No More Likes

I’ve decided that I’m not handing out “likes” any more.  Instead, if I like something, I’m going to leave an honest-to-goodness comment.  Comments count more than “likes”, because they mean that you took the effort to do more than robotically click a button.

“Likes” represent, to me, pretty much everything wrong with online interaction.  They’re fast, they’re easy, and they don’t mean anything.

So, yeah…my apologies if your heart is fueled with “likes”, because I’m not giving them any more from this moment forward.

EDIT: It will be interesting to see how many smart-asses “like” this.

"What Was Mine" 5

Peyd kept a casual pace out of sympathy for my still-sluggish muscles, but I could tell from the awkwardness of his movements that he was more comfortable with a brisk march.  We passed through a short hallway with walls and floor identical to my room, with a couple doorways opening into offices that had an administrative feeling to them, and then it opened into a main foyer, which was as small, unimpressive and rough-hewn as everything else.  There were other men in here, in their brown-and-grey uniforms matching Peyd’s, but significantly more wrinkled and sweat-stained.  They were all looking at me with curiosity, and I suspected that quite a few of them weren’t really supposed to be here.  “Return to your duties,” Peyd snapped at them, confirming my thoughts.  “You’ve all seen a prisoner before!”

With a surly grumbling that spoke volumes about their true feelings for their boss, the bulk of the men slowly sulked away through various doorways, leaving only Peyd, the two guards accompanying us, a boy of maybe 15 in an oversized uniform who must have served as some sort of front greeter, and a filthy, heavyset man in a linen workshirt, vest, dungarees and shit-stained boots.  “Wrangler Bison,” said Peyd, gesturing toward the grubby man, and Bison came over to us.  He had a beard that was the product of neglect rather than intentional grooming, and he smiled at me through a wad of chewing tobacco.

“Mr. Gunniver, sir,” he said, pumping my arm enthusiastically.  “I had a feeling, when we locked you up, that it wouldn’t hold you.”

Peyd somehow communicated a sigh with nothing more than the mild scuff of a boot.  “Your…reputation, Mr. Gunniver, preceded you.  Personally, I’d never heard of you before you were delivered, but several of the men had, such as the Wrangler, here.  He’s still intolerably gushing, as you can see.  Bison!”  The Wrangler dropped my hand at the sharp utterance of his name.  “Perhaps you’d like to take Mr. Gunniver to the stables and explain a few things?”

Bison nodded.  “Right enough, sir,” he said, suddenly all abashment and subservience.  “Mr. Gunniver, follow me.  This prison isn’t like others that maybe you’re familiar with.  Come on.”  He waved me after him as he started walking for a heavy set of metal doors.  “Out the front, then around to the back.  You’re about to see something that’ll make you drop your breakfast in your drawers.”

I Haven't Been Enjoying Games Lately

Playing Magic: The Gathering seems like a chore.  The last several games of D&D I’ve DMed have been boring and frustrating.  The kid and I played a game of Zombies! the other night that seemed like it was never going to end.  And just now I almost threw his Shogi board in his face (not really) because I couldn’t make a fucking move that didn’t end in the capture of a major piece, and trust me, when you lose your bishop in that game, you might as well just go to bed.

I’m identified myself as a (board) gamer for so many, well, decades, that I don’t know what this new annoyance with the entire process means exactly, but I don’t like it.

The old shit is boring me.  I need new shit.  I think I might be profoundly dissatisfied with my position in life at the moment.

Great.  A mid-life crisis is exactly what I wanted at age 39.

Pardon me while I buy a sportscar and titty-fuck teenagers.

"What Was Mine" 4

He entered, nodded stiffly, and closed the door behind him, leaving the guards who’d accompanied him in the hall.  I noted that he was unarmed.  It was a display of either trust or arrogance, I couldn’t tell which.

He looked around my cramped room and finally landed his eyes upon me.  “I’m Head Warden Peyd,” he said, in that East Coast accent I’d heard during my convalescence, the one that spoke of military school and family money and a scandal big enough to land him in this shithole.  I nodded at him, and he continued.  “You, Mr. Gunniver, were serving a life sentence in our facility, when, due to circumstances beyond our control, you were freed, after a fashion, after 23 months.”

I furrowed my brow.  “23…months?” I rasped.  I didn’t have any recollection of two years in lockdown.  My last memory before this whole thing was knocking back a few drinks with some old friends in Longtown.

Peyd held up a hand.  “Don’t try to speak, I know it’s still painful for you.  I also know that you’re confused.  You’ve been laid up here recovering from the process for about three weeks.  But I think you’re stable enough to follow me so that I can explain further.”

I balled my fists briefly, wanting nothing more than to punch this guy right in his meticulously-trimmed gray moustache, wrestle the guards to the ground and shoot my way out of here.  But I was weak, didn’t know the layout or how many people stood between me and freedom, and I was also planning on finding and introducing myself to the lady who’d peeked at my dick while I was half asleep.  It had been almost two years since I’d been with a woman, after all.

Peyd clapped his hands together.  “Shall we?”

I nodded, then shuffled over to the door and slipped on some simple leather sandals that had been delivered with my clothes.  Peyd knocked on the door, and the guards outside opened it.  They parted for his rigid form, then fell in behind me as I followed, no doubt with hands lingering near holsters.

Wonder Woman?

I don’t usually write about comics, because I’m well past the age where I really gave a damn about them, but this has sort of got me peeved.  Here’s the classic Wonder Woman look:

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And here’s the way some dumbshits at DC have decided to redesign her for a bold, contemporary look that the kids can “relate” to:

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Which looks more like an Amazonian warrior to you?  It’s certainly not the teenager who’s all dressed up to go to the mall.  She looks like a third-tier Teen Titans character in that get-up.  Have we forgotten that the main selling point for Wonder Woman is her goddamn sex appeal?  I mean, seriously, a JACKET?  What purpose does that serve except to cover up her sexy shoulders?

Hey, DC: I hope you’re ready for Wonder Woman’s book sales to plummet as soon as she starts wearing this ridiculous Latina gang outfit.

You morons.

J. Michael Straczynski said this about the costume change:

“She’s been locked into pretty much the exact same outfit since her debut in 1941. If you’re going to make a statement about bringing Wonder Woman into the 21st century, you need to be bold and you need to make it visual. I wanted to toughen her up, and give her a modern sensibility.”

If that isn’t some of the most arrogant, retarded corporate-minded gobbledygook you’ve ever heard, then I don’t know what is.  Some things just work.  This costume works.  If you want to bring characters into the 21st Century, you address that with the writing, not with an idiotic, superficial costume change.

Any Rich, Old Relatives I Don't Know about: Now Is a Good Time to Die

I’m not completely confident that my wage-slave job is ever going to lead to better things.  I’m on the verge of letting the scumbags who I have my car loan with just repo it because I can’t afford to make the payments, let alone actually insure and drive the fucking thing.

If I was a hot teen girl, I’d be showing my butthole to online perverts for money and gifts.  Instead I’m 39, not in the best health, and I have mountains of debt looking to crush me like a potato bug beneath a sadistic child.  The best thing to happen to me right now would be to either win a lottery or get shot and killed by a trench-coated maniac one day in the 7-11.

Cheers.

He's a Goddamn Kid

Somebody created a picture of Justin Bieber where a hard cock is matted in over his microphone, so that he appears to be singing into a cock, or preparing to suck it.  Somebody posted it here, and it’s been reblogged.

I haven’t read the comments, but I’ll just say this: he’s a fucking 16-year old kid.

I am totally down with most humor, at even its blackest, but manipulating a photo to suggest that a minor is sucking cock is sort of beyond the pale.  Hate Justin Bieber if you must (though in my opinion he’s far too innocuous to be worthy of hate), think his music sucks (which it does), but he is by all appearances a good, if sort of naive and ditzy, kid, and he doesn’t deserve to have a photo of him manipulated into a pederast’s dream.

Again: he is a motherfucking CHILD.

Have some fucking class.

"What Was Mine" 3

At some point, somebody had brought me in clothes.  They were simple grey work-garments.  My skin still stung with constant pain, but it was more subliminal now, more tolerable.  The clothes irritated a bit, but I was tired of being naked.  I was standing in the middle of the room.  It had been a couple days, during which I had determined that I could stand, and that the room was locked.  I was also eating heartily, and I was brought regular servings of potato stew and a spiny fruit that seemed like it came from some sort of cactus.  Based on this food, the accents I’d heard, and the heat, I estimated that I was in one of the south-western principalities, perhaps Colostor, which was sparsely populated and had a high concentration of prisons.

And this was a prison.  It was a prison that I appeared to be locked in, though I had no memory of a trial.  I’m not going to pretend like I was innocent, but I was careful, and to my awareness nobody had enough on me to put me away.

Unless, of course, this was one of those renegade prisons, the ones that took private contracts and didn’t much care who they locked up.  I’d heard that the feds had been stamping out that practice, but there were always people who sneered at any flexing of federal power.  They were treating me well enough, but it was obvious that I wasn’t a guest.  When they brought food, there were always a couple of well-armed guards.  I might have tried to make a move on them in prime condition, but I was nowhere near that, and they were armed with early-model Break-Smythe Quickhammer revolvers.  The guns were introduced in the middle years of the Vildalian War, so they were old and cheap, but still highly valued among those who prefer reliability and accuracy to the latest flashy innovation.  My own sidearm was a Break-Smythe, an even earlier, single-action generation, and I longed to feel its well-worn walnut grip in my hand again.  The hammer under my thumb, the trigger against my index finger, the roar, the acrid gunpowder reek, the lightning and blood.  I wasn’t a psychopath, but I had long made my peace with the fact that the only time I felt truly at ease is when I was dealing death.  Some people liked collecting stamps for relaxation; some preferred blasting holes in other men.  In other, bad men.  The kind who deserved a quick burial and a half-assed eulogy.

The kind, I was sure of it, that had put me here.

My left hand lingered near my thigh and pantomimed the action of unsnapping the holster, cocking the hammer back.  The ritual of death.

The door lock clicked and it started to swing open.  I dropped my hand casually and gave an indifferent look as an older man entered, his spine stiff, his brown-and-grey uniform impeccable, his moustache military and his eyes steely.  So this was the man who ran the place.