Computer=Evil

My harddrive is pitifully small. Once upon a time, I wouldn't have thought of 40 gigs as pitifully small. After living with it for so long, and dividing those 40 gigs across three partitions, and letting said partitions become horribly disorganized, I now know better. I bought an 80 gig harddrive last week with money that could've been spent more wisely. Still not a huge drive, but adequate for my purposes, especially as I'm simply adding the new harddrive in next to the old harddrive--a convenient 120 gigabytes when all is said and done.

I am convinced that Murphy coined his law while upgrading his computer.

After spending a ridiculous amount of time to turn a new partition on my new harddrive into an exact copy of my C boot drive, my computer suddenly refuses to look in its direction at startup. Doesn't matter how many settings we screw with, or if we completely disconnect the old harddrive and then go into the BIOS to convince the computer to look at the new harddrive as the system drive. The computer has designated my old harddrive as the Magic System Boot Drive and
refuses to boot on anything other than its beloved.

So. At this point, it looks like I'll end up sorting through about 35 gigs of data to see what I want to preserve, backing it up somehow, reformating and repartitioning the entire thing into something simpler than the five partitions in the wrong spots that I have now.

I
Hate
Computers

~Paul

Short for My Convenience

I really hesitate to call this a game, at least in the traditional sense, but go play it anyway. It'll only take a few minutes.

~Paul

Why I Love RPGs

No, not Rocket Propelled Grenade. Role-Playing Game. I only have five physical RPG books (three of which are addon books) and printed rules for less than a half dozen more systems, but I have a ridiculous amount of information about RPGs on my computer, including many other sourcebooks not quite the collection of a gamer who has had a few decades and a steady cash flow, but it still represents a strange amount of interest for someone who doesn't actually play RPGs. No one to play with. The village I live in is very boring, you see, and doesn't even have a proper gaming store that I'm aware of. I've played a tiny bit of D&D and a fan system called Final Fantasy RPG with other people in the past, and I've soloed a few more times on a few more systems. But why do I still spend time reading mass quantities of RPG rulebooks for so little actual play?

The stories.

I can still hope that I'll be able to set up regular RPG gaming, and I have my eye on a D&D supplement that creates rules for balanced random dungeons that can be played without a Dungeon Master. But until then, I stick around for the stories. The game mechanics lay down ground rules on how to proceed, but an RPG is about the story. Open up an RPG book, and unless it's the most cut-down universal system available, there will be a campaign setting--a proposed world in which to romp. Some of these can be very interesting, and they spark my imagination--almost in the same way a novel does, but asking me to fill in the blanks and imagine the stories myself.

To demonstrate, my favorite campaign setting is from JAGS-Wonderland, a surreal horror game based around Lewis Carroll's Wonderland novels. It sets up a universe where Wonderland--a twisted reality just below ours--is seeping upward, loosening the rules and trying to consume us. Sometimes, people slip through the cracks and go down--they don't lose their grip on reality, but reality loses its grip on them. When I'm reading all the details in this book, I hit a point where I stop seeing all the game mechanics and rules and instead see something like this:
(please note, as random trivia, that this was written months before I got my job)
(also note that the peculiar spelling is intentional)

A Page from Examining the Looking-Glass
by Paul

I walked toward the front desk, trying to move softly and hoping my footsteps weren’t too loud on the marble tile. But then, I usually walk quietly, and I’m used to libraries. Behind me, Parker wasn’t making an effort as concentrated as mine. You’d think he’d never spent time anyplace peaceful. Actually, come to think of it, that was a distinct possibility. Fortunately, he was probably busy gawking at the endless, twisting rows of shelves, the ceiling so high it the view simply faded into blackness, and the animated stone gargoyles that prowled the walls. Quietly, of course. The Liebrarian wouldn’t allow them to creak or crack like standard stone, not her Liebrary. So long as Parker remained enraptured by the sight and overawed by yet another alien (to him) landscape taken to its superlative, it was likely he would be disturbed enough to let me do the talking. I prayed for this.

I’m not sure why he was so overwhelmed, though; a library where you could have two people walk down parallel aisles and find more aisles cropping up between them was fun, but we’ve seen things more mind-bending than that in other parts of Wonderland.

And then, the Front Desk. Up to my chest in height, deep brown wood, trimmed in what I believe were fractal patterns. Tall stacks of books at either edge of the desktop, forming a portrait frame around the Liebrarian.

She was short; I could tell this immediately even though she sat at a tall desk and was almost certainly in a tall chair. Petite. Inquisitive, deep brown eyes, the sort you see in innocent children who love learning but haven’t yet learned enough to be scared. Maybe she had no need to be afraid where the angels dared not go. Her eyes were, of course, framed by glasses—thin-framed rectangles. She was dressed in a conservative white dress shirt and simple navy blue dress jacket; it reminded me of a university uniform. She’d ponytailed her hair, probably to keep it out of the way while she read. Her shoulders were squared—not in aggression, it seemed, but simple unconscious confidence. A small stack of books sat just to her left, a small stack just to her right, and on the desk in front of her a thick tome, open, in which she was completely absorbed. Her left hand absently cradled a thick darkwood stamp, as though she had been checking books in and suddenly ran across a one too good to simply process without exploring just a little bit. That could have happened moments ago; it could have happened decades ago.

She was, all in all, surprisingly normal. No one had told me what to expect, but after the murderous Queen of Hearts, the nervous talking rabbit, the grumpy omelet, the playful cat’s grin with a dark sense of humor, and the slew of others, I expected something more... Wonderlandish.

And yet, she was setting off all sorts of alarms in my head. Not the sort the others get from Wonderland, the “This isn’t real this isn’t real please don’t let this be real wakeupwakeupwakeup” sort. Nor was it the “that thing is about to rip my spine out” danger sense I start to feel when a trip down the rabbit’s hole is about to turn violent. I had to remind myself that she was potentially dangerous, an inhuman manifestation of universal principles beyond my grasp, and, no matter how collected she might seem in the upcoming conversation, she was what my friends would call “completely nuts.” Despite these reminders, I was very aware that this was exactly the sort of woman for whom I go head over heels. Parker keeps trying to figure out what sort of woman I’d like, if any. Insane, nearly all-powerful librarians, apparently.

She looked up.

I felt Parker take shelter behind me.

Her mouth curved into a friendly smile, but equally warm eyes pierced me, roamed all over me in a brief examination and summary. I somehow knew she had just written a narrated description of me, complete with mention of the large quivering man in a red shirt trying to hide behind me. Without taking her eyes off me, she flipped her book to the last page, stamped it in, and slid it off to the side. “May I help you?” She sounded mildly interested, but definitely distracted.

I was careful to speak softly, as I had been instructed. “We would like to use the Liebrary, Miss Liebrarian.”

“May I ask your purpose?”

The Cat had told me the Liebrarian was eager to be involved in Big Things with Big People. If there was a time to drop names, this was it. “The Queen of Hearts and Humpty Dumpty have asked us to find a certain piece of information for a project, and the Cheshire Cat has told us of a book in which we’d find it.” Bam bam bam! The quintessential Caretaker and the founding Deconstructionist working together, aided and abetted by Chaos incarnate. Beat that.

The Liebrarian blinked and, eyes half-lidded, re-examined me. I could almost hear her mentally scratching out my introductory paragraph and writing a new one. She smiled again. She produced two sheets of paper, a blue pen, and a red pen from somewhere on her desk; had I been watching her hands, I probably would’ve blinked the moment she picked them up. “Very well, then. You will, of course, require Liebrary cards. Read these and sign, please.” I took the papers and pens and passed a paper and the red pen back to Parker, who quickly snatched it and hunched behind me again.

The sheet was a list of rules; most were to be expected in a library. No speaking above a quiet voice, turn books in undamaged and on time, et cetera. Others involved bringing Jabberwocks into restricted sections, non-disclosure agreements for certain sections until certain dates or while wearing certain outfits, and one concerning mullets that made me nearly burst out laughing.

“Eh, Miss Liebrarian, we will be able to read the rules again after we have our cards, won’t we?” She nodded; assured that I wouldn’t have to memorize the entire list right now, I made sure there weren’t any “special” rules that would interfere with our mission today and signed it. The paper began rustling on its own—crinkles appeared all over the sheet—the paper crumpled itself, folded tightly, and I was holding a brown Liebrary card, my signature at the bottom, a black book logo in the corner next to the title, and the motto “The opposite of a lie is a truth; the opposite of a truth is also a truth” in small print underneath. I flipped the card over; printed in large font was the entirety of the rules list. Looking at it didn’t hurt as much as it probably should’ve; I guess I was getting used to Wonderland by that point.

“Now, then.” I looked up to see the Liebrarian slide the blue pen behind her ear and return the red one to somewhere on her desk. “You said you knew the book you wish to checkout?”

I reached into my sleeve and into the hole the Cat had shown me how to make and withdrew the paper the Cat had given me. “The First, Second, and Fourth Lies, Third Edition, by Nisse Elseworth, call number three six seven theta Q negative six I and seven-fifths.”

The Liebrarian smiled, with approval, I was sure. Of which feat, though? Cutting straight through an impossible filing system, or pulling the solution out of a dimensional hole in my sleeve? “Well then, Johnathan, follow me.” With that, she was standing at the head of an aisle; it looked like she moved to it and skipped the intervening space, but I was pretty sure she’d been waiting there before I gave her the call number and she had simply drawn our attention to the fact. She beckoned us, turned, and walked into the aisle, sending folds and ripples through the air as she slowly sped down the rows of books. That’s the best I can describe it to someone who hasn’t been to Wonderland—when I tried to look in a straight line down the aisle, I followed bends and folds in the air and found myself staring at six different places on the shelves. She was bending space, quickly traveling long distances at a leisurely walk.

Parker put a hand on my shoulder, stopping me from following. “Hey, John, you sure ‘bout this? This whole place feels wrong. Just kinda scary, you know?” He sounded spooked. He was usually the first of us to sense wrongness—the twists of Wonderland—though try telling him that he was sensing things and he’d get defiant and sulky.

“Yes, I am. We need that book, right?”

He wouldn’t meet my eye. “Well, yeah, but this place is going to make it hurt.”

I closed my eyes. I could see the faintest afterimage of the Liebrary, the whole immensity of the Liebrary, right there under my eyelids. It was just out of reach. “Everything in Wonderland hurts if you aren’t ready for it.” I opened my eyes, and all I could see again was the little bit of the Liebrary we were in. “It’s just knowledge you’re sensing, Parker. If you’re not ready yet, don’t look—but we have to go in.”

Parker shuddered just a bit; his face turned just a bit thundercloudy. “Stop with the mumbo jumbo. Look, she is dangerous. Didn’t you see how she was looking at you? Like you’re a slab of meat for sale!”

My mouth twitch into a smile. “More like an interesting book, actually.”

“Dude, stop joking. I’m serious. She has it in for you.”

I sighed. “Parker, I know. I know this place is dangerous. I know she is dangerous, and I know that it’ll be worse for me than most others who come into the Liebrary. Now, come on.”

I slipped out of his grasp and turned back to the aisle. The ripples and folds made a perfect half-sphere, the flat edge opening toward me. I stepped through it; my footsteps sounded like chimes through the bends and folds. I heard Parker follow me; his footsteps shattering glass. The bookshelves, floor, and ceiling all folded around me, forming a thousand diamond facets in a complete sphere. I walked on without feeling motion; the warped world around me dissolved and formed with every crystal-chime step I took, reshaping itself around me dozens of times.

The sphere finally shattered and the world righted itself. The Liebrarian crouched next to me, calmly removing a book from the lowest shelf. I looked to the side to see Parker, stiff and eyes wide in shock. I often wonder what Wonderland is like for those who simply cannot believe the impossible, whether before breakfast or after.

The Liebrarian straightened up, faced me, and held out the book. “Here. When you want to check it out, or if you need help, just come to the front desk.” She added a smile and a nod as she spoke.

I took it and thanked her. Parker leaned over my shoulder to look at it; while we weren’t looking, I felt the Liebrarian disappear through the aisles, or possible into the shelves. The book was large, as tall as my elbow to my fingertip and several thousand pages deep. It was bound in red leather, and stylized gold lettering adorned the cover.

I closed my eyes, once again seeing an afterimage of the entire Liebrary—stronger this time. I looked around for the nearest reading table. I grabbed Parker by the arm, stepped toward the table, opened my eyes, and sat down.

“What—how did you—John, what?”

“Wonderland’s different, Parker. Have a seat.”

He collapsed into a chair, head in hands and trying to ignore what had happened. “Okay. So we got the book. Does it have what we need?”

I began flipping. “Give it some time. The Caretakers aren’t likely to put anything in the open.”

“What?”

I skimmed through the table of contents. “Ramifications of the Fourth Lie.” “Hot Dog Buns and Apples.” “The First Cover-up of Something Everyone Knew But No One Wanted to Admit.” That sort of thing.

“Have you noticed that the Caretakers and Deconstructionists deal with knowledge differently?” I asked.

Parker shrugged. “Yeah, the Deconstructionists babble more.”

I allowed myself a smile before going on. “Not quite. They both know things. Things, capital T, as in Things Man Ought Not. I think the difference is how they handle it. The Deconstructionists have the Black Rose. When you go to ask it a question, you learn things you don’t want to know, things that hurt. It throws you as far as it can into your soul, or the universe, or whatever, and makes you look at what’s there when it cuts everything away. Break the nutshells and see what’s left. But how much of the nut gets smashed too, and what’ll eating the mixed bits do to you? The Caretakers, though, they back up and let you see everything. Like the Liebrary. Did you see how big it is? It’s even larger than it looks. The Cat told me that literally everything is recorded here. The thing is, the Caretakers make you look for it yourself, draw the patterns in the dots, and arrive at a conclusion... even then, you’re probably just seeing faces in the clouds.”

If it was possible, Parker slumped further. “Great, just great. One set tells you the worst part, and the other set makes you make it all up yourself. What are we doing here?”

I began flipping to a promising page. “Beating the odds, hopefully. It’s not that different than the rest of ‘reality’.” I reached the page; the air was instantly alive with roaring, the book flattened against the table, and a vortex of wind surged through it, pushing my hair back and stinging my eyes. I heard a dim crash as Parker’s chair fell backward. The paper bulged, the ink skittered across the page, and something raised itself from the book, something enormous and bulbous that carried its own deep shadows around it. The thing towered above us, hanging poised in the air.

Parker rolled to his feet and fell into an instinctive fighting stance. “John—what is that?!” The panic shredded through his voice, left his terror bare for the world.

I looked around. I hadn’t even noticed when an endless starfield moved into the Liebrary. Or had the Liebrary moved into an endless starfield? Regardless, we were alone with this thing. “What we came for.”

fin.

~Paul

Because.

~Paul

Got a job.

Well, some of you know this already, but I finally got a job. I'll be working as a circulation clerk at the Centerville and Farmington libraries. I start next Wednesday. I went to the Personnel office in Farmington to fill out paperwork and get my ID card today... it was raining when I went, so my hair is messed up on my photo. :P

I'm working for the government now. Me. And the government. Zaa?

Here's a tip: before heading onto the freeway, during a lot of rain, make sure you actually know how to set your car's air circulation devices such that it gets rid of the fog in the windows.

~Paul

Weirdar Alert

So. I was wasting time watching a cartoon tonight, as usual, and I found a scene over which I had to freak fully. Who can spot why I freaked?

~Paul

Pirates Trailer

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/piratesofthecaribbeanatworldsend.html

I've sent this off to BOC42 already, with results that might involve a hostpital trip. Anyway. Behold and rejoice. Jack is Back.

~Paul