Bullux’s Neighborhood

Just finished a story. Here is an excerpt:

I've been administering a thread on a web-forum I frequent (wcom) where I post a situation with a problem and other users post an event that they 'summon' to take place as a possible solution to the problem presented in the situation I proposed. After some time slips by, I draft out the happenings of the event summons in relation to the situation at hand. I will now share with you the situations and the many outcomes of the event summons.

I will post the situation and the outcomes of the event summons that I have written. Try and figure out what exactly it is that has been summoned by each user.

Situation #1: You stand at the entrance to a large banquet room that is engulfed in flames. At the far end of the room stands a young woman in need of your help. What event do you summon?

Dun: Your Squirtle saturates the banquet hall in water, putting out the flames and subsequently nearly drowning the young woman. The young woman does survive, however, and her skimpy white clothes have become drenched and revealing. She is drawn to the cuteness of your Squirtle and has been stricken with a certain curious fascination of her aussie hero. You win.

Tux: Your jelly cannon prematurely misfires and leaves the young woman covered from head to toe in unprotected lubrication. The roaring flames surround her, but there is a chance she can make the run towards the safety of your arms at the entrance to the room. She takes her first step and slips in the puddle of slick KY goodness that has dripped around her feet. Though not noticeable at first, you now realize that the room is slanted ever so slightly as you see the young woman slowly glide her way into the hellish blaze. You lose.

---

Situation #2: You are on a very tiny island and have discovered a wealth of buried treasure. By the time you unearth your riches, a dozen angry pirates have surrounded you. Things don't look good. What event do you summon?

hfswjyr: A single ninja appears alongside you within the circle of scurvy. The pirates stand aghast at the site for a mere moment, then plunge forward with tenacity and a harmonious "Arrrr!" escaping their lungs. Your ninja becomes a blur within the circle and then solidifies as it leaps atop your shoulders and darts airborne towards an unruly group of pirates. The force of the ninja's vault from your shoulders knocks you to the ground where you smash your head on a treasure chest and are rendered unconscious. We were never meant to know the outcome of this legendary battle. You lose.

Dunwich: You summon leviathan. He emerges in his watery form from a portal that spawns in the air above you and the pirates. The earth shakes around you and up shoots a monumental spire of rock carrying several of the pirates with it and dropping them to their deaths. Leviathan flies to the top of the rocky spire and conjures an enormous waterfall that cascades down the spire and drops its insurmountable force upon the tiny island, destroying the pirates, you, and the boat. The island has become submerged and the treasure has been pushed by the rushing waters down into the dark depths of the sea. You lose.

Eterna1: A KY Jelly Cannon falls from the sky and lands near your side, crushing several of the pirates. You run over to the control console and blast away at your eye-patch toting adversaries. The remaining group become covered in the jelly, one falling victim to an allergic reaction whose skin becomes inflamed and itchy as all hell. Though you have taken out several of the pirates and the rest are falling all over the place and dropping their swords and pistols, most still chase after you. You've done all you can with the jelly cannon when your summon #1.5 the transvestite appears and is aroused by the abundance of lubrication on the sweaty, dirty men. The pirates give up on you and head towards the tranny (it is the closest thing they've seen to a woman in a long time after all). You grab as much treasure as you can and haul it onto the pirate's dingy in their moment of distraction. You leave the island with the treasure in your lap. You are winrar!

Caz: You hold a small, pink eraser in your right hand. The pirates charge after you. You hold out the eraser and make hand motions mimicking those you would use to erase something on a piece of paper. Nothing happens. Pirates don't get erased. They cut of your head and rape your insides. You lose.

Bryce: See 2nd half of Eterna1's outcome. Also you leave the island with some of the leftover virgins. You are winrar +17.

---

Situation #3: An alien spaceship just zoomed over your house and took your dog. You want that dog back. What event do you summon?

Dun: You throw your boomerang at the escaping alien ship. The boomerang flies around the spacecraft and returns to your face. You looz.

Cat: Your robot carries you up into the atmosphere, racing after the escaping alien ship. The robot's jet feet propel you fast enough to reach the ship before it enters space, but a small boomerang flies in an orbit around the ship and just barely dings one of the robot's jet-powered feet causing catastrophic system failure to your systemz. The jet-powered feet wave about uncontrollably and your robot falls to pieces in mid-air. You looz.

hfswjyr: Your dog barks. Not only does it bark, it yaps. You got one of those annoying tiny dogs that yap all the time. Three years later that ceaseless yapping has made you crazy enough to molest stinky fatty girls. You looz.

RAT: Your KY Jelly Cannon fires a load at the unsuspecting alien ship. The blast is strong enough and slippery enough to disrupt the delicate balance of the outboard centrifuge system, causing the ship to lose its balance and succumbing the inhabitants to varying degrees of gravity changes. Your dog and the aliens are thrown about wildly through the inner hub of the ship.

You fire a second shot at the ship, but falling mechanical debris and a young Israeli man have intercepted your slimy splurge. Inside the ship, one of the aliens has fallen onto the hyperspeed button and in the ship's turmoil has launched the faster than light speed craft directly into the moon. The force of impact is large enough to greatly disrupt the face of the man on the moon (also great enough to kill your dog). Meanwhile on Earf, you and your cannon are crushed by the falling debris of metal, man, and schlong juice. You looz.

Bryce: Your mothership takes in the smaller alien ship like one of it's own childrenships. Your mothership loves her new childship and gives it all her motherly loving. Your mothership does not like dogs though and convinces the alien child ship to give the dog back to you, the person to whom the dog rightfully belongs. The childship complies because it wants to be with its new family more than it wants your dog. You are the Wi-fucking-n.

Zydel: Your Death Star pours on the tractor beam fury upon the helpless alien ship. They are being sucked in so hard they don't know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop. Unfortunately your Death Star is destroyed by Zulu's Luke Skywalker before you can capture the ship. You looz.

Zulu: Your Luke Skywalker knows his mission, but visions of his father draw him to the nearby Death Star. Your Luke Skywalker becomes distracted by the need to save the universe over the need to save your dog. He booms the Death Star and the aliens escape with your dog. You looz.

Tom: Your swamp catches a Luke after he destroyed the Death Star. Your swamp has also caught the alien ship. Your swamp has also caught your ship when you flew there to go get your dog. All is cool though. You get to hang out with Luke, Yoda, aliens, and your dog on Dagoba. Life is sweet. You = what the win is.

---

Situation #4: You went skydiving all alone and during mid-fall you realize that your parachute was replaced by a bunch of kitchen utensils. You are approaching the ground very fast. What event do you summon?

Cat: Q is old and has Alzheimer's. He gave you his 1989 larger than life cell phone. You plummet to your doom and smash into and through an empty outdoor swimming pool. gg no re

hfswjyr: Your parachute was improperly folded, but does open with limited results. You spin and spin on your way down to the ground, falling at a dangerous speed and without any directional control. You try to untangle the lines, but the spinning is too much for you to handle. You hurl your spaghetti dinner into the air and watch as it glides right back into your face the next time you spin around. The ground approaches and you are covered in half-digested marinara sauce. A couple more seconds and you're going to hit the ground too hard to survive without breaking a shit ton of bones. Luckily an updraft hits you just in time, slowing your descent enough so that when you land you only dislocate your right shoulder. It just so happens that you landed in the parking lot of a large supermarket that was having an outdoor flowers and ice cream sale. You find yourself surrounded by lonely milfs that hate their husbands and are terribly concerned about your injury and are fascinated by your free fall. Ween.

Fox: Your are surrounded by the protection of a K-8 November class Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine. Though still in free fall, you're thoroughly convinced that the thick metal walls will somehow provide you safety while you descend at an accelerating rate from a harrowing height. You and your sub smash into the pavement of Sydney and the force of impact is great enough to obliterate the submarine structure. The nuclear hold is destroyed and radiation is unleashed upon the nearby populace. gg no re

Caz: You are surrounded by the protection of a K-8 November class American nuclear-powered attack coffin, and you are firmly pressed up against the corpse of Patrick Swayze (face to crotch). You decide that if you're going to die, this might as well be the way to go out. Your fate accepted, you rest your face upon the pillowy balls and fall asleep before you smash into a dildo carrying freight truck. gg no re

Bryce: A small cup appears on the ground and your mind is homing in on its target. You use subtle movements to change the angle, direction, and speed o your approach. The cup comes into plain view and you make one final adjustment before hitting directly on your mark. You fit into the cup. gg no re

Zydel: The Death Star tractor beam grabs you and stops your deathly descent towards Earth. Now you are being pulled towards the Death Star which resides in Earth's orbit. It gets noticeably colder and harder to breathe the higher in altitude you are pulled. You survive the chill and lack of oxygen, but once you are actually out of the atmosphere your organs are pulled inside out by the vacuum of space. gg no re

Zulu: Michael Jackson's corpse falls alongside you. You grab him and dance with him in the air, creating a spectacle for a TV camera crew to capture as your fall to your doom. You smash into the ground and die, but your extraordinary escapades live on forever on TV and on youtube.

Shoshone: You land on your mattresses and nap the nap of kings, all high and mighty in your ego, reflecting on just how damn smart you really are. Ween.

---

Situation #5: Between you and your lovey-dovey honey-bear schnookums stands a celtic warrior with sword and cudgel ready in an attack stance. You need to save your schnookums. What event do you summon?

Dunwich: You summon the triple goddess and the celtic warrior is overcome with feelings of awe and fear. He drops to his knees and prays to the mighty goddess. You see figures appearing in the hills surrounding you and soon notice that they are hundreds, no, thousands of potato and broken whiskey bottle brandishing Irishmen who have come to fight and destroy in the name of their goddess. The Celt continues his prayers but he only finds himself mocked by the sacred being. He is pummeled to death with potatoes. You claim his sweet celtic gear and make your way over to your schnookums. She's been raped by several of the Irishmen, but you decide to deal with that another day. Winns.

TMP: This happens. You, as the mighty peon, die with the warrior, but your woman lives. Winns.

Zydel: You fire up your bra and only the left nipple works as the right malfunctions. The Celt is angered by your magic and easily dodges the one hot flame. He charges in with cudgel swung back and sword thrusting forward, but your right nipple kicks in after you give it a solid wack with your hand and scalds the warrior across his face. His beautiful blond hair is singed and his strong facial features have been scorched, but it is his calling to rid this word of evil magic. The warrior lunges at you with one final desperate attempt and smashes your head like a watermelon with his cudgel. You have been terminated and the Celt's goal to rid you of your magic has succeeded. The Celt dies next to you, his fallen enemy, from the burns he has suffered. Your woman is safe, however. That means you winns.

Tom: Rangers suck. You lose.

Caz: In your attemps to summon MacGyver, you accidentally summon MacGruber, MacGyver's semi-retarded son. MacGruber uses a rock he found on the ground, a slug he found under it, his own urine, and your ugly coat to make a celtic warrior destroying device. He sets the device down and explains to you how this is going to work. You understand from his instructions that you will move far enough away to save yourself from the device while the warrior is destroyed by it during his charge towards you. MacGruber further continues to explain that-- BOOOM! Everyone has exploded. You lose. MACGRUBER!

Cat: The celtic warrior kills you. Your woman is locked inside a golden cage without any possible way to escape. Continue to page 37 if you want the Celt to continuously stab through the slits of the cage, eventually killing your love and raping her many-holed corpse through the golden bars, or continue to page 54 if you want the Celt to bend his way through the golden bars, rape your love, and then stab her to death. And then rape her again. You lose.

shoshone: Celtic Guardian attacks Blue Eyes White Dragon - 1400 damage taken by Blue Eyes White Dragon, 1100 health remaining. Blue Eyes White Dragon attacks Celtic Guardian - 1200 damage taken by Celtic Guardian. Celtic Gudardian is defeated. You winns.

---

Siatuation #6: The world is about to be absorbed by a black hole. You need to save yourself (not necessarily the world). What event do you summon?

Caz: Couldn't find out enough info on what that is in my quick search. Must be incredibly secret-awesome. Indian thunderbolts crashing in upon a black hole, calling the turtle and elephants that are holding up this world to fight against it. It is an epic battle and story of original Star Wars trilogy proportions. The thunderbolts, turtle, and elephants defeat the black hole by throwing it down a large spaceship's powershaft thing. Joo win.

Eterna1: Roger Federer serves countless tennis balls across the distance of space into the black hole. He tosses them into the air and spikes them into the heart of the blackness faster than the speed of light. The universe around earth is being sucked in, but Federer is launching so many tennis balls into our annihilator that he fills up the black hole and it becomes a new baby star. The star is a long distance away from Earth, but it is close enough to disrupt the delicate gravitational balance within our solar system. The Earth and other planets are being pulled away from the Sun. Federer tries to counteract this by blasting the new baby star with tennis balls, hoping to knock it far away enough that it would no longer bother our orbit, but his balls are fried before they make contact. The world freezes over. Joo lose.

Zulu: Dr. Emmett Brown conceives a McGyver inspired contraption that consists of a speeding bullet train, a six-pack of beer, and one of those ginormous telescopes. The telescope is strapped on to the bullet train and the beer is being converted into a super sub-atomic fuel. You and Brown hop aboard the train and take a ride around the world, in the sky, faster than Superman or Flash could ever hope to go. You reverse the spin of the Earth and slightly change its tilt in order to slow the pull of the black hole (somehow, it's Doc). Then, with one last beer of fuel left, Doc puts the train into full throttle and your bullet train shoots up even higher in the atmosphere. Little jets place you at a certain angle where the sun's rays travel through the telescope directly into the black hole. Doc flips a little gizmo and some sparkly things happen and the beams that travel through the telescope have magnified 1 billion fold (but the intense strength and heat doesn't bother you, think of how the bottom of a flame isn't hot at all to the touch). The huge beam of pure white light blasts the black hole to oblivion, shattering its emptiness and erasing its existence. Joo win.

Dun: A giant cork fills the hole. The placement seems solid, but the cork does rattle just the tiniest little minuscule insignificant bit. Joo win...for now.

Cat: Your intrinsic field collapses. All aspects of gravity are fucked up. The world becomes a shitstorm of impossibility and improbabilities. The black hole collapses, but the world as we know it has been destroyed. The few that survived have created an underground colony where they live off bottled oxygen and bio-engineered foods. Joo win, yes you do...but was it really worth it?

Tom: You divide by zero. The universe disappears. Joo lose.

TMP: Your white hole combines with the black hole and forms a milk chocolate galaxy, much more deserving of the title "The Milky Way" than our galaxy is. Humanity will one day be able to reach the milk chocolate galaxy and collect its tasty and valuable resources. Joo win.

Zydel: Your white supremacist paints a picture of a black hole, nails it to a big wooden cross, and then burns it to show his/her superiority to the blackness. The blackness then continues to swallow him/her up along with the rest of the world. Joo lose.

RAT: The big ol' dragon guy grants your wish. The world has been sucked into the black hole, and you along with it. Though you are immortal, your body was stretched across the vastness of the black hole and then condensed into a little speck of insignificance where the intense forces try to crush you into an even smaller speck. Do you realize how much this hurts? Immortality can suck when you have to spend eternity being crushed by the greatest forces our human minds are able to comprehend. Joo lose.

Shoshone:

Copypasta'd from Zydel:"Hey, black hole, I'm really happy for you and imma let you finish, but nuclear holocaust was the best way to destroy the world....THE BEST WAY."

Then Kanye West becomes such a big asshole that he transforms into yet another black hole. Kanye teams up with the other black hole and destroys the world by ripping it in half and sucking it up into two separate black holes, eliminating even the mere possibility that all of our sciency facts have been wrong and that we can travel through black holes and find amazingness and joyous goodness but that won't happen now since our world has been split in two and we would all be dead anyway. Joo lose.

Bryce: Your pelvic region remains unscathed by the black hole. The world and the rest of your bodacious body, however.... Joo lose.

---

Situation #7: A samurai has slashed a gaping wound across your midsection. Your guts are crowning and you do not have long to live. You need to save yourself and eliminate the samurai before he attacks again in one fell swoop. What event do you summon?

Dun: Combat medic uses medpac on ally. Medic and revitalized ally take down enemy forces. GG.

Tom: Batman uses bat-heal on you and some bat-gauze. The samurai attacks Batman. Batman dodges the samurai's overhead blade slash and puts his foot through the heart of the blade after it's tip digs into the ground, breaking the blade in two pieces. The samurai realizes that he is no match for THE MUTHERFUCKING BATMAN. The samurai uses the remaining jagged metal that protrudes from its hilt to commit samurai suicide. You say to Batman, "You are the shit!" Batman glares at you with an angry batface and then blurts out, "I am the night!" He then stares at you for the next 45 minutes. GG.

Caz: A big fatty red book bound by the dried skin of a thousands lost souls yadda yadda appears at your side. You flip through a bunch of pages and start reading the first thing that seems interesting. You are no pro at satanic speech, but you are able to sound out the Latinish words well enough. A rush of flame and wind consumes the world around you and burns through the veil of reality you had grown accustomed to. The samurai is obliterated from existence and your wounds that were created in a false world have now become null and void. The emptiness around you quickly converts all contents of your mind into insanity as the incomprehensible happenings destroy any memories or understandings you had of the natural world. Life is not life, death is not death. An eternity of mental destruction is yours to have. That's what you get for messing with big red. No re.

Cat: Doc Manhattan doesn't see any reason to help you. Humanity is not important. A samurai kills you and he kills a samurai-- what's the purpose of this? Life never lasts long anyway. There is no reason to save one person at one moment of time when an infinite number of people are dying at his side in an infinite number of moments in time. Doc M never even gives your death at the hands of a badass samurai a second glance.

Zydel: The phoenix lands atop the samurai, burncrushing him to death. The phoenix then launches itself into your wounds. The flames scorch your insides and blast out of your wound. The intense pain cripples you and seems to last an eternity, but just before you breech the walls of sanity you are soothed by a cool comfort. Your body is healed and your mind is at ease. You feel as if you slept like a king after a long night of sex-making with a dozen bodacious babes. Let's party. GG.

hfswjyr: You die with honor. A year later when the samurai that kills you dies while trying to save a basket of kittens from being run over by a school bus you two meet up in samurai heaven and laugh about your glory days over a couple of brewskis.

zulu: Yeah, ok.

TMP: Space pirate ninja defeats inferior samurai opponent. Space ninja pirate dominates the world and enslaves the little bit of humanity it let survive (the jews and the blacks). After a few human generations go by under his rule, space pirate ninja is seen as a god. Game over for Erff. No re.

Bryce: You SS6 and blast the motherfucker away like it's nobody's business. Shit ain't gonna help you with that wound though-- shoulda brought a sensu bean with you. Your guts explode out of your gaping wound due to the immeasurable energy you are emitting. No re.

Zydel #2: I can't do shit against a samurai. Motherfucker tears me up like a fatty does a cheeseburger. No re.

---

Situation #8: You just woke up and realized your entire life was a dream. You slowly gain back your real memories and realize that you're a sex slave on the black market, and not the good kind of sex slave. Fat hairy men surround you and are trying to outbid each other for your delicious buns. What event do you summon?

caz: An explosion of white flame lights up the darkened faces of the rat-faced men in the sex dungeon as Golrath, an orc warrior materializes in the center of the bidding circle. After a moment of utter confusion is slapped across the faces of all who witnessed this magic, Golrath succumbs to a fury and starts swinging his battleaxe in a fog of otherworldly rage. Heads fly. No one escapes the malice in this cramped little room. Blood will rain this day as the faces of men fall in the wake of their annihilation. This NAMBLA sect has been eliminated and will no longer plague the the world. You and your buddy Golrath loot the corpses and recover 11 gold and a pair of Epic Gauntlets. Won.

rat: You call in the national air force, but it will take some time before the aircraft can reach the target zone. In the minutes between then and now, a crusty old man with a lard belly and long, greasy hair that encircles the shiny bald spot on his head grabs you and has his way with you. Sad to say that he finished up and played around a bit before the air strike finally came in after those minutes that seemed like years to you finally ended. The entire area is now just a big, scorched hole in the ground. The men have been killed and your life ended only after the hell you went through was completed. Loss...

hfswjyr: At least it's smooth sailing from here on out!

zydel: You return to the world you once knew. Though your real self was left behind in the true reality and will live out its days as some ugly guy's corn stuffer, your mind lives in the comfort of a simulation. Though it may seem you took the easy street, life is empty and hollow with the knowledge of living in a fake existence. Over the years you grow to miss and crave the reality that is, but there is no way back. Your mind becomes warped and addicted to the idea of what your true self is going through in actuality. You seek out fat, ugly men and do anything, anything to get them to have their way with you. This is how you live your life, creating the realist virtual experience you can get to the actuality of reality that your empty and lonely mind desires. Loss...

dun: Chomp chomp. Those nasty men get what they deserve, one at a time. They tell each other not to try you, they try to warn each other of the terriblness that will happen to them...but of course no one is going to believe such a thing. Teeth down there? Ha! After going through a dozen or two, they finally decide to let you go. You are a free man and one day will tell your grandchildren all about your crazy college days. Won.

tmp: Pop! Looks like it came right out! With no defenses left, you just let it happen. Eventually you learn to like this new way of life and appreciate the fine men in your life. Won for you.

cat: They've all already got AIDS anyway. Actually, believe it or not, they would have felt bad about giving you AIDS and may have let you go...but since you already have AIDS then they might as well keep you and make the best of it. Loss.

zulu: Liam makes a phone call. Him calling you his daughter is just silly, but the kidnappers did see the movie Taken and don't want to fuck with that shit. When they say "good luck" they mean good luck in life mister Liam, we're going to bring your daughter right back to you asap. You get dropped off at Liam's house and run into his loving embrace. He calms your whimpers and brushes your hair saying, "It's alright Susie. I'll never let anybody ever hurt my little girl." Won?

bryce: You turn to stone (more like Mario from Super Mario Bros. 3) and can be used as a boy toy no longer. One of them just makes the best of his losses and decides to use your statue self as an aesthetic centerpiece to his finely woven zen garden. At night when he sleeps, you unstone yourself and head for home, destroying the zen garden in the process. The next morning the man wakes up and brings a warm cup of tea and the morning newspaper onto the patio next to his garden. When he sees that your are gone and the destruction you have caused to his beautiful zen, he lets out a single tear and walks back into his home in a sorrowful sulk. Won.

---

Situation #9: You have been granted some amazing superpowers of your choice, but the world hates you and see you as a threat. You've been putting up with people throwing food at your for months, but now the nation you call home is threatening to go to war with you. What event do you summon?

(haven't written these yet, will soon! update when completed)

I was walkin' round the town in my blue suede shoes.
An old man with a can said I'll sing you the blues and he sang-

Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Mmmmmm....

I opened up my hand and dropped a bill or two.
My heart took a start and said I'll sing you the blues and I sang-

Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Mmmmmm....

A girl crossed the street when she heard the news.
She moved her hips and her lips said I'll sing you the blues and she sang-

Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Mmmmmm....

A crowd gathered round and paid the man's dues.
He smiled worth a mile and kept singing the blues and we sang-

Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah

Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Dah lah-dah-dah lah dah-dah-dah-dah
Mmmmmm....

These days I basically work and look for work. I signed a lease last month and I've locked myself into moving to Corvallis. It was a scary decision to make, but I just had to get out of the nothingness here in Langlois. So in September, whether I have a job lined up or not (but I better!), I'll be moving to my new home.

Life has become too monochrome for me living in the solitude of the rinky-dinky little town on the southern Oregon coast, I need to be where some people are. It's a risk doing what I'm doing right now, but I feel that it is needed and worth it. I want to be around other young people, I want to write more, and I want to experience job opportunities that are greater than the few local jobs there are around here.

Not that this place is terrible. Where I live now is beautiful and serene and I'm happy to call it home, but it's just not where I want to be at this point in my life. There are some great people in this area and a hospitality that I haven't found anywhere else to match it.

But I'm moving on, and I'm looking for work. Why does every employer have their own application to fill out? They all want the exact same information, but they make me fill it out a hundred different times. There should be a universal job application-- or at least an easy way to copy information from one to the other.

It's been a long time Vox, too long.

I've had very little Internet access since I moved to Langlois and haven't been able to keep up on Vox or any of my other websites. The wait should almost be over though, I'm moving up to Corvallis in September and I will have some of that lovely high-speed Internet that I've read about and pictured in my dreams.

I've written a few short stories and a bunch of random little flash fictions I want to share with you all. This summer has been slow for my writing because I've been job searching and preparing for the move, but once I'm settled in I think everything will start falling in place once again!

Ciao

Excerpt from a short story I wrote:

A push.

A push and I'm falling. From where I stood a moment ago I could see the city in all of its glory; the twilight reflected glowing reds and oranges off the glass buildings, enlivening the skyline with dancing flames. Now I'm falling. All of that beauty and end-of-the-work-day satisfaction has disappeared. The warm lights have been replaced by the blackness of the street and the scum and dirt all around it.

I'm falling. It's taking so long. I catch my image on the reflective building as my bloated body tumbles through the air. My hat is gone and the thin hair on my head reaches upward, upward in desperation at the ledge I left behind. The shock in my aging, round face is punctuated by the excessive white seen in my gaping eyes. I don't scream.

Sounds are different now. The noise of the city has muffled. At the forefront I hear the voices of my loved ones-- my teenage son Curtis (he tells me that he'll be in the NHL someday), my beautiful wife Shelby (she hums that song she wrote for me when we married), and a couple of my close buddies just laugh with me like we were back sharing stories at the Big Apple sports bar. And the wind...the wind is loud.

The people below are getting closer; a few have become onlookers and one of the cabbies is rubbernecking to see what they're pointing at. The streets are brimming with men and women who are stuck in rush-hour traffic and just want to be home. There's nothing they can do: they just watch. I must look like a chubby, spiraling silhouette against the fiery sky. I should be down there with them; I should be going home.

Will I feel the pain? Of course, I'm feeling it now. My body is out of its element and doesn't know what to do. My muscles, my organs ache in anticipation of the cement below. I don't know what to do. I ask God for forgiveness, just in case that whole thing has been true all along. I wish I could call my family and tell them I love them just one more time, just one more time.

Nearer and nearer they come to me, and larger do their numbers grow. There are plenty of people watching me now. I'm sure one of them is taking pictures or video; this'll be all over the Internet by the end of the week. What am I worrying about that for? Never mind it.

The ground is close now, but I see the metal outcroppings that decorate the perimeter of the building at the 25th floor. Should I even try to grab them? I won't be able to hang on. I might just wind up impaling myself or bashing my head. Doesn't matter, it's my only chance. It probably only takes me a split-second to fall far enough, but there seems to be enough time to consider all the possible approaches. I stretch out my arms and grip my hands...

Well, I got a job. I'm working at a community youth center, sort of a Boys and Girls Club type of thing. I basically manage the place, supervise the kids and teens that hang around, and do some event planning and other PR type activities. It's interesting work and will hold me over for a little while, and it feels nice giving back to the community I've been a part of for the last six years.

I haven't been doing much writing since my nano stuff at the end of last year though, and that saddens me. I think I've become afraid to write. I've been thinking about my life and how I want to become a published author and I believe all of this thinking has caused me to scare myself. I've been trying to force myself to write something, anything...but all I ever wind up doing is critiquing my ideas to the point where they lose their creative spark.

Might just be that I'm all stressed out and things are hectic because I'm going to be moving sometime within the next few days, hopefully things will turn around once I feel settled again.

That's about it for now though. I need to get some more short writings up here on the blog for you guys to read.

I took a few days off after completing the first draft of my novel, or at least I tried to. Soon after the month began, I realized that my first student loan payment was going to be due this month, plus I had to get ready for the money pit that is the holiday season.

I've been looking for a job for awhile and recently I applied to some more, but to no avail. I started looking for some freelance work, just something to hold me over the winter at least. I looked through a bunch of jobs and found that a new tech site called zMogo was looking for a few people to write editorials/reviews/articles/etc. about the tech world. I've been writing for zMogo for a few weeks (my postings) now and it's been a joy. I have about 16 articles published so far and I've made a few bucks to go towards my bill payments.

Doug Zanger from Xhang Creative (I had an internship there over the summer) contacted me and wanted me to do some work for him too. I was working on some radio spots for him during my internship for Freeplay Foundation, a non-profit that delivers radios to third-world people in remote areas of the world, and he wanted me to continue that work for him now. It felt great to get a call back from someone I did work for previously. I'm in the middle of the project right now and making a few bucks off of it.

I've also just started an internship at GotGame. The internship was originally supposed to be about writing editorials for the "news" section of the comapny's website, but that has changed. Now I'll be getting great experience writing actual news articles derived from press releases that will be available to me as soon as they are released.

So I've got a lot going on right now and it feels good. I'm still looking for a full time job, but at least I have something to keep me busy for the time being.

This month has been full of other events too. My birthday came and went, my girlfriend's birthday was a blast (we stayed at an odd little cabin up in the mountains where we went sledding and cross-country skiing...I'm never going cross-country skiing again), I sold my first items on eBay, and there's still Christmas, my mom's birthday, New Years, and who knows what else to go.

So there's an update for ya. Oh, and I've made it to book 5 of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series and it's as epic as anything I've ever experienced.

Be Electric

It was only minutes ago that I stumbled over the 50,000 word mark curb and uploaded my 50,042 word novel to the NaNoWriMo website.
   
The journey was long and full of highs and lows. There were times when I thought I was writing something amazing, times where 3,000 words would fly by in an hour, but there were times when I wanted to quit, when I just wanted to delete the whole file and erase all of my crappy writing from the world so that no one would ever have to see it, times when it took twelve hours of sitting at the computer to barely get 2,000 words on the page.

Now there is the highest high I have felt since I began this adventure. Now I have written the first draft of my first novel. I have written 175 pages of crap, 175 pages of bad grammar, sentence fragments, plot holes, lifeless characters, and story threads that branch out and go nowhere. But the important part is that I did it, I wrote 175 pages. I feel like a writer, I am a writer. I thought I was a writer before, but now I feel like I have actually accomplished something, I have written a story at great length, a story of my own creation, a story which is mine and is full of characters that I created and have come to know over the course of my writing. I look forward to writing a more detailed second draft and learning more about my characters, the characters that are becoming my friends the more and more I write with them, the more I tell of their story.
  
This past month has been stressful, and now I feel the need to take a break and let my story settle in my thoughts. But the break won't be long. Though I am tired, my mind is full of ideas and excitement. I want to write this story again, but more true to what it is with all the loose ends tied up, proper story flow, and character depth and evolution that my story deserves. I want to finish and expand my story, and I will.

Thank you NaNoWriMo for giving me the kick in the ass I needed to start writing, now I don't think I will ever stop.

And 14,000 more words to go. No time to blog. Oy!