"What Was Mine" 13

I slept for years that night.  I woke up refreshed, and with my clean clothes and duffel bag and every other part of my kit except my gun waiting for me next to the cot.  I stood, stretched, then immediately went to the door and tested it: it was unlocked, and when I swung it open, there was not even a guard there.

I quickly dressed, pulled my hat down tight and walked out of the room.  It was time to get some breakfast, collect two things and get the hell out of here.  I nodded at the young kid standing around behind a counter with a big vistors’ book open in front of him.  I idly scanned the names in the book as I talked to him.  “Who’s in charge here now, kid?”  The last time anybody wrote their name in this book was five months ago, then seven months before that.  I guess they didn’t get many visitors, which made sense: there was nothing for a visitor to visit with.

The kid was afraid of me.  He couldn’t meet my eyes.  “Assistant Warden Bledder, sir.”

“Is he available?”

“Uh…”  He started shuffling through papers.

“I doubt he’s got any appointments.  Your visitors’ log is a salt flat desert.  Tell me how to find him.”  I tried to lock his eyes down, but they were too flighty.  I drummed my fingers on the counter.  “I’m not leaving this place until I talk to Bledder.”

“Umm…”

I knocked on the counter.  “Do you want me to become your new goddamn best friend?”

The kid swallowed.  He gestured behind himself.  “Down that hall.  Three offices at the end.  Bledder’s is the second door.”

I walked in on him writing a letter.  I knocked on the inside of the doorway.  “Am I interrupting?”

He looked up.  Bledder was younger than Peyd, clean-shaven, with short hair, a tiny nose, and a bulbous, toad-like underchin.  He looked up and his expression soured.  “Yes, you are,” he said tersely.  “I’m just writing a letter to Frante’s family.”  He scratched out a couple angry words and set the pen down with a sharp click.  “Did you even know his first name?”

I sighed, bored with this conversation already.  “When would I have learned it?”

“You didn’t have to kill him.”

“Yeah, I did.”  I leaned against the door frame.  “If I hadn’t, he never would have let me go.  I think you know that.”

“He was a good man.”

“He was a weak man.”  I scratched my chin.  “I just came to collect my weapon, and the 18 gold champs I had on me last I remember.  Seems I’ve misplaced ‘em.”

Bledder folded the paper crisply three ways and slid it into an envelope.  “Your weapon is in the armory.  Your money probably didn’t last six hours.”

I made a fist of my shooting hand.  “Somebody stole my money?”

“That rasp in your voice isn’t getting any better, is it?” Bledder asked with some pleasure.  “For some people, it never does.  Cost of having an organic feed tube shoved down your throat for two years, I’m afraid.”

“Who stole my money?”

Bledder sealed the envelope and affixed a stamp.  “It could have been anybody…nobody expected you to ever see the light of day.”  He stood, envelope in hand.  “I wonder if you’d be willing to drop this in the post when you reach the next town.”

I shrugged.  “Suppose I could.  How far is it?”

“About a day-and-a-half’s ride.”  He came around his desk.  “Oh, you don’t have a ride, do you?”

I squinted my eyes suspiciously.  “How much would it cost to get one from you you aren’t using?”

Bledder smiled.  “18 gold champs.”  He held the envelope out to me.  I grabbed it, but he did not let go.  He bore his eyes into mine.  “We all have stories told about us, Mr. Gunniver.  Some of the boys around here even told me some stories about you.  Something brought Frante Peyd out west, but I wouldn’t go believing everything you hear.  Do you understand?”

I nodded.  Might as well spare the guy Peyd’s near-death confession to me.  Let him have his illusions about his former boss.  “Whatever you say.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a keychain.  “We’re going to the armory, collecting your weapon, and then Wrangler Byson’s fitting you with the seediest, swayback old nag we have, and you’re riding the hell away from this facility.”

Dog Nickname Update

My dog, Stella, has accrued many nicknames over the years of her life, including:

Stelly
Stelly Belly
Stella Bella
Stella Smella
Smelly Stelly
Dogger
Dogger Funkenstein
Funker Dogenstein
Stella Poo
Stella Boo
Poodog
The Dogness
Woofer
Woofens
Stella Woof

She got a new one yesterday: “Stello Jello”.

Thanks for reading.  This has been your dog nickname update for 07-12-10.

Dear Mario: I'm Sorry We Quarreled

I just played a bunch of Super Mario Galaxy, and yeah, it’s an awesome game.  It’s just the first couple planets that sucked major ass.  I should have known that Mario wouldn’t disappoint.

Also, yes, I am aware that this game is several years old.  That’s the way I do it sometimes, because I’m also several years old.

Anyway, woo.  I appear to be rediscovering my geek.

I'd Lesbo Hit That

I’ve always thought Rachel Maddow was attractive.  Not in that “oh, my god, I must penetrate this woman” sort of way, but more of a “she’s not unpleasant to look at, and she’s smart, and it would be fun to make her laugh” sort of way.  Also, she’s got a great smile.

Well, somebody dug up her high school yearbook photo and:

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Plenty of people on Huffington Post are all, “she’s just as beautiful now”, and, “I prefer her current look”, and “stop being so superficial, everybody’s beautiful in their own way, blah blah blah”, but the fact is:

She is WAY prettier in this photo, and everybody knows it.  Because I’m heterosexual (mostly), I like women to look like women and not like my D&D buddies from middle school.  I don’t honestly believe that anybody actually believes that she is more attractive now.

Liberals: it’s okay to feel more attracted to this version of Rachel Maddow.  It doesn’t make you a bad person to prefer the California blond one; it’s not a betrayal of your values.

I love Maddow, and I wouldn’t change anything about the way she chooses to present herself.  But I’d smash this version of her.  Just sayin’.

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davio1962:

The always-friendly Dr. Zaius has been celebrating Planet Of The Apes Week just prior to his birthday. Which seems wholly appropriate, if you ask me.

Well, for my contribution, I present Planet Of The Apes Colorforms™. For those of you who do not remember toys that did not need to be plugged in to recharge, Colorforms were pieces of vinyl shaped like people, animals and objects that you could stick and re-stick onto a background to construct scenes.

Considering the static nature of the scenes, however, the fun typically lasted about 10 minutes or so.

But in any event, for a Planet Of The Apes aficionado like myself (I’ve seen all the movies, cartoons and the short-lived TV series), it was pretty cool.

And, it was designed by the Dad of a kid who was in my 6th grade class!

This is the exact set I used to have when I was a wee child.  Awesome.

My Geek Is Dead

PREDATORS came out today, and I don’t care.  The MACHETE trailer that debuted recently does nothing for me.  I never saw AVATAR.  I’m not excited for SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD.

I played SUPER MARIO GALAXY for the first time today, and quit after 15 minutes because I was irritated with the whole thing, and when I stood up I felt dizzy from the retarded camera that never sits still in that game.  I can’t make it past a maximum half-an-hour of video game play.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, tabletop gaming isn’t really doing it for me, either.

I read Ain’t It Cool News.  I’m not excited for what those people are excited about.

Now, I still love film.  I’m very anxious to see INCEPTION, and I loved IRON MAN 2, so my appreciation of whiz-bang entertainment hasn’t completely dried up.  I just don’t get automatically excited for the things that somebody who has identified himself as a geek or nerd for much of his life is “supposed” to get excited about.

Whatever drove me to enjoy those things just isn’t in me anymore.  I don’t know why.  I just know that I don’t enjoy things at the same level that I used to, and nothing’s moved in to take their place, and that scares me.

Who killed my inner geek?