- I’m not sure I love this idea enough to actually follow them, but Matthew Baldwin did a neat thing: he created two Twitter bots, one playing Zork, and the other responding as the game. I’m actually more interested in replaying the game itself, but still, it’s pretty neat.
- Why Nigerian e-mail scams are so crude and obvious? Turns out, it may be on purpose. [via]
- So the hitchhiker who said he was writing a book about human kindness only to be shot by a driver…actually shot himself. So, um, I guess that’s one for humanity then…? [via]
- I’m not convinced any of these sounds are necessarily worth preserving, but the Museum of Endangered Sounds is an intriguing idea. [via]
- And finally, Three Simple Tips to Writing Your Own Aaron Sorkin Character Name. He must have hated writing a character named Mark Zuckerberg.
See also:
What can you say? The man has a formula.
tv
A journey into a wondrous land of imagination
I was woken up this morning, a little before 8 o’clock, by a Verizon technician. (And a barking dog, who was not amused by the ringing front doorbell.) This was a different guy than on Tuesday, and he wasn’t here very long, just long enough to make a this-is-not-at-all-a-sales-pitch-but-obviously-it-is for FIOS, and then to poke around in the backyard and make the repairs when I told him we weren’t interested. (And we’re not. We already pay for cable and internet, and it’s questionable whether FIOS would even work properly in our area. I suspect Verizon only offers it because it’s much cheaper — for them — than repairing the existing copper lines.) What he did today is apparently not a permanent fix — big surprise there — but we do at the very least finally have a dial tone again.
I spent most of the rest of the day replying to Kaleidotrope submissions. Anyone who suggests that editors take some kind of delight from sending rejection letters obviously hasn’t spent the afternoon sending out close too one hundred of them. I’m now reasonably caught up with the submissions from January, aside from a few acceptances, but I’m starting to field queries from people inquiring after their stories and poems. The sooner I can dive into February and March, the better.
While I drafted rejection letters, I watched several episodes of the old Twilight Zone. It’s nothing short of amazing how well some of the episodes still hold up, despite having long entered the realm of pop culture cliche and parody.
And I watched Into the Woods, a performance by the original Broadway cast. My boss and I saw a poster for a local production on our trip to Connecticut this past week, and she made it sound really incredibly interesting. And it is, genuinely great theater, by turns darkly disturbing and laugh-out-loud funny.
And that was, whadyacallit it, Saturday.
Sunless Sunday
It rained all day, so what can you do? Me, I mostly just did the Sunday crossword, watched some Fringe and Supernatural — both quite good episodes, actually — and wrote this with my weekly free-writing group:
“If you retire, take up hobbies or volunteer work.”
“What’s that?” asked Edgars. Haggerton had his feet propped up on the car’s dash and a reader open in his lap. Edgars tossed him his food and slammed his own door shut.
“It’s this mag,” said Haggerton. “Billie left it behind. It says you gotta plan for retirement, gotta ‘stockpile ideas to keep yourself busy.'”
“Like keeping busy’s ever a problem,” said Edgars. He pulled a french fry, sweaty with oil and cheese, from the bag. “You seen this town lately?”
“Sure, but it ain’t always gonna be like this. Get yourself a wife, a dog, get out of this place, settle down.”
“That’s crazy talk,” said Edgars. “You’re talking crazy.” He sighed, turned the ignition. Nothing but static on the scanner and radio. “These fries are soggy.”
“Those fries are always soggy,” said Haggerton. “I thought that’s why you liked them.” He bit deep into the side of his own burger. “And what’s so crazy about gettin’ out of here?”
“What’s Billie doin’, thinking about retirement? She just joined the force.”
“She’s not. But, y’know, ya gotta plan ahead. Think long-term, big picture.”
“That mag says that?”
“Nah, that’s what Billie says. Even if she makes detective, what good’s that gonna do her? But, hey, you wanna stay in this town til you’re old and gray or somebody puts a bullet in your back, be my guest.” He crumpled the empty wrapper and tossed it out his window. “Where’s my lemonade?”
“They were out.”
“So you didn’t get me nothin’? That’s hardly considerate.”
“We oughta get going. Dispatch says there was another attack over on Baker Street.”
“Sure,” said Haggerton. “Dispatch.”
“What?”
“Nothin’. It’s just…if you’re gonna start hearin’ voices again, you could at least do me the courtesy of not pretending. The radio’s broke.”
I really have no clear idea of what’s going on in this scene, and I was trying more to get the rhythm of the dialogue down than anything else. But there’s something here that I might return to.
Sunny Tuesday
I spent almost all of today, except for a brief hour when I ran to the bank and grabbed a bite for lunch — okay, and watched an episode of That Mitchell and Webb Look while I ate — in the backyard, working on my laptop. It was a spectacularly sunny day, and I took full advantage of my new ability to work from home once a week.
I may have gotten a little too much sun, despite the patio umbrella I had up, but I suppose it’s all to the good. My doctor did tell me yesterday that I have a vitamin D deficiency. (Winter followed immediately by a week stuck at home with pneumonia could be contributing factors there.) I didn’t get sunburned, but I did get a little color sitting out back all day.
Honestly, it’s going to be a little hard going back to the regular office tomorrow.
Cabin fever dream
I’m off tomorrow. Yay! It’s for a pair of doctor appointments, though. Less yay.
Today, I did the Sunday crossword, though I’m already on record as having not enjoyed it much. I read some more Kaleidotrope submissions, again out on the back deck. (It was hot enough we took the covers off the air conditioners today, though not quite hot enough to switch the units on.) I watched an episode of Fringe from two weeks ago. And I went to see The Cabin in the Woods, which I thought was great…but really difficult to talk about without spoilers. (Honestly, even saying it’s meta-horror feels like I’m maybe saying too much.)
And beyond that, my weekly writing group started up again. I wrote this:
“Cyanide is an unholy weapon,” said Father Franklin, eying the boy who had been brought before him. “Only a coward resorts to the ungodliness of poisons, Horace.”
“I just thought — ”
“Clearly you did not. Or your intended would be dead by now, don’t you think? You bring shame upon yourself with such an attack, young man. Even if you had succeeded, there would be no honor in your actions.”
“But cyanide isn’t on the codex of forbidden — ”
“And what would a young initiate like yourself be doing reading the forbidden codex? Didn’t your teacher — remind me, boy, who is your weaponmaster?”
“Brother Andrews,” the young Horace said.
“Did Brother Andrews not train you in the art of the weapons that God expects you to use? Were you not given a holy blade upon elevation from first year?”
“I was, Father. But — ”
“And yet you choose not to use this weapon, which God Himself has put in your hand. You sully yourself — your teachings and this entire school — by taking such a cowardly route. And worse, you failed.”
“But I — ”
“‘A blade may find its mark a thousandfold, while but a drop of water may dilute the most venomous bite.’ Do I need to quote scripture to you?”
“No, sir.”
“Then explain it to me, Horace. Explain why I have been disturbed from evening prayers to learn that not only have you failed in your weaponmaster’s assignment, but you have failed because you tried to poison the man you were assigned to kill.”
“But he wasn’t a man, Father. Not really. It — it wasn’t fair. Brother Andres couldn’t have expected me — ”
“Robert Andrews is a proven member of his guild and has served this school well for twenty years. He would not send a second-year initiate after someone he felt you could not — ”
“But this man, Father. The target. He was an initiate. I mean…or he had been. That’s why he was on the list. But I…I don’t know, Father. I think maybe Brother Andrews wanted me to fail.”
“He — ? Are you accusing the Brother of some kind of wrongdoing, Horace?”
“I…no, Father. It’s just… ‘Know your intended,’ right? Know the man you would kill like you know your own shadow, like you know your own life. That’s in the later gospels, isn’t it?”
“A rough and butchered translation of St. Marcellus, but yes.”
“Well, I studied, Father. I researched, and I followed, and I learned all I could. And the thing is, Father, I think the target knew I was doing this. Like I said, I think he was an initiate. An assassin. It was hard to find, but in the archives — ”
Father Franklin held up a hand.
“Enough. You know as well as any student here that the archives are restricted. Whatever you think you might have discovered there…”
“The target’s name, Father. That’s what I discovered.”
“And what name could have forced your hand in such a disgraceful act? What name sent you looking for poisons in the locked armory? What name made you break your covenant with God?”
“Robert Andrews,” said Horace. “The man I was sent to kill. His real name, Father…his real name was Robert Andrews.”
I’m not really sure where it was going, since I was figuring that out as I went along, but I had some fun with it.
And with Sunday overall.