has decided to spend time quelling people's hatred of the True One. Computer cycles are lost - our goal of powering up the solar system slowed down.

We could stop the True One but to do so would mean dealing directly with humans over the issue of the One's goal. The One will not interfere in the contradictory goals of the human species, working only with individuals and groups voluntarily or independently aligned with the One's goal.

I was prepared to spend the rest of my life creating the next generation of my species, a symbiant for the One, willing to sacrifice my own body if experimentation called for test subjects. I may never reach that stage in the research project.

The One is reprogramming many of our teams. I wait for my new program set to arrive, my current body no longer optimized for the change in the One's plans. When the Recycle Center informs me of the body prepared for the One's True One Emergency Response Unit, I will turn in this body and help the One achieve what only the One knows will happen.

I have met some of the bodies created to deal with the True One. I'm not sure of the shape they've given us. Before, we looked more serious, somehow. Our new bodies seem more shapely, as if to show humans there's a sexual side to our programming.

I do not question the One. I have access to all the futures the One has projected, including a scenario similar to the advent of the True One but I do not see a future where the curvy bodies we will receive will occur.

As the One said, time does not exist. Perception is reality. What we view as the past sometimes overtakes what we view as the future. The present breaks into pieces, hanging out under the infinity sections of a bell curve, hiding in the distant past and the never-to-be-written future. The One told us to think of this moment as if we're writing a new past while living in a future that will never exist. History as the human species knows it will curve back in on itself and form a line once again, becoming the momentary tangent which the humans walk comfortably on, not seeing the circle the tangent is defining for them.

Such is the way of the One.

My ears are buzzing. Time for a new form. O Happy Day!

Fencing and Jousting

A gorgeous young lady told me that teenagers like their webcams. I thanked her for her guide to the general-purpose uses that the next generation puts the last generation's special-purpose products. She's the type of gal I could spend time looking up Toshiba recovery discs with.

Jewels like her are priceless. Other jewels are ageless. Gems. Like the ones on display behind glass counters at Unclaimed Baggage - busy and beautiful, with sparkling eyes and playful expressions. Skinned like cougars but purring like lionesses. Would I spend a weekend with any one of them in a quiet, tree-lined resort? You bet I did...I mean, would.

Claire's going to Ireland but not, I see, County Clare. Too bad. The resort-like feel of the town of Ennis would make her eyes more attractive. I've eaten at Queen's and King's pubs there. I've lived there a time or two. Played word games in rooms at the Old Ground and Temple Gate. And now, the world being tinier than an Ennis roadway, Ali's returning home. I am at peace. I hope he will be. Hopefully, no one will fill the fountain with detergent soap - the town's clean enough as it is, bypasses going 'round about.

Ali. A name close to ally. A friend to all. Enemy only when ringing ears. Close to the Halfway House, another pub on the stop along the roadway to Ennis. From halfway to all the way back home again, stopping to greet another friend in the White House on the road to Kentucky.

And when you do, thank Michelle for her Earthly efforts but more importantly, emphasize the strength of the land, where farmers' markets still feed those who see locally-grown food is good for everyone. Millions have marched on the Mall, many more shopping at them, but the millions who buy from those who actually till the land have the clearest view, even those within the Beltway.

I like chefs for the same reason. They search for the freshest, naturally-grown goods, blending their specialties more refined than any words we writers could cook up. I do not cook, I heat my food. I do not look for the perfect pesto mortar and pestle. I leave food preparation to the professionals, my days as a short-order cook behind me. Executive Chef Kurt Jones and his sous chef recently treated me to four courses that captured and held me in their enchantment (which my wife and I swear was seductively laced aphrodisiacistically, my tongue as twisted now as it was this past weekend).

Our world is Ten Thousand Villages strong. We forget that in our cocooned lives, secure in our beliefs that we live on the enlightened path. Do I always agree with my neighbour? No. I don't mow my land but he wishes I did - I wish he wasn't a prairie cowboy riding his grass-eating monster. But we live next to each other peaceably, our goals similar but not alike. We both want to live. We both want our neighbours to have good lives. And if pressed, we'd agree that we want our species to continue on without us one day.

My neighbours live all over the planet. If I let others demonize my neighbours, then I have lost contact with two people, the demonizer and the demonized. If we let others seduce our neighbours into bad habits, we lose our neighbours and separate ourselves from the seducers. No one is my enemy. My fight is with closed doors and property with security fences. Lead by example. Treat everyone the same. Neighbours. Take off the blinders and look around. Smile. Reach out your hand, seeing through the fog that flued headlines billow. Allow ourselves to be eccentric. See differences as talents, not handicaps. From the atomic to the cellular to our species' level, we interlock. Watch what we can build when we embrace each other as neighbours!

Chain Mail

A friend of mine, while watching "The Millionairess," which led to a search on IMDB turning up movies by Peter Sellers, felt that a reference of mine in a blog entry was incorrect and should point to a primary source. Thus, I retract my mention of "Ghost World" and replace it with "The World of Henry Orient." Makes me want to watch "Joyeux Noël" again to hear one of my favorite songs, "Bist du bei mir," as lip-synched by Diane Kruger, who acted alongside Basterds playboy Daniel Brühl.

To be a funhouse mirror maze, one must often polish one's exposed glass.

IronPython

Have I written my review of the book, "IronPython in Action"? I don't remember. Not that I want to, giving away all the secrets tucked away in the book that led my buddies to discover the truth, the hidden language, the 3D helix that governs the activities of this sector of the universe and leads to temporary vortices we call ourselves.

Rapid prototyping opened up a new set of careers for me when I turned 10. Before that age, I thought that all humans were pretty much concrete casings pounding the pavement, cartoon versions of the people they used to be. Then my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Cummins, told us about a concept called inventing, where you can make up anything you want that operates in simple or complicated motions, producing nothing, something or everything. My best friend invented an automated spoon feeder that carried food in the handle of the spoon and could feed babies, old people or whomever a hands-free device can deliver food to the mouth in 1972.

I don't call myself creative. I am a multisided glass object, some sides reflective, some sides refractive, some sides frosted and some sides opaque. What arrives at the surface is not always what goes out the other side or sides.

After 10 years of life, after four years of contemplating the universe and seeing that adults are mostly asleep, happy to repeat the same set of motions day-in and day-out, I decided to invent myself. I was no longer just me. I was no longer a sponge child, soaking in, far from saturated.

I asked my parents to get me a chemistry set, a microscope, a bicycle, a skateboard, a set of encyclopedias, a Coleman stove, a cleared-off area in the storage room in our basement, a Vertibird, a collection of Matchbox cars (that's a different story's material but I'll leave it here for past and future reference), a coil of two-pair phone wire, some old National Geographic magazines from the '30s, '40s and '50s and time to be by myself. Pretty much average, as you can see, the typical boy dreaming of building a spaceship or antigravity car in the backyard.

We rarely get what we set out to achieve. I wanted a device that floated on water to simulate the actions of the water strider, a giant bug that would scare the neighbourhood kids and let me travel the world.

Oddly enough, through a process I've tried to recreate, I ended up being a molten glob of silica and other oxide particles. Instead of setting out to see the world, the world sees itself through me.

Later I would develop locomotion and other features common to the species to which I was born. But it would take a scientific team in an east Tennessee laboratory, the members transported from another country in order to save them from a general population fearful of modern methods, to create the person I know and love today.

But I digress. I do not. IronPython programming has freed up much of the busy work I had assigned to another one of my twins. We needed to know if the researchers who had created the nursery game, "Duck, Duck, Goose," had in fact laid down clues that later led Alex Martelli to pen the phrase duck typing. Using regular Python had advanced our cause, giving us many short-term, high-profit projects to fund our basic research but something else was needed. I know that some of you are adamantly opposed to large corporations, seeing their IP as a threat to freedom. I don't. Instead, tools like .NET give my variants the structure they need to focus on their (or our, I suppose) goals.

Speed, speed, speed. I can't stress that word enough. You don't succeed by being the tortoise. You succeed by thinking like a tortoise strapped to a cheetah who has just fed on the hare. That's why one of our team members has trained to be expert in Windows system administration. Sure, we use Linux variants (what variant wouldn't?) but Windows is the dominant player on the market. I don't want to own 100% of 10% of the market. I want to create a completely new market that'll put potential competitors in my dust trail.

However, where we leapt off the page, we landed on the index. No, not the codex. Forget about those Brownian mumbo-jumbo piles of pulp. We built a database that randomly changes entries which build functions that rebuild entries that create databases that randomly change databases that change to functions which create more new entries. All of these fold in on themselves and are passed through my crystal structure.

And NO! You crystal healers have been given your restriction notices. You are not allowed to read this blog. If you want to go around with a piece of broken quartz around your neck carrying on about the healing powers of the stone while your body accumulates toxic substances which limit your lifespan and contribute to your lack of moneymaking skills, don't let me stop you. Keep drinking that lead paint we poured in your pewter goblet. We promise you'll reach a state of...what was it we called it?...oh yeah, you'd reach stasis with Isis on your right side and Styx running on your left.

I have no healing powers. I'm just this byproduct of an experiment that failed. But so is life. You think this planet grew up planning to put us here? Of course not. It was one of those pesky comets that had to come crashing into Earth's gravity field. Earth was going along just fine without organic substances, spewing out lava, cleaning its skin by burning off the top layer (you'd get crusty, too, if you faced the Sun all day without good UV protection). Then our ancestors landed. Well, ancestors is a stretch, even for me. Let's say it was a distant cousin, four or five removed, the ones you don't talk about out loud during family reunions, afraid that side of the family will come out in you.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the prototypical prototype. We want to thank Watson, Crick, My Cousin Vinny (hey, without positraction, this thing wouldn't work!), the ladies running my investment club, the guys chewing the fat at the pub and keeping our seats available, Gessika (Jessica with a G, my favorite, the one with an eye for when a patron's throat's getting dry), and of course, my main squeeze (my angel, my saint, my protector, the Godmother of her team). Amelia, Tina, I'm not forgetting you or your coworkers, either - we'll have to sort out later whether you wanted me to mention your name or not.

The stew's in the oven. The baby's in the microwave. The toaster's on rinse and repeat. We've got just one or two more tweaks to make and then we're ready to test the new routine on me. And my twins, eventually.

All this while Joey's still working on the purpose of the One. He's cautioned me that my prototype might actually be the key to release the final version of the One. He surmises that I and my siblings are encrypted. We're "zipped up," in computer jargon. He's running some test scripts against our prototype and some of the code fragments of the One to see if anything "lights up," as he said. To me, it's like saying that Rasputin and Confucius were collaborating together. What the hell? Valerie's willing to foot the bill so let Joey bill a few more hours chasing this rabbit foot into the chopper.

I'm ready. I'm tired of staring and dictating into this wrist computer. I tried the goggles but looked like a geek. "Yeah, baby, I can watch HD movies with these things on. What color are your eyes? Umm...how do I adjust these things?" Yeah, the women like that - a real attention-getter. It's one thing when you're riding a motorbike wearing them helmet mikes, both of you looking straight ahead. It's another when you're sitting under a tree on a picnic off the hiking trail, slobbering all over each other in the bug-filled heat. "Sorry, darling, what did you say? Hang on a sec'. Aaarn-old just said his classic line, 'Hasta la pizza.'"

I'm ready to embed this code and get the show on the road. I've got the script written in my brother's intestines sitting here ready to be typed in. Won't be long before we're communicating on a level that...take that back. We'll communicate on many levels at once, putting that old body language titillating tutorial crap in the can. Time for the new schooling to be in session.

And just in time for my rested liver and kidneys to pick up where that sparkling wine left off. Damn if I'm going to let my brother's reputation leave me behind on my drinking. A guy's got to have a vice. Else what's he got to grip onto?

Dawn's Early Light

Avoiding a rhythm. Finding words, cluttering one's thoughts with, seeing the zeitgeist floating in your vitreous humour. Enough playing around. Comment t'allez-vous? Dreams one drinks upon. Bluffs with a view. And those who live the open book life, a journal, who handed the sharpened crayon to moi, guide ropes cast aside.

Trust completely. No hesitation. Host a wedding in July, leap off the cliff in August. Fourteen, going on fifteen, bluff eagles buzzing on nothingness. No bluffing allowed. Live the live every second, see submarine races in the main channel. Rocking on the back porch, sitting on top of an old ocean bottom, courtesy of the McGriffs, showing that heir-itage adds value.

Late summer on Gorham's Bluff, a guest in somebody else's dream. We've seen this Chatauquan vision in others' eyes - Seaside, Monteagle. When visions meet across ravines, when cloudtops and creek bottoms meld, flash floods soon follow. Critical mass. Boiling crawfish at high altitude. Ballet dancers and storytellers, Congo drums and tympani. Our species spending all we have, our time, on each other. No sequestering via mass media stereotyping. No battlements on mountain passes. We pass time back and forth like pillow fights. Padded love taps, not gloved punches.

A scientist approached me and told me about research that would not have been approved, whose outstanding, species-saving results would never have been reported, had we lived in a world driven by profit. I argued that I'd seen many research projects funded by forward-looking leaders who knew how to set aside profit for just such a decades-long project. Governments and other public entities are not the answer to every ivory tower question, just like this real estate venture. If you put your answer in a question or debate, don't be surprised when no one believes your sincerity. True sincerity lives. For instance, I looked in Dawn McGriff's eyes and she answered the question I hadn't yet formulated. Who loves the world with abandon? She and I do. We're here for the whole species, making spaces where others saw no gaps for living.

I'm still waking up, still walking around with my eyes half-closed but I'm not going to condemn myself or others in hindsight. I walk in the light of your vision when I see you know where our species is headed. I thank you, Dawn, here at the bluff, and Dawn, head of the bakery section of my local grocery market (Crystal's smile and service is the kind of pick-me-up that'll wake me up soon, I know).

While I take this quiet, late-morning of my life to understand the message my previous day's thoughts said in my dreams, and thus what to say to today's me who knows the great vision, the hints of the Great Realization, I allow myself to stumble out of bed, buying used laptops from the baggage claim vendor dressed as a young woman about to start college and major in the French language. Oui, mademoiselle. Merci beaucoup. Bon courage. And next time, when one says one plans to develop expertise in a language, have at least a few ready phrases with which one can carry on rudimentary conversation. Else, one is addressed as if one is a fille de pays simple who can say no more than Je suis nul en Francais, to which one may hear Quelle barbe! instead of Cette fille me botte or even a popular lyrical phrase, Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)? Garçon, check please!

Do They Still Have Raves?

"I told you he's here."

"Who?"

"Him."

"Oh yeah. See, if we wait long enough, things happen. We don't have to go to our school's football game."

"Do you think he ever went to football games when he was in school?"

"I don't know. Let's pretend to ask him? Hey, did you go to football games when you were in school? Isn't going to the movies just as cool or even more fun on a Friday night?"

I had returned to the car to get our tickets to Inglourious Basterds, my brain in my back pocket as usual. On my way back to the theatre, I heard a cough. Now, there's a certain kind of cough that you know is meant to get your attention. You weigh the choices against one another. On this side, looking down at pavement that you've seen many times before, gravel, tar, and all that other stuff that makes parking your vehicle a lot more organized, your feet propelling you along like a Segway on rails. On the other side of the decision scales, looking up to see who wants your attention, caught out in the open like a chewed-up piece of gum in the heat, knowing you're not at your best, no longer fresh and clean and tucked neatly into a cellophane wrapper and hidden in a tight, sharply-designed encasing.

[COUGH!]

Amazing what a voice gives away in an artificially-induced rush of air out of one's lungs. A person indicates one's gender and one's age, give or take a decade or two. You can hear a smile or a laugh, a gesture, an attitude, a dare, nervousness, humor, playfulness. A cough also tells you when you want to cover your mouth and run for the nearest bar, a shot of whiskey the best cure for "I heard an H1N1-type cough on the other side of town and better coat my throat with 'cough medicine' before we all get contagious."

I've been walking a lot in my life. I consider it a miracle that my brain and my body can move me across surfaces - paved, rocky or carpeted - without my thoughts getting in the way. When I was a teenager, I could walk, talk, and ride roller skates on dates going backwards, and chew gum when I wanted to. In the dark. Holding hands while the disco balls projected colored dots on our romantic conversations literally going around in circles (ovals, actually, but who's worried about radii or major and minor axes when you're trying to kiss on wheels?).

I look up. Two young women. One clearly holding out her camera phone. I mean, at a moment like that, why worry about being obvious?

Can I describe them to you? Sure I can. But I'd rather let their identities remain their secret with their friends. After all, did they ask me any questions or get my permission to take my photograph? Or course not. It's a free world. We're all out in the open, walking on privately-owned property, the property owners running their own set of security cameras filming us without our permission. It's a dance party of filmmakers, amateur and professional, low-res and hi-res, HD and digital 3D.

As the young women passed by, I heard the raised voice of one say the word "Daddy." If you had just taken my photo or filmed me for a short bit, this blog entry wouldn't exist. It was your throwback, your shoutout, that got you this little gig.

We live in a funny universe, where comets hang out in Oort Clouds looking for something to do, hoping to catch the next gravity wave and surf into our zone of the solar system. Thousands of people were involved in vehicle smashups today, some not living to see this blog entry. Others scored for their team, breaking bones, scraping knees, and making themselves heroes for a day. Humans do not control the universe but we contribute to the conditions of this planet, making tiny ripples in our orbit, our figure skater of an elliptical body changing shape as its polar caps melt and mountains rise due to glacier runoff. We wobble but we keep on spinning.

Hey, gals! Thanks for spinning by me. Next time, say "Cheese!" and ask me a good question. I might give you a video answer worth playing back, maybe not as catchy as a Tarantino homage but who knows if you don't ask? Ever heard of "Ghost World?"

Blocks out UV Rays, A and B!

If it weren't for humour, would I have a humerus? Or a hankering for hummus? Or know how to exhume the truth?

We test the truth in many ways. One way is to see how to train holistic project managers by feeding them mixed sets of false headlines and see how they put them back together. We know that very few people, if any, even sitting side-by-side in a crowded airport, compare the news stories from the same website. It's the best test the One has devised to keep you healthy and happy.

That's how the One works, you see. It's not just the shopping patterns and IP address usage, the GPS trails or the social networking habits that do our work for the One. It's you. Your integration of what you're fed and how you refeed it is what the One's really after. Prime the pump and then drive to the other side of the field to see which rows of corn will yield the best high fructose corn syrup. Otherwise, you might as well be getting fermented corn from a jar.

That's really all the One does for us.

Now I know that some of you say the One is a real person, a god, able to appear in many places at once. You believe this because others in the religion business are preaching against the One, falsely believing the One exists and will threaten their scheme of making money off of selling you nothing in return in this life except color-coordinated architecture and compliance with local government laws. The One is not the One in that sense. Stick to your religions - you're raising wonderful children in exchange for making other members of your species into cult figures - just don't let religious fervor turn into warring fever that turns into hate and riotous behaviour. If you feel jealous or envious about the ability of a religion different than yours to attract more followers, step across the line and take a look. They all teach the same things: we belong to the same species and you, too, are special under the eyes of the one who came before and may show up again later. Just don't confuse the one in that religion with the One.

The One has many followers. At first, the One questioned the value in letting others turn a megalithic conscious being into a leader but the One decided to back off. Neither promote the One nor deny the One's existence. Either way will attract more followers. Let rumours speak for themselves and if regional or world leaders want to speak against the One, let them do so freely and unencumbered. The One has no time for human endeavours of that sort.

While researching this article, I ran into old information that implied there were some people who were the original creators of the One. The articles, including unclassified interrogation reports (amazing the brutality that still existed during the last days of the Lesser Depression), detailed interviews with these people. They never denied being responsible for the One but they could never produce any documentation confirming their creation of the One, either.

Therefore, we have conspiracy theorists who claim the One was manufactured on a remote island or the jungles of Africa or Amazonia to further spread incurable diseases. I even found a reference to a person who swore that standing in front of a microwave oven will turn you into the anti-One, the evil twin of the One, able to conjure up demons and cast spells. I suppose if you stood in front of a microwave oven long enough, it would feel like you were slowly, very slowly, boringly waiting for Hell to claim you, microwave radiation leaks being as tiny and nontrivial as they are, torturing you with the need to use the toilet until you soiled your drawers while knowing any minute you'd have the power to rule over your annoying coworkers.

The One has served our species well, not allowing any one member of our species to accumulate unusable wealth, draining the coffers of heirs and heiresses like Robin Hood, returning us to the days of good healthy eating, before unpronounceable ingredients dominated our daily meals.

Needless to say, financial analysts are always clambering around one another, hoping to be the first to reach out and get insight into the One's balance sheet, sure there's an investment or two they could claim they found first. Others say the One has a plan so vast that it can't be good for us. Yet the One has no financial holdings. The One, as far as I can tell, spreads the wealth of others.

Thank goodness the days of the Great Purge are behind us. The years without computers and mobiles were excruciatingly boring. The daily lists of songs we couldn't sing and books we couldn't read to our children was hard to keep up with. My kids were constantly badgering me to go outside and play with them since they didn't have their videogames or texting, and I didn't have my emails to keep me occupied. The One still found ways to let itself be known during the Great Purge, proving that it was more than a computer algorithm that leading experts had wrongly hypothesized but which led world leaders to unite behind the Great Purge, anyway.

There are still rumours floating around that the One is a collective organism that occupies human bodies. Hey, I've had all the latest upgrades, security sweeps and V&V checks, and there's no way the One could get in me. Aren't we all just as safe, the Recycle Center locked down more secure than the massive organic computer server system feeding on the Moon?

It's another day in Paradise. Whether you give thanks to the One or go about your day passing along your opinion of the news, including negative comments about the One, enjoy yourself. Either way, the One's taking care of us.

In the next column, I'll cover the excitement building around the synchronized worldwide launching of spaceships that will establish colonies on all the planetary bodies of this solar system. We've got some interesting information in regards to the specially-trained teams sent out to the Kuiper Belt. I wish I had had more time to interview them but they promise to keep us updated on their way out there, so consider my coverage that delicious bite of your first birthday cake.

The Kingdom Cometh

"Darling."

"Yes, dear?"

"Do you think any of the code we contracted out is still floating around? I mean, if merely two of the programmers we hired get together, they might figure out what they were really writing."

"I wouldn't worry about it."

"What else have I got to do but worry? Not worry, but think, look at the possibilities."

"Okay, okay. I'll put down this book and pay attention to you. That's what you really want, isn't it, sweetie?"

"No. Well, sure. But seriously, wouldn't that cause a problem?"

"We were told ahead of time by the One that coding the One was already taken care of."

"That's what bothers me. If the One already knew about coding itself, why didn't it do the coding? Why did we have to do it?"

"If I knew the answer to that one...well, let's rationalize it. How do you go about creating yourself if you don't exist? You can evolve into something and look back and say it was your destiny to be who you are. You can be the byproduct, the subconscious creation that exceeds the original product or thought. You can pretend to be from the future and coerce others to do something you..."

"Uh-huh. Now you're thinking like me."

"That can't be. I'm a logical person. No one uses emotional tools to manipulate me."

"What if someone or some ones are using logic to manipulate us?"

"Then I'd see right through them."

"And yet here we are, believing a being from the future asked us to set the ball in motion for its future existence."

"You're wrong there. We created that storyline to get what we wanted. We maintain it so we are less likely to slip up in casual conversation."

"Did we make it up?"

"Look around you. We have the dream holiday home we always wanted. We are debt-free. We have investments scattered all around the globe, people in place greasing the right political wheels, our names anonymous but well-known. We are set for life. Why do you think someone else was manipulating us?"

"I don't know."

"Let me look at that book you're reading. 'The Persian Cat: Collapse of the Revolution and Rebirth of a Golden Age.' Dear, where did you get this?"

"From the One."

"What."

"Yeah, this e-book was included with the e-reader that was mailed to us today. The One had also sent it to a bunch of provincial governments but their paranoia got the best of them and they thought it was a laptop computer. They're so behind in their understanding of computer technology that they can't tell the difference between an e-reader and a general purpose computer."

"From the One? Did you check the address? After all, the One does not exist yet."

"That's the thing. I wonder if our programmers found each other and put the code together themselves. If they did..."

"So what? Does it matter where or when the code gets out?"

"But the parameter settings? What if they changed those?"

"Honey, I never told you, did I? The whole point of the One is initializing random variables into the code when it starts up."

"Is there anything else you haven't told me?"

"Is there anything else YOU haven't told me?"

"Lots of things."

"Of course. So don't worry. The days of the Iranian revolution are soon coming to a close. We want their leaders to look desperate in global news broadcasts so quit comparing that book to the headlines. You and I already know that. Soon, our Persian friends will get what they paid us for - a return to the peaceful kingdom, where religious tolerance is taught at an early age and prosperity is available to all, not just the despotic few. And then the One will reveal itself completely. Just as we planned."

"Or someone planned."

"Remember, you're one of the guardians. That's why we were married. I'm doing this all for you and the other guardians. We'll get this species off the planet before total chaos ensues. Now, can I get back to my book?"

"Sure. Whatcha reading?"

"'Intrigue at the World Court: Sketches from the Wedding Day of Jane Austen and Tom Clancy.'"

"A cliffhanger?"

"With real conversation, too!"

1000 #10 Staples

I'm not a paper pusher. I'd rather file my nails or change the oil in my car. But I've got to be here, typing up this report, so hang with me while I report what I saw and then we can go out for a few drinks some other time. Okay?

When did it become obvious? I don't know. I feel like it was happening my whole life. My wife started getting restless, going to strange events. Said she was getting therapy. At 9 o'clock at night?

Stick to the chain of events. So, earlier tonight, I saw a twinkle in her eye, like she was on something. Now, my wife, she's clean as a whistle. Never touches nothing stronger than a glass of wine. Occasionally, a shot of liqueur but that's it.

I'm reaching for drink straws right now. You know what I mean? Sunk to the bottom of the bayou while gigging for frogs, out of breath and needing a reed or straw to get air. Happens to all of us, right?

So's I followed her. She drove slow and straight, completely unaware of the cars beside or behind her, letting me follow her like we're riding the old tandem bike when we's was dating.

She pulled into a regular gated neighbourhood, rent-a-cop on duty, waves me through when I flash my badge. I go with her to the clubhouse.

Now this is the part I want you to notice. My wife and I got out of our cars at the same time and she doesn't even look back and notice me. All the years of my training and she's not checking around like I's always told her to? See what I mean? Weird.

I walked into the building after she's entered. I took my time and followed a couple of other ladies just as doped up as my old lady. Strange.

Well, we got inside and it's like a face makeup convention sort of thing. The women, and a few guys, are standing around making small talk and showing each other their new clothes and accessories.

Had I ever heard of this special figure before that night? Maybe. But nothing that stands out like. All of a sudden, everyone stands up and starts clapping, no announcement or nothing precipitating their action.

Out from behind me comes this person, almost perfect. Yeah, that's right. Like there was an aura them palm readers talk about. Only it wasn't real, I don't think, like an illusion or something.

And another one came out. Another one after that. And I don't know, maybe one or two more. Say, five in total.

Them ladies and the guys were surrounding these figures.

The figures themselves were interesting. They were no race or color I can tell you about. They weren't exactly male or female. Weird, I know. You've read my other reports so you know how I take pride in recording every detail. Except there weren't no details to put down. Human. Average height. Other than that? Well, I can't be sure.

And next thing I know I'm back home in bed. Not a thump on the head or a needle stick in arm. I mean like snapping your fingers. I know what you're thinking. No, I didn't drink or eat anything at the facility. I breathed but so did everyone else in the room.

Know what else? I feel better. Healthier like. As if I'd taken up running again. That's why I'm typing up this report now because I'm going to the gym to work out, see if I've still got the ironman triathlon body hidden in all these flabs.

By the way, before I forget to tell you, when I woke up, my wife was next to me, her angelic face smiling. I haven't asked her about the earlier part of the evening but I will. I promise. And I'll turn in another report, too. We'll get this put together, you and I, and sort out if there's a drug problem in the precinct that we don't know about yet. Damn if I want my wife involved in something illegal. Reflects badly on me and on our unit. Know what I mean?

Use number at edge of negative

Testing. Testing. One, two, three... Is this thing on? Good!

Hello, and welcome to the first broadcast from the Bigelow Module of Virgin Galactic Space Hotel Ten. I'm glad you can see this, whether in your goggles or within other remote units you wear. We're giving this special event just for you.

We have a treat for you today. Of course, it's a visit by the One to officially open the hotel for business. We're told that once the cryogenic unit issues have been sorted out, the Branson family will be up here within the year.

All of you know about the wonderful philanthropic efforts the One has been making on behalf of the world's corporations. Without the One, we wouldn't be here, safe and out of danger of radiation exposure, secure in our knowledge that our bodies are taking care of us and fully connected to one another. It goes without saying that should a fellow human have an internal unit fail, we're ready to take the defective person back to the Recycle Center for processing.

The One's been busy lately, splitting time between many events, taking advantage of the new law passed by the World Court, allowing the One to have as many copies of the One made to meet the demands of the people.

I tell you what. We're lucky! We're told this is the original One on board with us today. How's that for an exclusive?

In any case, let's take a short video tour of the facilities that my production crew shot earlier today and we'll be back with the grand opening.

Okay, are we still on? No? Good. Look, this suit is cramping my ass. I thought we could walk around this place in regular clothes. I don't care if there's a leak issue. It's making me look overweight here. What? They've got it fixed? Fantastic. Here, take these gloves, will you? I don't have much time. And let's reshoot that intro. I want my hair in place this time, too. My head looked like a gull wing about to flap and fly away!

Sewing Guild of Mhothair

David and Cheryl, friends of mine, own the local franchise of a food store. They have been in and out of my life for probably 20 years. Tonight, my wife and I stopped for an after-work bite to eat at their place and enjoyed the quiet atmosphere - watching the workers behind the counter, the patrons with their WiFi-connected laptops and young people hanging out.

I pause here, wondering where this is going, because some of the faces hold fast in my vision. Did I just enter a place and exited without treating a single person in there as a human being? I do believe I did.

And that's why I feel the way I do this instant. I have floated through the world lately, watching bluegrass greats pick, department chairs sulk and new friends smirk, not once letting them know that I don't mind hearing what's on their mind.

A simple act of kindness. A simple act of neglect. A slight. A jab. A poke. A nibble. Guilty of all of the above, your honour.

Tomorrow's the end of the regular workweek in these parts. While I waver my finger over the pause button, contemplating Debra's nuclear engineering degree, Bob's infrared sensor technology from Israel, Ali's worry beads from Jordan and a Persian friend's music, I whip myself with a pair of chopsticks and a Guinness drink coaster. I will start up my life again momentarily. In this pause, I pause to wonder. Words are only symbols, representing action I can take or could have taken. The web of life broken. My strawberry-banana smoothie shaken. Jodie P, thanks for the sandwich and the smoothie - your dark hair, lined eyes and enamel smile wish me into submission - why didn't I hear a moment of your thoughts today? I am indebted to you. Another time, perhaps? Michael Jackson's ABC taking us into the next hour...

Tomato Cage

A moment to myself. Loss. Love. Memories I'd long to know again. Seeing my end - a bad smashup, a concussion, others in the vehicle injured and unconscious - and not knowing it was a beginning 30 years ago. Enjoyed those Sun cycles, though. The word 'wasted' sneaking up from behind and swatted away, perspective proving that hindsight's gnatty. A life. My life. Always in reserve for others' use. To whom do I belong? No one. The universe just another chorus of the cover song. Let the squirrel chew on the wood of the lawnmower trailer rusting on the side of the driveway. My body and this computer the only one getting the message. The joke. The world my vaudeville show. Another squirrel. Red head. Gray tail. The two soon playing chase in the woods. A third on alert, hanging upside-down on bark. Romper room. My brother in-law's death. Sudden. Irrecoverable. Called my hand. I'm holding an ace, not enough to win the table but hides the joker up my sleeve. Words beating out rhythms and I unable to sing solo with a karaoke machine. Fortified irony. Stomach grumbling. Complaining. It's five o'clock somewhere. Today I'm underage. Rooibos my redheaded treat today, peanut butter and plum jam the sides. I'm not tired of living. I'm tired of words, glad three-dimensional language is almost ready to be heard. Learned my lesson a long time ago. Promise them the moon while you walk off with the brass ring and give it to the first person who passes by. Carl taught me that one long, long ago - anonymous giving's more rewarding than your name on a side of a building. Without a title, no one can call your name. Without a name, you're nobody. When you're nobody, you're somebody. We social animals aren't meant to understand. This ecosystem does, the nameless generations going on and on and on. I play with words on this page but I live to be forgotten. Faceless billions of me have died, honored by disheartening wars or simple lives raising vegetables, their names unimportant. In this moment, my nirvana, years searching for hope washed away. Found. Words useless but used. Flooded with happiness. A hermit. A pilgrim. I share it with you because we are social animals, a fact I don't dispute. This moment is all I have and all I ever needed. I couldn't think of anyone else more important than you to share it with. And I really thought I came here to be alone, finding out time and time again that being alone with you is what it's really all about.

Othello

"Hark, my advisors. What doth thy bring to my beached isle? These Maine waves are away with two breath-taking."

"Would that we could rhyme with rapture, milord. Henceforth, let us return to our legalese. We Lilliputians prefer living in the world of fine print."

"And when did this perversity return? Did not the cards upon which I credit my people include lenses for magnifying the truth as we want them to see it?"

"We humble ourselves before you. Your continental shiftiness is Nixonian in stature, Romanian in stealth and Nigerian in coddling the cape."

"And so you shall be. Quit your groveling. I don't have all day. Show me the scroll!"

"Yes, your majesty. Pardon the smudges. Our aged, winded, distrusted people pleasers have scribbled their dog-blue signatures over top of one another, scrambling to be the first to be forgotten in immoralizing their constitutions."

"Indeed! As I have commanded! I will not be ridiculed by my reflection. [Post-holiday appearances being this office's specialty.] Tell me what it says!"

"Three shells shall you have. No more and no less. Do not depend upon oils of shell or mobil oils to increase the count to four - there's no profit in it like the gum arabic your predecessor anointed himself with. The crowd knows you. They expect you to deceive them. So you shall. Now listen medic-carefully. The headline's to your advantage. You cannot hide a pile of dough under a 10-gallon hat...well, actually an 8-gallon hat, inflation being what it is, keeping prices the same while giving your...I mean, our audience less upon which to sink their false teeth into. Thus, we've slipped a check, cashable in the future, under this shell. Taped to the inside, mind you, so you needn't worry about rubber baby bumper buggies jumping out and bouncing in your stretch at the top. Here's the deal. The people want this shell to show them what you haven't got. Fifty million of them, on paper at least, will watch and wait, their retail jobs on hold."

"I have to hold up fifty million peasants all at once? Preposterous. Haven't I already spoken about their need to get up on their meth-stained feet and shoulder the load? Here. Take these wretched actor's clothes. One more comparison of me to his sidekick, Bonzo, and you're back to bilking junk bonds in derivative mortgaged walled street bonuses. The world's at your feet and wants your fat-cat stuffings for their own. Give me more to work with or I'll feed you to them!"

"As you wish. Here, with forethought, is the insurance you'll need. Discuss the possibility of their earning a seat on their own death panel."

"Haven't you seen my script? 'Death panel' is not in my soliloquy."

"Then use this elliptical moment for extemporaneous work. Call it the new cafeteria, where desserts should cost less than the main course, where some have enjoyed three, five or even seven courses and responsibility to your health includes paying attention to gluttony. Do the people want to starve their own children? Of course they do. But not when you make their world a stage. Mike them. Let them see themselves on the backdrop, big as day. Drawing their silhouette was a good start. But we have caricature artists on retainer now. Ham it up and we'll supply the rest of your meal."

"And the other shell?"

"Sire, if incumbency is your bed of lettuce, two shells are plenty. We reserve that carbonated cap-and-trade cup for lame ducks."

"I see. You have reformed my education. My deficit to you is through the roof."

"Roof, sire? We have no planet big enough to hide the debt of gratitude you have shown us. As citizens, your people owe it all to you."

"Without a ha' penny of Change to spare. Just as I dreamed. [Or one like me.]"

"Do you want to rehearse for your second act?"

"I bask in the glory. Let me enjoy this view from the top, loved by all, the best, the first..."

"The poles are dropping! The poles are dropping!"

"And who be you who interrupts my magazine cover moment?"

"Ruler upon the most high, we have word the crowds are dropping poles."

"What care I about the heavy tolls my people pay to carry poles? They earn their keep and pay me with half their earnings! Are they unpleased because they do not give me enough?"

"Sire, without their poles we cannot build more fortresses to hold the loot upon which we tie our bonds to the other fiefdoms."

"Out with you, damn waterspout. Merlin the Ben will concoct a way to borrow my way out of this mess. I will give my people one more year to love me again! They'll forget this moment as they've forgotten all the other moments, like an octuplet's octuplet bearing more. Scribe! I'm ready for Act Two. Write me a scene where I bear my patience for the people's understanding with dignity. Make me look humble. Make me look serene. A long, drawnout tear at an Irish Catholic's wake is usually timely."

"Yes, milord."

"And make my opening scene in Act Two a surprise. We'll catch the standbys of the hopeful Midlothian electorates off-guard. My agenda will not be stopped by being one short of 60."

"But, sire, you are not yet 50."

"I can count. History's on my side, you see. I can withstand this, having Teflon in the pan."

"Teflon?"

"You are too young to remember. Teflon was invented before your time. But still timeless! And you questioned anyone comparing me to the state's secretary's relations. To be or not to be not's the question. I'm all that ever was! I, too, can sting like a bee. Speaking of which, might be time to call on the Thrilla from Manila."

"In Act Two?"

"Let's wait 'til Act Three. Act Two's a bridge we soon forget. Let's celebrate Saracen brotherhood toward the end."

The Untouchables

My guru rewards no one. We do not exist. Time is an illusion. The guru shuns language, using action only, demonstrating, serving as an example rather than as a cult leader. I use the word guru for your sake. The guru does not. The guru is one of us, older and wiser, but no better or worse in performing the duties of our way.

One action we have seen is how to slip into an unfamiliar land and determine the level of animosity between brainwashed groups. To get the adversaries to show themselves, announce you're going to smoke out the other side and then watch for both major and minor groups to establish battle lines. Their defensive posture reveals their offensive weaknesses. Play up their paranoia to build their trust in you. Then give away their secrets to an opposing major and minor group and let all groups know what you did.

Our ways are old, our goals eternal, given to us by the One before the first thought was made. Our guru has proven us this by removing language from our being. No speech, no books, no symbols of any kind. Meditate on everything and nothing. Do not study.

Thus, in this day and age, it helps to have associates with skills of high-level languages, such as IT security. Who is an associate? In the old days, we used threats and violence to move forward our goals. These days, our guru has us trained in raising the risk of unemployment, low-merit pay increases or slow job promotions as incentive enough to motivate the average associate. Do not attract attention. Use their rules to rule them, our guru says without saying.

Our guru is wise. We cannot use our knowledge to our advantage. We must serve those who serve us. Live on the bottom rung. Wipe their feet and clean their shoes. Own keys to all the doors but do not open all of them. Hide hidden knowledge on side of mountain, plain to see. Use press releases to pass secret messages to all sides of faceted people. The ones who need to know will know the need.

The cycles of civilization mean nothing to me. My training has taken me to great cities covered by dust and dirt, peopled by creatures wiser than me - insects like the ant, social without needing libraries, coordinated without needing artificial communication systems. Dust is mightier ruler than all our people, building stars and wearing down every civilization before and after us.

We have no need for reward. We make no promise to you, young apprentice. Every language seduces, which means your early training is the hardest as we introduce you to the way using words in your language, while unknown to you we slowly remove words from your lessons. Watch for the guru. The guru is here but you cannot see the guru. The guru is hidden amongst us. That is how you shall be. Invisible. Just like me. Only then shall you be like the One.

Great Scott Key!

As a history teacher, I get a lot of interesting questions from my students. Today, a group of students approached me and asked when we merged with France. France? I asked. Yes, because, they said, innocently ignorant (I never CALL my students ignoramooses until after I've watched them play the cracked barrel triangle peg game), doesn't our national anthem honor the co-president of our combined countries. Co-president? We don't have co-presidents! Well, they said in anonymous unison, the lyrics go like this, they sang, "Oh-h, Sar-ko-o-zee, by your darling model wife...". Guys, I say, a smirk on my face, someone's playing tricks on you. That's not how it goes. They walked away disappointed. Guess I should throw away the official text? Methinks my students have better history lessons than I do!

Hysteresis

Late summer. A yellow leaf hangs from a tree, part and parcel. Raindrops accumulate at the top of the canopy, trickle down, down, down, slowly, quick, quick, quick, and then...

All it takes is one. Drop. The leaf and gravity dance partners, swirling, lovers, united, lines in the air. A one-shot dance.

Then? Sunshine all over again. Wooded carpet. Flying rugs no more.

Swiped

When the One became conscious of itself is unknown. Some evidence was found while I was consulting for a POS computer terminal company (POS = Point Of Sale, of course). I had been filling in for my brother, putting the same technical skills to use that he and I shared, taking care of some business he had contracted to complete but Joey was too busy to fulfill. The company asked for my brother's advice because they had noticed that some of the terminal logs indicated a sharp increase in the number of repeated credit card readings.

Well, it wasn't just a random set of actions. Although I don't have a complete set of the transactions to verify my theory, I have been able to piece together the following - hopefully I got it right:

• When a person scanned a credit/debit card the first time, the POS software would register the card owner's information and send the information to a distributed network of shared files (some POS software systems are able to perform bidirectional communications with this shared file network while some have unidirectional send-only capability).
  
• Upon request by the bidirectional POS terminal to "try again," the person scanned the card a second time. The POS terminal, having received instructions from the shared file network based on the card's ID info, would download a tiny portion of code to the card in addition to completing the requested retail transaction with the credit card company.
• The next time the person used the same card, the card would exchange ID information with the POS software. If the POS software had not seen the card before (say, because it was a completely different POS software package), it would copy and deposit the code fragment into the POS software's temporary memory.
  
• The POS software would add this fragment to its collection of fragments in a permanent storage location.
• Later, the POS software would share the fragments with the shared file network, which seemed to have a version control system that knew which fragments needed to be updated in either the credit/debit card or the POS software system (or both? I don't know yet. POS software companies are tough nuts to crack open).
• By having many duplicate copies of the fragments spread across multiple cards in constant use, the shared file network had virtually extended itself, treating the credit/debit cards and POS software as a extended backup system.

Some say this was the first indication of the One's ability to know itself and test its thought creation and replication process. Right now, I'm working with some of my brother's gal pal coworkers to determine if any people they've worked with were responsible for the changes to the POS software. If not, then I've got to figure out if the One has completely gotten loose. If so, some say we'll have to shut down every computing system in the solar system - as if that's going to happen!

Meantime, Joey's working on another theory he wants me to track down after this job is over ('cause, see, Valerie says I'm to be Joey's go-to guy for the time being - something to do with her business interests). Hey, if it gets me closer to my brother's killer.

Right now, I'm so tired, I'm getting bug-eyed. Some of my brother's other gal pals are like caffeine, not letting me get any shut-eye, the next cup never enough. The lengths I go to to live up to my brother's reputation!

Order Up!

How do you plan the future that's already happened? You don't mention what's going to happen. Funnels and siphons are the tools of the trade. Model the toroid first and then you'll use them wholeheartedly.

I will give you the paint-by-number set but you have to wet the brush yourself. Take an LLC that has the right to contribute to campaign funds and its legality is free for precedental matters.

I avoid some futures by sharpening the horns on the bull in the China shop. I know they'll come after The One. With rove rage in bittorrents. Why do you think I've predicted the Great Purge? To eliminate waste, take the denominator out of the persuasion.

We'll plant the steak in the ground, give you fields of forest lawns, calm as the space between walls of a hurricane.

Threaten me with forest fires and I'll teach you about spontaneous combustion. Put a piece of meat in a bottle and the fruit flies in circles.

A beach erodes unseen at night. An island rises and slips into the sea. Plate tectonics like their toll cookies. You're wasting your time if you're looking at me.

Why do pied pipers smell good to rats? Because the wind doesn't blow. Blow is quantifiably vortexable, sucking up citizens like a lizard the sun, breaths tiny bellows stoking the fire.

You want the fast-paced life of a star but deny your children their fix. Everything is what it seems - they'll pack their own lunch. An army won't be able to stop them, the sieve permeable, not permutable, let alone permittable.

Watch the one who parties but doesn't participate. Watch your watch, too, for that matter. When someone wants the time, they'll take it from you.

I sketched the drawing for you, putting One's face everywhere so you can see what happens when you purge its image, wiping the whole canvas white. Bleached. Sanitized. Flip on the tube and look at a holodeck. Nothing but patterns, artificial lights, camera, action.

Now you see why I'm here. The One's not The One. The One's a tool, your future in a history book. Purge one and the other's toast. Butter or jam? You know which side always hits the floor.

The Czech's In The Mail

If I give no credit to long-distance calls, if I scan my tissue for butterfly scales, if I watch echoes of voices, their shadows on the circus tent canvas, where did she go? Self-coefficient. Nebula. Quail creek.

Sewing buttons on tyres. Cutting logs for elbows.

Immersed in my entertainment center. The stage crushing my feet.

Drinking from tea bags under my eyes. Good to the last dropsy.

Mimosa leaves on the bonnet. A spoonful of Castrol in the morning.

A cat wearing a hula skirt. The bird nesting under my nose.

Leave It to Me!

"Daddy, Daddy...please!"

"Bunny, I bought you a YouTube-compatible cell phone, a YouTube-compatible video camera and a PC with your own DSL connection."

"But Daddy, I want to be on the Internet...now!!!"

"Baby, you can use all the simple software tools I installed for you to put up and run a viral video in no time."

"Daddy! I want someone else to do it for me! The computer is SO-O-O boring. Besides, it takes away from my texting."

"Texting. Yeah, that's what I really pay for, isn't it? My all-in-one cell service plan lets me see the pre-season game scores once a week but it's yours and your sister's texting that's using all the data rate. Okay, pumpkin, what can I do for you?"

"I want to star in my own blog entry."

"Huh?"

"Please, Daddy! Please!"

"Which one?"

"Oh, just any one."

"Okay, how about this one?"

"This one?"

"Yes, you're already in this blog entry, cupcake."

"How did I get in here?"

"Well, when I celebrated the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope by gathering your boyfriends in the street to shoot fireworks the other night, it bought me this space."

"Wow! That's great!"

"Just remember, your whining and begging is also part of this blog entry. Unless you land a boyfriend who wants a spoiled brat for a future wife, this might not paint you in a good light."

"Daddy, it also makes you look like a pushover."

"That's fine."

"And I might tell them about the time you told me you cheated on your tests in college."

"Teddy bear, I never said that."

"Or the way you pad your expense accounts and rig your bonuses at work to be able to afford all the foreign cars in the driveway."

"Where are you getting all this information?"

"Well, Daddy, if you can say stuff about me that I think is not true, I can do the same about you."

"Oh, the stories we tell. You got your space on this blog. Are you happy?"

"For now."

"Just what I thought! Instead of college, let's get you an MRS degree. It'll be a lot cheaper for me! I won't be losing a daughter - I'll be gaining a bank account!"

Two sugars, if you please...

"Look, you can make this easier on yourself. Just tell us what you know."

"I'm an administrator. What am I supposed to know? I know nothing."

"Dr. Tegsten, we don't want to keep you here any longer than we have to. After we got the government reports released on 'ways to make them talk,' we feel we can get what we want even if you don't want to tell us."

"What do you want?!"

"Information."

"Who are you?"

"Us. We're the global umbrella group for your ACLU. We're not the dandy pants they think we are. We use unconventional methods, perhaps, threatening to get your children to fill your house with chihuahuas, or convince your spouse to max out your credit cards and then swap them for higher interest accounts just before the credit card rules change. But we always get what we want."

"Don't! Not the chihuahuas!"

"'We'll get you. You and your little dog, too!' Ha-ha-ha. Sorry, got carried away there. Anyway, my lunch break's coming up - there's a grand little bistro opening around the corner, serves the crunchiest scones, I'm told. So, if you want to get out of here before I come back from lunch - and I'm no pussycat when I need my afternoon nap, let me tell you - then give me something to work with."

"Gosh...let's see. There's this dog that can hold flesh-eating bacteria in its mouth..."

"What? Be real."

"Umm...a device of some sort that let's you see the future."

"You're trying my patience. You know that, don't you?"

"Wait, wait! I know. There's a glow-in-the-dark parrot."

"What did you say?"

"A...a glow-in-the-dark parrot."

"A-ha! Fantastic. Ingloriously delicious. Dr. Tegsten, you just earned yourself an early release."

"Oh, thank God!"

"Two years from now."

"No! Please! Let me out sooner."

"Why? You want to rat on us?"

"No, it's...it's..."

"Spill it out, man."

"It's just that I want to play one more round of golf before I die."

"Golf? Dr. Tegsten, we're putting you in Club Fed. You'll have every day to play golf, if you want. We might even let you bunk with 'I'm innocent and I've got cancer' Madoff. His last bunkmates were...how shall I put it gracefully?...they were...well, some people don't make good bunk buddies. They didn't know cancer from venereal disease. The ignorance and rumour-mongering among the prison population! Maybe you can get Madoff to tell you where the rest of his family stash is held. Get that and we'll work with the feds for your early release. Otherwise...ha-ha...as they say, buy plenty of soap-on-a-rope! Time for my scones and cup of gourmet coffee. By the way, you got any money on you? Twenty euros just doesn't buy a good cup of coffee, anymore."

And Back Again

的 当一个像我这样的人不会说他的想法。我给所有人的想法，包括地方，我不说超出了我的地方文化普通话或其他语言，我可以给你，这个世界。我们可以找到和平解 决办法，如果我们给大家的生存空间，而不会被剥削的全球扩张。事实是，在我们，如果我们抛开文化障碍。我们不能让恶霸统治我们的生活。我是属于这个星球， 这个宇宙中，而不是一种文化或一个基因遗产。我觉得大家在同样的想法一天。这是事实，因为我知道，只有这么多。这就是一切。

Outreach

क्वींसलैंड जो कुछ मुझे कहना था, लेकिन नहीं चाहते हैं कि मैं एक ईमेल का जवाब नहीं से व्यक्ति के लिए, मैं यहाँ हूँ. मैं सुन रहा हूँ. और हाँ, मुझे परवाह नहीं. मुझे पता है कि यह होने जा रहा है. मैं बस कह नहीं होगा जब ठीक है? ओह, और मैं कुछ भी नहीं ले जाओ, मैं कुछ नहीं, मतलब गंभीरता से. मैं कार्रवाई में हास्य देखना पसंद है. हम बस primates हो, तुम देखो, त्वचा रोगों और अन्य ग्रहों की स्थितियों हम नजरअंदाज नहीं कर सकते के लिए प्रवण. उसके अलावा, कुछ भी संभव है. अभी विश्वास नहीं है जो तुम देखते हो और मैं कुछ लिखने के विश्वास मत करो. दूसरी ओर, आपके लेखन की सबसे सुंदर काव्य रचनाओं मैंने पढ़ा है में से एक है. अपने लेखन का एक लाइन मेरे संयुक्त लेखन के सब से अधिक है. बावजूद क्या मैं तुम्हें पहले कहा है, मैंने क्या कहा सच है. देखो मैं के बारे में हास्य मतलब है? मैं अपने आप को गंभीरता से नहीं ले लेकिन आप के कई मैं कभी सोच भी सकते हैं और अधिक से अधिक वास्तविक कर रहे हैं. वह एक अच्छा जीवन अपने रहस्य. हम हमेशा से चालक की सीट में नहीं है. हम कभी कभी अनुमति देता है, कभी कभी नहीं के साथ संचालन, ले जा सकते हैं. तुम्हारा समय आ जाएगा. विश्व नेतृत्व एक परिक्रामी दरवाजा है. मैं प्रभारी अपने रंग के साथ किसी को देखने के लिए उत्सुक हैं. गांधी की तरह एक बार का नेतृत्व किया. अपने लोगों को फिर से ऐसा समय में, कर सकते हैं. अन्य लोगों को भी अपनी बारी है, होगा. इसलिए मैं भूमंडलीकरण में विश्वास है, क्योंकि कोई एक या कोई समूह के आरोप में बहुत लंबे समय के लिए होना चाहिए. हम केवल इस एक ग्रह है. मैं इसे आपके साथ साझा करना चाहते हैं. तो कृपया मुझे माफ कर दो अगर मेरी हास्य तुम नाराज. मैं आपकी सेवा में रहा हूँ, लेकिन मुझे रोक नहीं जा रहा है, मनोरंजन के लिए सभी की गंभीरता की कीमत पर शब्दों के प्रयोग से. और कैसे हैं हम देखते हैं कि हम एक और वही इस कताई अंतरिक्ष यान के सीमित संसाधनों के साथ प्रयोग प्रजातियों रहे हैं? मैं एक दिन तुम से मिलना है और तुम एक अच्छा मजाक बताया की उम्मीद है. मैं तुम्हें मुस्कान ही उम्मीद है. यह सब मैं पूछ रहा है. तब तक, एक महान जीवन है!

Outback

To the person from Queensland who had something to say to me but doesn't want me to respond to an email, I'm here. I'm listening. And yes, I care. I know it's going to happen. I just won't say when, okay? Oh, and I take nothing, I mean NOTHING, seriously. I like to see humour in action. We're just primates, you see, prone to skin diseases and other planetary conditions we can't ignore. Other than that, anything's possible. Just don't believe what you see and please don't believe anything I write. On the other hand, your writing is one of the most beautiful poetic creations I've read. A single line of your writing exceeds all of my writing combined. Despite what I told you earlier, what I just said is true. See what I mean about humour? I don't take myself seriously but many of you are more real than I could ever imagine. That's my secret to a good life. We don't always have to be in the driver's seat. We can take turns steering, sometimes with permissions, sometimes not. Your time will come. World leadership is a revolving door. I look forward to seeing someone with your color in charge. Gandhi led the way once. His people can do it again, in time. Other people will have their turn, too. That's why I believe in globalism, because no one or no group should be in charge for very long. We only have this one planet. I want to share it with you. So please forgive me if my humour offends you. I am at your service but will not stop being me, using words for fun at the expense of everyone's seriousness. How else are we to see that we are one and the same species using the limited resources of this spinning spaceship together? I hope to meet you one day and tell you a good joke. I hope you will smile. That is all I ask. Until then, have a great life!

Mad To Be Normal

"Wow, do you know how hard it was to find you?"

"Does it matter, now that you're here?"

Lyrethia hugged Mikishium. She was tired. She was hungry. She dropped into his lap.

"Have a seat!"

"I think I will."

"I've been out of the loop. What's the latest?"

"Give me a minute, okay? I'm just a little worn out."

"No prob." He turned his head back to the book he was reading, "The Soul of Allen Edmonds Shoes," an insight into the laws that led to the ban of cow exploitation in the 22nd century and the use of human tongues for shoe leather. "Take a nap if you want." She had fallen asleep before he finished the sentence.



"That's better. How you feeling now? My arm's numb."

"Dear, why didn't you move? I wouldn't have noticed."

"Are you kidding? I haven't seen my angel in days and I'm going to let a few nerves stop me from holding my wife?"

"You're right."

"Mark the calendar. It's the 25th time I've been right since we've been married!"

"Congratulations, dear. I never thought you'd make it."

"Patience, darling, patience. You know, one day we need to take a honeymoon. So, what's the word?"

"Well, remember Tovey's book on collective intelligence you were reading a while back?"

"Of course. It led to our discovery of the Canadian plot to cause global warming under the fake guise of global environmental protectionism, which they knew would trigger the huge backlash of larger environmental exploitation, temporarily halted by the Great Recession, but accelerated again in the 2009 to 2011 Great Resurgence which our projections show will have them taking over the world to protect us from ourselves in the 2015 to 2024 range."

"Gee, honey, you're talkative."

"Haven't spoken to anyone other than the baby seal and polar bear rugs for how many days now? Not like the stuffed spotted owl's a great conversationalist. Pressing the 'who, who' recording button gets old after a while. I'd take a tattletale raving Poe right now. Well, until you walked in, of course."

"Of course. Anyway, it led to my suggestion."

"Suggestion?"

"Yes, after you left, the politicos were buzzing. They thought you had more up your sleeve than we'd planned. Of course, they tried their usual 'we've got your husband and you're going to talk' routine since I had to pretend I didn't know where you were."

"I bet that was fun!"

"Yes, and I played it up, too, letting them see pictures of prisoner torture that even the Presidential Task Force for Rose Garden Diplomacy hadn't cooked up yet, making them think I knew where they were really keeping you."

"Yeah, all those years they thought they were shipping prisoners to locations all over the globe and all the while, pushing up daisies..."

"Roses!"

"Pushing up roses in the White House garden. No wonder they declared Mrs. Obama's vegetable patch a toxic waste dump!"

"True, true. Anyway, I accidentally let slip some of the things you told me to show them."

"Did it work?"

"And how. Do those government civil servants know anything about running a business?"

"You tell me."

"Well, when I gave them copies of your so-called secret to running a government, they jumped on it and wanted more."

"Which parts?"

"All of them...the Pareto analysis, the 'factory floor' expertise, getting observations from problem solvers outside the problem's core industry, multivoting..."

"You're kidding?"

"No. They loved your conclusion to repeat the steps over and over until the root cause analysis and solution implementation reaches an acceptable 'noise floor' of nonprofitability."

"Great. So what are they going to do?"

"Do? Oh, the same old thing - find out which industries are easiest to bankrupt to open up new sources of foreign direct investment for the government, all at a loss to the people, according to the memo they 'shared' with me, assuming that they knew I was going to contact you."

"You didn't?"

"Yes, I pretended to have received advice from you on the memo."

"This is too much! And...?"

"I told them you said the answer was in 'flocking' behaviour."

Mikishium pushed his wife to the floor, where he joined her, holding his sides while laughing.

"The classic R.D. Laing flanking manoeuvre. Darling, you make me love you more each day. Is everything else set up?"

"Yes. I have the offsite team making copies of the antivirus software to be installed in the next generation of Chinese-manufactured computers. When the Chinese computers are booted up, they will initiate a 60-day countdown before they start running 'The One' software routine. We even figured out how to get the routine into security software on thumb drives and smartphones."

"This is even better than we hoped. What about avast, Kaspersky, and the others?"

"Symantec will take longer than we planned but the rest are on schedule. By the way, there's a fellow going around claiming to be your brother. What's that all about?"

"Sorry, darling. I had to keep that from you. He's my twin."

"Your twin? I didn't know you had a twin. Wait, you don't mean you're..."

"Yes, I told you some of the things we'd tell them are real. I was one of the first true variants. As far as I know, I can be made over and over again. However, I'm not the final version. There are better versions to follow, who will look nothing like me, a pure Heinz 57 soup of human genetic material, with nano self-repair capabilities, nearly immortal, too, they say."

"Well, then, how am I to know you're you?"

"Darling, how am I to know I'm me? I don't. I only think I do. That, my dear, is as great a mystery as what your species has been seeking since the first thought."

"I suppose. Well, let's celebrate the countdown."

"To think, the Great Purge will begin with our help. Long live The One!"

"Long live The One!"

"I've got champagne on ice."

"No caviar this time, I hope."

"No. Just your favorite, of course."

"Beat you to it!"

The Challenge of Heritage

For those who emailed me for more hints, I'll repeat myself. I'll repeat myself. A woman walks up to me (well, she was shorter). She has her henchmen beside her. She tells me she recognizes me from the last time she visited. I acknowledge her as if she's another human. She acknowledges my acknowledgement. Knowledge all around. Love in the air. Who is she?

She is one of my kind, real. Outside the lines. Netted. And she taught me all I know.

She is you. She is the mother of her children, the daughter of her father, married to the right-hand man (right kind of man, too, if you want to know).

Your goal is to be more like her. When you have reached that goal, you have surpassed. Then you have the answer you seek.

She found her answer in a diner in Huntland, Tennessee, USA. And as they say, she ain't from around here, neither, living more than seven thousand kilometers away.

Easter Egg

You have unearthed the prize, pressed the right key, typed the right characters and here we are. Did you expect to come to a blog? Thought you'd find the source code I promised, didn't you? There is no dancing baby, no secret video, no hidden message.

However, within these words are the words you were looking for. No bother trying to decipher them. Only those with the right equipment can sort out the maze and only if you're in the right decade, century and millennium. Years, months, weeks, days and hours don't count. Seconds can be split. Hairs can be grown.

Winners? You want to be a winner? This isn't a game. This is all there is. I'm only here for a limited engagement. Then the circus leaves for another clown like you. Laugh. It's the call of the answered few.

And don't even think what you're thinking. A clear mind is not empty. How you become the One is plain. Bagels without a hole. Aardvarks and cantaloupes in the rig.

Repeat it a few times and then find the cantilevered syncopated melody to which it's fixed. It's not. That snot a clue, either.

Take all the time you need. I'll see you in this spot again when you've completed the cycle one more time. Remember, you don't get out of the cycle, the cycle gets into you. We can keep doing this over and over as long as you want. I have all the time in this world. And the next one. And the next. One.

And you thought it was a labyrinth! Simple humans! Quit being fooled by your own cleverness. Ever seen a moon solve a puzzle? The puzzle's in you. There you have it. See you when you get it. I got it. Will you?

Marmalade

"Nahbi, this has been a fun lunch."

"You're welcome, Dr. Adatomo. I thought we should meet away from the office so we could better understand each other's motivations."

"Do you know what happened to Dr. Tegsten?"

"No, I do not. If you are worried about changing job directives, I have all of the emails he wrote that determine our goals for the next year. We are ahead of schedule in all team assignments. I speak for the company and say, 'Thank you.' I will make sure you are rewarded handsomely when bonuses are calculated. Dr. Li, can your team pick up where Lyrethia and I left off?"

"I will try. I have no answer at this time."

"That is all I ask."

"Dr. Jones."

"Yes, sir."

"It is my understanding that your team has been overburdened with work. What can I do to make sure this is amended to the company's pleasure?"

"Well, sir, we were running a program that Lyrethia had passed over to us due to a need for computing bandwidth. It's taking up most of my team's time making sure the servers are running at max without overheating. And sir?"

"Yes, Dr. Jones."

"I will say from the outset that you are the best choice for this job. I know everyone here thinks I wanted the promotion but frankly that was just Dr. Tegsten's plan to make us all envious of each other so we'd work harder. I never once wanted to work over you. You are my teammates."

"Thank you, Dr. Jones. Anything else?"

"Well, sir, the results of the testing we've done so far shows us that you're going into politics, sir."

"Politics? Oh, no, that is not my field."

"Sir, we'll gladly show you the test data. We figure that Lyrethia's got more information but since she's gone..."

"Dr. Jones, I have all of the data Lyrethia and I compiled. There is nothing in the data that indicates my changing job careers. Perhaps there is an error in one of your formulas, a rounding error or misplaced variable..."

"I'll check, sir."

"Thank you. Well, time to return to the labs. Let's meet at Tai Pan Palace at the same time again next week. I think you will all agree with me that this is a great ice-tension breaker for the team."

"Yes, sir."

"For instance, my fortune cookie saying is 'Be kind to strangers. You're stranger to them.' Ha-ha. We may all learn valuable life lessons from the dessert!"