May all have a restful Labor Day weekend... I'll probably be silent till Tuesday...

Due to a fact you're all certainly aware of, and which is highlighted in the attached photograph just in case, there will be no Christmas this year. Management apologizes for the inconvenience and hopes this advance notice gives everyone enough time to make alternate arrangements...

God damn this day until further notice...

Our greatest weakness as a nation is that while we are worried about what useless moron will be voted off the reality show du jour, our enemies have their priorities straight, namely how to destroy us. We need, as a nation, to take a step back, and a deep breath, and look closely at the stupid and decadent way we've been behaving for quite some time now. Then institute a quick fix. It's not too late. Barely.

It's been more than 60 years since Germany last attacked everyone else... Are they going for a Guinness World Record or something?

To continue with my earlier post about a really bad streak of luck plaguing my co-workers' families' health... A co-worker's father (one I hadn't mentioned in the earlier post) was hospitalized last night. Heart attack... Someone help me out with the odds of all this. I can do the math, and I understand statistics and probabilities. I'm just too busy right now... :)

The need to keep pets... I keep a betta fish here in my office, and have several more at home. I'm also a cat person, although I currently am not owned by one. This need to care for an inferior (doesn't apply to cats, I know) creature is widespread throughout mankind. It is so widespread that I'd be confident in saying that every single child has felt the urge to have a pet. Some few lose that urge upon becoming adults, but all had it at some point in their development. If there was a Creator, we must have inherited that urge from Her. And that would also give us a rational explanation for the Fall, and casting out from Eden. The Creator's Mother probably said, 'You can't keep those things here in the house!!!! They ate one of my apples!!!! Throw them out!!! NOW!!!!!!'

Thinking solipsist thoughts... Multiple universes with many Nicks in them... All basically the same entity. That would serve as a pretty good explanation of what dreams are... They're other universe's Nick's experiences, filtering through to my consciousness in this universe... The more universes we postulate to exist, the more space probability has to play in. Some of those universes have to be on the wild side of improbable... And I know I cannot die... If any universe's Nick suffers a demise, his consciousness rolls into the closest universe's Nick, closest as regards similarity of the situation and events in that universe, I mean. As more and more Nick's inevitably meet their end, the whole Nick phenomenom starts drifting into the really whacky, improbable, implausible universes... Like those with heavier than air flight, space travel, computers, gene splicing technology and George W. Bush as president... And there are infinite universes...

Our government, in its infinite wisdom, has published a concise guide on terminology. After all, we wouldn't want people out there misusing the language, now, would we?

Well, well... Looks like someone's trying to actually make stupidity a crime...

Love is the law, love under will.

So simple. So elegant. So all inclusive. Meditate upon it, O reader...

One concern about America's response to terrorism, and most other external and internal threats, continues to worry me. We get all gung-ho at the onset of any problem. "Something must be done!" and "Let's bring the war to them" and "We are declaring a war on drugs" and a million other slogans.

We then initiate a response, which is often way out of proportion. Like toppling Panama's government. Or razing Afghanistan to the ground. Or reneging on a treaty. We're actually pretty good at this part of it, come to think of it...

Then most of the people realize that any sort of response, especially at this level, requires sacrifices. Like Americans having to go into combat. Or reduced civil liberties (like at airports today). Or anything at all which our pampered, decadent and thoughtless majority have somehow become convinced is their just due in life. This is when the backlash comes. Everyone starts objecting to the effect the situation is having on their meaningless, little lives. And we start backpedaling. The government bows to the stupid whim of the moment because our political system is based on keeping the majority happy, so you can reap their votes again come election time.

That's the main fallacy in democracy. Making believe that 100 morons' opinion has more value than 1 intelligent man's. Not that any other system is better. Take monarchy, for example. That would have you believe that 1 moron's opinion has more value than 100 intelligent men's.

The following picture looks to be an accurate view of Colombia's future. Many reasons for it, too, top among them the short-sightedness of American Policy as regards the War on Drugs and the guerrilla problem, and a close second would be the Colombians' lack of respect for life, property, family or any other thing sane people value. Or even lots of things insane people (like me) value, for that matter...

I seem to be having an odd effect on the people around me at work. In the 2 months I've been here, there have been at least 7 funerals for co-workers' (obviously dead) relatives. This from a group of around 30 people, and all verifiable, no made up deadites... And lots of weird incidents, too... Then there's my core team, composed of 4, really 5, guys and gals. Let me describe them, name and exact job title changed to protect the guilty (me):

E.H., Customer Liaison - Technically he's my dotted-line boss, but we work more as peers, dividing up the work. Overall great guy, personally and professionally. A couple of weeks after I arrived here, in the same weekend, his uncle died, and in a separate incident, his cousin died. While driving across a couple of states for the funeral, he suffered two blowouts, nearly totaling his car and family in the process. Two times!! New tires, too.

H.E., Voice Tech - My best direct report, she is knowledgeable, great attitude and willing to go the extra mile. I'll probably be grooming her to take over from me when I inevitably move on to greater things. She was hospitalized today, I just found out. Let's hope it's nothing serious.

L.J., LAN Tech - Lowest person on the totem. Very mistreated as regards opportunities, training and $$$ by previous management. I've given her a lot of attention and I'm correcting her situation. Her attitude and joie-de-vivre have improved immensely. I'm quite satisfied with the way I've turned her around.

J.L., WAN Field Engineer - Knowledgeable. Experienced. And total sourpuss. This man is a living, breathing lightning rod. People who expect everything to turn out badly are usually proven right due to the Universe's sense of humor. His best friend died 3 weeks after my arrival here. His father-in-law was hospitalized for a stroke on Thursday of last week. To give you an idea of this guy's outlook, he asked for guidance on how many days off for bereavement the company gives, so he's effectively counting on his father-in-law's death. LOL Good senior techie but his pessimism and fatalism cloud his professional judgement, to his detriment.

T.H., LAN Sr. Tech - This is the person who handles the network operating system and all the servers it runs on. Very knowledgeable. Very undependable. Constantly sick (malingering, actually, in my opinion). Seems to think that he is God's gift to computer science. I give him 2 more months, at the most, before he learns the Highlander lesson: "There can be only ONE..." And that would be me. He's good, but there are others out there looking for jobs who are as good or better. And in an emergency, I can probably do anything he can. I shouldn't have to (it is demeaning for a manager to do actual work), but I can. Add to that the fact that I don't really need that high a level of technical expertise here, this isn't the Jet Propulsion Laboratory I'm running...

Anyway... The laws of chance have been known to bend over backwards when I'm around... Let's hope this is just a bad streak of luck and not that my kids'll be cursed with dire events for the rest of my tenure...

I wonder what did the trick... Was it the demonical visitations? The mind bending psychic attack? The tides of despair spell? Three kids tantruming day and night that they'd much rather be with their Daddy?

For whatever reason, I can proceed to bring them over... I'll start the paperwork now and we'll see what happens... LOL

Decades ago I dreamed that I was making love to a human sized spider, and enjoying it immensely, too... What the hell was that? lol

I have no sympathy for a bunch of idiots being paid anywhere from 1.5 times to 165 times what I make for simply playing a game. What right do these assholes have to even contemplate a strike? If I had absolute power, I'd ban baseball outright. They need to be kicked out on the street and learn exactly how much intelligence and work is required in the real world to make the kind of money they make for trying to hit a little ball, running around in circles and patting themselves on the ass.

There is some slight chance that the Universe has finally produced absolutely everything it could conceivably produce and will implode at any moment now... What tipped the scales was this: Click me.

It's been a fun year... How so, you ask? It's been a year since I moved back to the USA. For those of you wondering, let me say that I've killed way less people than you'd think, considering the fact that it's a full 365 days and nights we're talking about. I did spend almost 2 months outside the U.S. during this past year... Colombia, 2 weeks. Canada, 2 weeks. Mexico, 1 and a half weeks. Brazil, 2 weeks. Miami, 3 days (Miami, as anyone who's been there recently knows, is no longer part of the U.S., it belongs to Cuba). Hell. I hadn't realized I had been travelling so much until I started recalling stuff for this post... And the past year was a skimpy year for travelling, compared to what I usually do.

So hard for me not to point out stupidity when I see it... Even if it serves no purpose to do so... Even if it actually works at cross-purposes to what I want... It is one of my flaws (yes, even I have some of those). Luckily, I am very aware of it, which is why I sit here posting this instead of being in the contract renegotiation meeting with the customer. I think I can safely go back in now, having gotten that off my chest...

I am convinced that Reality is in constant flux. Past and future are neither pre-determined nor set in stone. Reality behaves in many ways like a physical object, with inertia, conservation of energy, uncertainty principle and most other laws applying not to matter or energy, but to events. Let's postulate a massive event, like WWII. It is so big, has so many consequences, that it's not likely to change. Small events, like an inconsequential scene in a movie, or the location of that house you saw yesterday... Much more likely to change into something different from what you remembered. How many times have we viewed a favorite movie for the umpteenth time only to discover something not quite like what we remembered...? Something subtly but surely different? Faulty memory?

Now, of this were so, wouldn't more people have noticed it? Wouldn't it be a talked about phenomenom? Not necessarily, because we then come to obvious explanation. A large majority of the people in the world are props. Extras, if you will. Non sentient scenery. Only real people will have noticed the changes in reality. Only real people would retain memories of how things were before they morphed into a new version. Almost as if the Universe were a Microsoft product... Nifty, jam packed with even more advanced features on every new release, but sinisterly different from the prior version. Almost designed to confuse... Think about it, all you real ones, and email me back with your comments...

Note to self: When I start shopping for a permanent house, it has to have a big, big basement...

This is the absolute best and coolest musical animation I have seen in... Well, it might just be the best and coolest ever, so far... It's a big file (34Mb), so do not click here if you are on a dialup...

Taking into account the recent scandals in the Church, one has to wonder what's the real purpose behind His decision to play with the children...

I'd rather have been a cat, like the friend who brought this webcandy to my attention, if I'd had my druthers... But if the shoe fits...



What Was Your PastLife?

For all you folks that have to deal on a daily basis with pointless, meaningless, dull and psychically painful conference calls... This is for you... Just lock yourself into your office (What? You're a cubicle dweller? For shame... Get a closed office, dude...), dial into the call and warm up this sucker... Or this one... Have fun...

This is a test. Please email me your answer. I'll email you back with what it was about...

Have a good long think before you answer this one!!
 
This is a story about a girl: Whilst at the funeral of her own mother, she met this guy whom she did not know. She thought this guy was so amazing, so much her dream guy, that she fell completely in love with him right there and then...

A few days later the girl killed her own sister.

Question: What is her motive in killing her sister?

Email your response to necromage.geo@yahoo.com and good luck!

Next weekend, solemn promise, I will go and torture the fish.... It has been at least 7 years since I went fishing. I stopped going because all the good fishing holes required I kill a guerrilla or two on every trip in order to validate my claim to fish there. It got to the point where the FARC actually started assigning men to the good fishing places as their equivalent of KP (Kitchen Patrol, for all you non-grunts). I don't think Pennsylvania has guerrillas yet, so I guess, even though it will feel strange at first not having to gut a people's soldier for bait, that I can reacquaint myself with what used to be my favorite method of relaxation (besides sex, I mean. Hey! I just realized! Your fingers end up smelling fishy either way). LOL

I have ever been an advocate of letting people sort out their own issues, the more violently the better. Nothing like a good conflict to warm the blood up... But this gratuitious harming and killing of children... It must be stopped. Now. Or else.

You have just finished reading an official Deity press release, sponsored by Braniff.

Nice... Even though I totally agree with the pissed off old guy, it's still funny to hear how they piss him off...

So much for the theory that it is my presence in a country which produces a reign of chaos...

Stupid sharks... I hate seeing food wasted...

I am constantly asked by people around me why I am so against Christ. For the record, I'm not against Christ. I consider Jesus Christ to be one of my colleagues in the art of Necromancy. He did, after all, purportedly raise the dead (Lazarus). He also purportedly did something else only the best of us have been able to do. He raised himself from the dead. Only Master Level necromancers are up to that trick.

What pisses me off, then, isn't Christ. Not the man, not the concept, not even the idea of him actually having been an incarnation of some deity. Or even The Deity. What pisses me off are his followers. The whole rabble collectively known as Christians. The judgemental fools... The holier-than-thou imbeciles... The totally ignorant who just don't understand science... The arrogant who think all believers in other faiths are deluded and must be shown the light...

Christ I can stomach... Christians, for the most, I despise... As with almost everything, there are exceptions and my preceding words are a generalization. And note that I don't even mention the Catholic priests' tendency to sexually abuse children... That would be a cheap shot...

I find myself desperately in need of a certain amount of human blood, and mine, for reasons not germane to this discussion, will not do at all. Proper conduct requires I publicly post this warning. That's that, then...

Now, on a wholly different note, really, totally unrelated to the above, free food at my place all this week for whomever wishes to visit! Email me for directions...

I haven't had any replies to this, but one of my habitual readers is missing. Hope nothing ate him/her... LOL

Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hat deliver a speech....

Well, this is cool... And I thought that Douglas Adams was being farfetched when he thought up Zaphod Beeblebrox... LOL

If anyone sees monkeys flying out of NJ postmen's butts, don't be frightened, it's just a spell/curse I'm trying out. Also, drop me a line so I know when it starts working. That way I won't have to be checking the Weekly World News every weekend in order to find out...

I've always known that rocket scientists usually end up working for NASA and not for the USPS. Still, one thing is knowing, and another thing is comprehending. I comprehended today. When I found out that the USPS returned some of the mail (with my name on it) that was sent to me, with my office address. Reason? Did not have a company name and address is an office building. Let me add that while it is an office building, my company occupies 100% of it... :|

Lots of nice, lonely backroads in my part of Pennsylvania... Lots of nice, secluded, old cemetaries, too. Necromancers like Pennsylvania!

"Visit Pennsylvania, the necromantic state!", is sure to catch on soon at the State Tourism Bureau...

My Lords... The women... Who'd have thought there'd be so many babes out in the woods???? *thunderstruck*

As of today, I'll officially reside out in the boonies... Pennsylvania... Honor compels me to extend advance warning to my new neighbors...

For myself, I'm certain it will be an excellent adventure... *cue in creepy soundtrack here + maniacal laughter*

I am in the unique position of having been a technical wizard in the past (still capable of it, just don't do it for a living anymore) and being a manager in charge of techies now. I wish to publicly apologize to some of the managers I had in the past, most notably one by the name of David Duarte.

In a nutshell, techies never understand that the stuff they produce, or maintain, will have an economic impact on someone's business. That cooler/faster/newer does not automatically equate to better. That two hours of downtime costing some thousands of dollars while they play at getting something new to work is never justified when you can just easily back out and go to the original config in ten minutes. And they'll get aggravated if you don't allow them to do the cooler thing, which to them is letting them keep on trying to make the new stuff work, even if it unnecessarily costs the business thousands of dollars. And I was that way. I'm sorry, David. I put you through a lot of shit, didn't I? Thanks for putting up with me and starting me on the road to managerdom.

If it helps, I just sacrificed a techie in your name... Stupid gits just won't understand...

Disclaimer: This is a Necromancer Sincere Apology (NSA). Don't expect to see many more of them in the future. Mark this date on your calendars, it could be a one time event.

Just like other people follow baseball, and still others go for football, and so on, I follow serial killings... Looks like there's a new team in town... Yay!