Mike's Mania

Norman, The Magnificent!

2007-11-19T11:09:00.000-06:00

This is a short story, a work in progress. It is a compilation of some life experiences and jokes made by me, enjoy:

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Norman’s mom and dad were simple people newly married and growing up in the 80s. They were a young couple watching MTV and living the simple life. The dad worked as an airline mechanic and his mom worked as an assistant prosecutor. She met her husband while trying to prosecute him on negligent manslaughter charges. Seems he ran out of bolts putting an airline engine on and it snapped off squishing his coworker. There was something about him and she messed up her case to get him off. They married three months later. However drove on their honeymoon rather than flying. Soon after she became pregnant with Norman. They complained to the condom manufacturer for the broken condom. The company apologized and explained that splints or anything else used in the condom is beyond it’s intended use and not covered under warrantee. Norman’s mom just tucked the apology letter from the condom company in with Norman’s birth certificate. Norman was born a huge baby probably from his mom’s Twinkie addiction while pregnant. It was ok because Norman was a beautiful, healthy…well interesting looking baby.

Other moms would look at baby Norman and give their sympathies for his facial birth defects, that is till they see the dad and realize it is normal for them and not defects at all. Norman moved from school to school. Seems his dad had to keep getting jobs in different places after being fired for mechanical accidents. Norman never got to have any really close friends except one Stan. Rather he let himself get picked on by bullies because they seem to not waste any time breaking the ice in knowing a new kid. He enjoyed the attention regardless of what kind. But it was Stan that from age eight that seem to be his shadow or the other way around.

Stan and Norman did everything together. As they got into their teenage years they joined the boyscouts. They were a small troop and mostly the other scouts would make Stan and Norman hike on long trails while they ate their food. The other scouts made Stan and Norman share a small tent while the rest put their stuff in a spare tent. Stan and Norman came up with an idea to get back at them. The troop was camped near a lake that had a far dropoff. The tents were pitched on a grassy level area next to it and a large hill to the other side. Stan and Norman thought they would loosen a large boulder off the side of the hill and let it roll down to crush the tent full of the other scout’s equipment. They went up the hill late at night to follow through with their plan to revenge. They found a perfect boulder and it is aimed straight towards the tent of equipment. They work and work dislodging it from the hillside and finally it gives way. Faster and faster it goes gaining moment heading for the intended target. Just as it gets to the bottom of the hill it hit a stump and altered course. Stan and Norman looked in horror running down the hill as if they could catch up with it. This large rolling rock hit the tent with the scoutmaster and rolled up with him in it. The scoutmaster had a propane lantern which ignited the tent. So the whole rock wrapped in burning tent and one screaming scoutmaster flew off the cliff like a burning meteor till it crashed into the lake. Later it was ruled an accidental death so a very frightened Stan and Norman vowed to never tell anyone the truth.

Norman’s dad volunteered to be the next scoutmaster. Norman’s dad was not quite getting the concept of scouting down to well. To get his troop their hiking merit badge, had them take their required distance hikes on a treadmill. However it wasn’t till he decided to play hoist the scout up a rope game that it came apart. You see Norman’s dad like to read about Darwin award winners and other urban myths to prove he could beat what allegedly others could not. The scouts had seen a hole in a large tree with some birds living in it. Norman’s dad tied a hammer to the end of a rope and threw it over a higher branch. Then tied one end to the scouts waist and the other to his truck. It worked pretty well till the brakes failed and the scout was flung over the branch breaking his arm. That was the end of Norman’s scouting days as well as his dads.

Now Stan was from a family of atheist and like to poke at Norman’s religious upbringing. Stan took Norman to a religious bookstore to prove that God does not exist. His reasoning was that if he steals a bible and nothing happens then there is no God. Norman is very nervous about the whole thing but follows him inside to see what happens. Stan looks around at the variety of bibles to see what would offend God the most by taking if he existed. Finally he eyes the one, it is a deluxe edition expensive one sitting on its own display alter. Stan slowly walks over to it and stares back at Norman. Norman showing a face of fear and curiosity stares back. Stan grabs the book quickly and starts to lift it up as his hands begin to burn and smoke starts pouring out of his smoldering palms. He starts to scream in pain as he drops the bible back on the alter. He runs out of the bookstore crying leaving Norman behind. Norman sees everyone is staring at him with an intent guilty stare. Everyone goes back to their business and Norman looks at the mysterious bible as the smoke starts clearing up and his friend’s burned handprints disappear. Norman edges close to it and points his finger to the book to just slightly test it for heat and as he gets inches from it, a blue arc of electricity pops him. Norman yells a restrained ouch as everyone stares at him again. He slowly leaves. For some reason Stan no longer has anything to do with Norman again.

Norman’s dad bought and put together a bicycle for Norman. Norman bravely started learning how to ride it till the brakes fail and he is thrown into the back of a garbage truck. Norman was paralyzed and in a wheel chair. The doctors found nothing permanently damaged and said that someday his legs might start working again. To make the best of it Norman allowed himself to play demolition derby with his friends. This usually meant he in his wheel chair against them and boxes. Or jousting with long poles against his friends on bikes.

One day he is wheeling along and drinking some hot chocolate. He stops to watch a wasp walking on a bush. He throws his hot chocolate on it and watches it twist around on the ground. Suddenly the wasp flies at amazing speed towards him to sting him and bounces off the frame of the chair. Norman starts racing away and heads down the street on a slope. He keeps looking behind him but the wasp is giving chase. He throws a book and it lands on the wasp pinning it to the ground. He stops and can hear the faint sound of buzzing in a struggling type of sound. The books flips over and the wasp is back after him. He starts to swat it with his plastic school ruler but it keeps coming back. He finally gives it a massive wack and the wasp is knocked backwards in flight to the right of him and the ruler snaps in half. He makes a break for it as the chase begins again. He gains more and more speed down the hill and the wasp keeps revving up speed himself to catch young Norman. Finally the Norman sees an eighteen wheeler truck coming and he plays chicken with the truck driver. The truck driver eyes Norman and starts giggling in a psychopathic way as he throws his truck into gear to try to go faster towards his wheelchair prey. Suddenly Norman breaks one wheel and moves out of the way of the truck. The truck driver cusses for missing him and then a big splat on his windshield appears from the chasing wasp. Norman looks back as the big rig turns around now mad for the wasp mess. Norman starts down a lonely street as the big rig turns on it after him. The rig catches up and starts pushing Norman faster and faster. The driver keeps staring down laughing insanely. Not paying attention the truck slams into a tree freeing Norman as he wheels away to home. The truck driver shakes the crash off looking at his smoking truck and broken windows. Then a large wasp nest falls out of the tree and the wasps begin attacking him. Norman hears the trucker’s scream from a distance.

Norman felt alone, however one day a new kid who was also in a wheel chair came to school. Norman tried to make friends but the new kid ended up a bully and kept tailgating him into different crashes all the time. The new kid had an electric wheelchair with lots of torque. Seems there was no way to battle this kid for strength against his mega-chair. So Norman devised a plan. Norman rolled quietly behind his wheelchair nemesis and poured glue on his wheels as the kid did his school work. The bell rang and the bully struggled to move his chair but the motor caught fire. The bully ended up being rescued but had to use his spare manual wheelchair. As the kid rolled around Norman hit him from the side and the battle was on. The kid spun around and squared off. They both wheeled as fast as their hands could muster and they impacted head on. The momentum made them stand up and bounce off each other back to their seats. The rest of the kids started laughing as Norman and his nemesis looked at each other in hatred. However hatred turned to a cause as they listened to everyone else laughing at them. They smiled at each other and turned on the rest of the kids like a rolling steel trap. The kids ran off screaming in panic. Norman and his old nemesis shook hands. It was the last Norman would see him as the kid’s parents moved.

One day Norman is wheeling along the sidewalk and passes by a big ant pile, running over a trail of ants he keeps going. However the ants begin to speak to each other. One ant tells the other “meals on wheels!” The ants give chase as Norman begins to see them coming by the millions down the sidewalk after him. He starts rolling faster to get away. He is losing them however ants in front of him have been messaged already with ant instant messaging. As he bypasses them, the ants throw a stick in his wheelchair spokes tumbling him over. He lay helpless as the millions of ants over take his legs stinging him. Suddenly his legs began to work. He jumps up brushing the ants off and starts stomping on them. The ants retreat back to the mound. He kills the remaining ants on him and goes over to the mound. The last of the ants just made it in. He pulls a large firecracker from his pocket and lights it to drop in the ant hole. He tells them, “See you hell ants!” The blast of dirt and ants goes everywhere as a miniature mushroom cloud of smoke rises from the ant home. Norman walks home to his parents joy he can walk, but it gets somber again as he learns his dad just got fired again.

Norman graduates from high school and aspires to be an astronaut. NASA begins to ignore his letters stating he would even act out being places in space like they faked the moon landing. He wants so much to be a team player. However he gets a job at Stale-Mart to gain some experience. He dreams that someday he will be a scientist and an astronaut. His co-workers gleam as he talks of his dreams and his enthusiasm to be someone someday. Twenty years have passed and Norman’s name is called on the Stale-Mart loudspeaker to clean up a mess in isle twelve. He is staring at the space shuttle toys as he goes to clean the mess. He lives in his parent’s basement and each evening he stares at his old wheel chair and the broken bike his dad had made for him. His dad is sort of retired after an airline crashed due to mechanical failures to which he was blamed for. Having no more airports for him to work at he called it quits. His dad just has a small home business repairing engines for ambulances. His mom had passed away years prior from her brakes failing on her car. Strangely everyone thought they were new after Norman’s dad just replaced them.

Norman watches his TV and a commercial comes on for erectile dysfunction. It offers a free porn video to show how well their product works. He calls and they promptly send his video. As he pops it in the player, it shows a man and woman getting undressed and starting to make passionate love. However the guy fails in performing the sex act and the woman starts laughing hysterically at him. The man leaves sobbing as the camera pans in on the woman and she points at the camera laughing harder. The logo for the pharmacy company appears and offers ordering instruction. Norman turns the TV off and begins to wonder if he will ever make love to a woman. He begins to fantasize and starts to masturbate. He stops and realizes that he has faked his own orgasm. Now he feels he cannot trust even himself with sex.

Norman’s life seem to be set and had made a career out of working at Stale-Mart. That is till one day the store manager called him in. He told Norman that he had done years of loyal service and they are promoting him to door greeter. The manager tries to reason that it is a time honored position and the most important. It is the first and last line of defense for shoplifting and face of that store. Norman feels proud and does his job with pride. That is till some kids run out of the store with stolen goods and he chases them. Norman chased them for blocks but they got away. When he gets back the manager chews on him for being gone so long. The manager reviews the tape and finds over a hundred customers have entered the store without being greeted. Company policy only allows twenty to be missed per month. Norman is let go, he leaves the store as the employees turn their back in shame of him. A company tradition when a greeter is dishonorably discharged.

Norman walks to a nearby hamburger joint to think about what has happened. He orders his food and the cook turns and looks at him with a smile. Norman smiles back and thinks that is a man happy with a job. Little did Norman know but the cook picks out people he wants and poisons the burger of that person. Norman starts to eat and begins to feel ill. He falls over on the table unconscious as a wait person quickly covers him with the table cloth and falls him into bus cart. He is rolled into the kitchen where the cook is waiting for his new bounty. They pull Norman out and he lands on the floor waking up. The cook chases him around the kitchen with a meat clever as Norman grabs some corn dogs and holds them up as weapons. The cooks warns him to put those dogs down and just accept his fate. If Norman gives in the cook will give him the honor of being the meatloaf special. Norman makes a break and the chef falls over a table and slides onto the grille screaming. However Norman runs out of the kitchen and screams to the patrons, “The corn dogs are people! The corn dogs are people!” Then runs out of the restaurant crying.

Norman staggering out of there collapses and people call an ambulance to take him to the hospital. The ambulance arrives and loads him up however as it goes to the hospital the wheels fall off and it crashes. Another ambulance arrives to take him to the hospital. As he is gurneyed out he hears the hospital administrator chewing his dad out for another failed ambulance repair. He is put in a room and lays for hours quietly thinking about everything in his life. Something in him snaps. His mind enters a zombie like state and he pulls himself out of bed and leaves.

He makes it home and changes from his hospital gown to his clothes. He puts on his blue Stale-Mart vest and a yellow happy face sticker on his forehead. He enters Stale-Mart as the greeter says, “hey Norm!” He ignores him and just mumbles in the store, “Low prices forever, low prices forever…” People stare at him as they move away. Once in a while he slaps his butt and says, “Yea baby!” Then back to mumbling his chant. Norman makes it over to the gun counter where a young kid is behind the counter. Norman unshaven and terrible looking grabs the kid by the vest and pleads with him, “You got to get out of here while you can. Don’t you see I used to be like you. Look what happened after so many years. You want to be like me?” The kid replies crying, “No, no!” and the kid runs off. Norman looks down as a customer walks up and asks him if he can help him with a gun purchase. It is Stan his old friend. Norman asks him what hell he is doing there. Stan tells him to stop cursing before God and help him. Norman looks intently for a moment and steps behind the gun counter. He says, “Yes sir what can I do for you today?” Stan says I need a gun and lots of ammo quick. Norman says there is a wait on guns to buy them. Stan is intent that he needs one now. Then Stan pulls out a bible and explains; “You see this end time stuff? You see these creatures flying around, I need to defend myself against this. I need a weapon powerful enough to shoot these flying scorpions down!” Norman said, “OK tell you what. I’ll let you have this gun and all the ammo you want but you have to leave the bible here.” Stan agrees and starts walking off but turns and asks, “Where are ski masks?” Norman points him to clothing a few isles away.

Norman stands looking around at his old workplace missing it. Soon he hears the sound of gunshots and people screaming at the front where the store bank is. Norman runs over to toys. He tells himself, “It is time to do what a Stale-Mart greeter is supposed to do.” Norman breaks open a remote control flying scorpion helicopter toy and flies it to the area of the gunshots. He sees people running like animals as Stan keeps firing. Finally Stan has them corralled in gardening. Stan looks up and sees the flying toy and screams, “My God it is happening already!” Stan tries to take the toy down with his gun as Norman gets in position. Finally Stan blows the toy apart and has a sigh of relief as he looks down and sees Norman standing near him. Norman tells him, “Thank you for coming to Stale-Mart Stan.” Norman slaps Stan with the bible and knocks him cold. Police storm in as customers praise Norman’s name and he is a hero. The store manager shows his tapes to the company to prove Norman created the whole event but Stale-Mart fires the manager as Norman is the best publicity stunt yet. Norman becomes the spokesman for Stale-Mart earning lots of money.

Stale-Mart Norman a seat on a private space mission as Norman the first ride along seat on it. He has finally became an astronaut. Strapped in the rocket and awaiting countdown the captain asks Norman is he ready to see space. Norman states, “Yes sir, I have been waiting for this my whole life.” Norman looks down thinking about his life. The captain says, “Oh by the way Stale-Mart was so happy about your saving all those people you will be happy to know they hired your dad to help in final mechanical preparations of this ship.” Norman’s eyes jolt forward in fear as you hear a booming voice say, “Three, Two, One, Liftoff!”

The End

The Terminal Warrior - Short novel

2007-11-18T15:05:00.000-06:00

The Terminal Warrior

John Tinen is a common unassuming man that works in an ice cream factory. He is single and does not date much. A quiet and gentle man which is quite a departure from his youth. He used to study the martial arts heavily and particularly the sword. He ranked pretty high in his old martial arts schools but all that was silenced with time and maturity. He used to be a health nut but after a while became a fast food junkie like most people. Overweight and lethargic are his modes of life now. Some might say he is on a self destructive course of not taking care of himself. A slow suicide, slow enough to be acceptable by society. But that is all about to change as he develops a new appreciate for life.

John has a sharp pain in his right side and wonders if it is a gas pain or something more serious. He tries to ignore the pain so it might go away but it does not. He finally gives in and sees a doctor. The doctor examines him and then sends him to a specialist. Like most specialist they assume if you are there and referred by a general doctor you must really have something wrong with you. In this case apparently he does as the pain is getting worse. Extensive tests are done on a array of possibilities. The tests come back eventually and John sits in front of the doctor to hear the bad news.

John is told he has cancer and it is inoperable. He will be fine till near the end and will suffer a very painful decline. He is given a year to live. For most of it he can function. John leaves the hospital in a daze. He thinks to himself why him. He ponders of all things he has not done, like getting married, having kids on and on. The regrets pile up like mail in the dead letter office. He goes to the beach and meditates on how to spend his final year. He goes place to place thinking, pondering, wondering what to do with himself. He finally decides he is not going to die sick in bed. He wants to go down fighting. To die with his boots on as they say. Well he is too old to join the US military and then there is no guarantee he will be sent into conflict and see action. He sees that there are wars and battles being fought all the time in South American countries and they recruit anyone even non citizens of their country. So he signs up with the Bolivian army and fights domestic terror groups.

He is trained a whole week then armed, uniformed and sent into an area of battle. The battle is won in 15 minutes and turns out that was the only resistance that country had so the war is over.

He slips out of the country and joins the Peruvian army and fights terror guerillas there. Battle after battle and each is won and he sustains no injuries. This is not working out because several months have passed and he has not died yet.

He then joins the Columbian army to fight illegal drug trade. Now an enemy that has power. They go into an operation against the cartels and his army group is badly out numbered. He knows this is it so he fearlessly fights with nothing to lose. His bravery and zealousness to engage the enemy inspires his fellow soldiers and despite the overwhelming odds the battle is won and the cartels are toppled. He is revered and a hero of the people. Awarded and then given a high rank and desk job he sits perplexed that he cannot seem to get himself killed. He then puts a gun to his head and thinks, I will just do it finally. He stops and thinks his "luck" can not go on forever, surely some battle will cut him down.

After pondering the dilemma he decides he will fight for the bad guys since they keep losing. So he joins the remnants of the cartels and rebuilds them. They start to battle the Columbian army and when the army discovers their hero general is now with the cartel they join him in causing a coop of the government. The government is toppled and John is installed as the new dictator and president of Columbia. He stands on a balcony as thousands of citizens chant his name. He cannot believe this is happening.

John thinks that he must have enemies everywhere and all he has to do is walk around without bodyguards in public. So he alerts the media he will be visiting certain cities at certain times by himself and unarmed. Surely someone will assassinate him. In doing so the people love him and see him as a great warrior and public figure willing to be among them. His would be enemies are softened by his bravery and leadership. Peace and prosperity have quickly taken hold of the country and he is regarded as a great man even among religions.

He thinks he could simply tax them to death and have police round up people to be tortured then there would be a revolt. But for some reason he seems he cannot do this as he feels he has accomplished something great here. Maybe to die now naturally would be a good way to go out. He decides to retire to die in peace and installs a man that followed him in all this that is good. He takes advantage of the doctors to give him an update when he will die. After he is thoroughly examined the doctors tell him there is nothing wrong with him. It must have been a mis-diagnosis. He laughs heartily and suddenly has a feeling of mortality come over him. He decides to go back to the US and do all the things in life he wanted to originally.

After arriving in the US he starts having attempts on his life from groups he fought in early battles. One after another come after him as he fights to not die this time but to save his life. Because of his experience he battles on assassin after another and wins barely. Finally his contacts in other countries tell him it is over, that he seems to be unbeatable and the heat is off. He may live in peace. As time goes by he finds a nice lady and makes her his wife. She is pregnant and he is elated that his life is on track. She holds a surprise birthday party for him and as he celebrates his body becomes weak and he is very nauseous. Going to the hospital they tell him this is the beginning of the cancer he was first diagnosed with a year ago. He said that Columbian doctors told him it was wrong. His doctor tells him they often do that to leaders of their country so they dont get killed for giving bad news. But now he will die in a month. He is sad that he is going to die in the way he fought so hard not to and with the life starting he really wanted.

Days go by as his wife takes care of him and his health slowly but surely declines. Day after day she tends to him. One day the president of Columbia stops by to talk to him. Alone the president tells John that the country is still doing well and a huge statue has been place in his honor. He should not worry that his wife and child to come will be well taken care of with wealth. John tells him that he did all of it to die and escape this decline of death. He wanted to go out fighting. The president tells him that he freed a country, gave life and peace to countless and now has a wife with a child that are going to live well. What person can has that kind of legacy? The president said you will die well. They shake hands and he leaves. John's wife kisses him and leaves for the night. John lies there recalling everything in the past year. He finally is happy and closes his eyes to embrace death.

Fun with internet scammers

2007-11-17T10:12:00.000-06:00

I got an email addressed from Princess Lilly. I opened it because I used to have an online friend by that stage name. However it was a spam, scam email from India. I thought the story was so interesting I decided to respond with my own story. First is their email to me and then my response:

--- On Sun, 6/8/08, Princess Liliy wrote:

From: Princess Liliy
Subject: Hello my dear,
To: hiddencomedian@yahoo.com
Date: Sunday, June 8, 2008, 5:10 PM

Hello my dear,

Compliment of this good moment. This letter may be a surprise to you,I'm Princess irene Liliy Ousman Jammeh.from Ivory Coast 22 years old, height 5 ft 11 inches, weight 61. I got your profile from internet search and i would like you to do me a great favour which will possitively manifest your life and mine. I'am the only child of late king Ousman Jammeh from Ivory Coast in west Africa.

He was murdered alongside with my mother on there way to mutanza town which left no trace. I escaped to a refugee camp in a neighbouring country Dakar the capital of Senegal when his kingsmen tried to poison me so that they could inherit what belongs to my father.i will give you the details of my proposal on your next email together with my pictures. I hope you will wellcome my concern with pleasure,untill i heard from you.

huggs and kisses.
Princess Liliy

Check out the all-new face of Yahoo! India. Click here.

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Dear Princess Lilly,

I am so sorry to hear about your loss and the attempts on your life. That must be horrible. However I too have suffered the same type tragedies. My father was a very wealthy man and was accidentally pulled apart in a tractor accident while attaching a hay bailer. My mom likewise was killed running to help him and the tractor shifited into gear making her a human hay bail.

My only brother to our family fortune met his fate the other day. While taking a dare he decided to masturbate with a cheese grater.

Ever since then that tractor has mysteriously showed up and tried to mow me down. But it ran out of gas and my life was spared. I will be more than happy to hear your proposal as I am sure it will benefit both our lives and bring us prosperity and happiness forever.

Yours in Christ and Prana,

Sauron

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New entry:

I got a response back making another request of me. I mentioned I had a fortune myself of millions in Italian lira which is about $6,500 US. First part is their email response and then my response back.

--- On Mon, 6/9/08, liliy princess wrote:
From: liliy princess
Subject: Hello my dear,
To: hiddencomedian@yahoo.com
Date: Monday, June 9, 2008, 5:15 PM

Hello my dear,

how are you today?i thank you for your reply which i received now it makes me to confide more on you because no body cares for me since all this while.actually i have a proposal that is the reason for contacting you.am Princess Irene Ousmik Jammeh from Gambia,a female student from University of Gambia Banjul the only child of late king Ousman Jammeh .Am 24 years old.caring, loving and home oriented despite the fact that I am from royal family.

I would like to build up a solid foundation with you in time coming ,if you can be able to help me in this transaction.well, my father died earlier seven months ago and left I behind. He was a king, which our town citizens titled him over eighteen years before his death. I was a princess to him and I am the only child and the only person who can take care of his wealth now because my mother died fourteen years ago during the birth of my only brother Jallow who equally died after few hours he was delivered.

My father left the sum of USD,($3.7 M) (THREE MILLION SEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS,)in a finance company. This money was annually paid into my late fathers account from Shell petroleum development company (spdc) and chevron oil company operating in our locality for the compensation of youth and community development in our jurisdiction.I don't know how and what I will do to invest this money somewhere in abroad, this is the reason i finally decided to contact you to see if you can be able,there is no risk on this transfer .when i contacted the bank with my late fathers documents they told me to look for a foreign partner whom will lay a hand on it because the citizen of senegalis is not allowed to partack on such transfer.

I will send my photographs and phone number as soon as i hear from you.Yours sincerely,
Princess Irene Liliy

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Dear Princess Lilly,

I would love to help you in your financial plight. I understand the problems with moving money around in order to secure it. I have continually moved my inherited fortune of 7,973,738 million lira from bank account to bank account in order to keep it from publisher's clearninghouse from seizing my money in order to pay my family's huge McCalls magazine debt. So far so good, I have my money.

So please send pictures and instructions to what I need to do in order to help you secure your inherited fortune.

Your best friend forever in Chakra Can,

Sauron

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Another response to my last letter:

--- On Tue, 6/10/08, liliy princess wrote:

From: liliy princess
Subject: My Dearest Mr.Sauron,
To: hiddencomedian@yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2008, 5:30 PM

My Dearest Mr.Sauron,

how is your day? i hope you are fine,Well i thank you for your reply of yesterday it makes me to live again beyond reasonable doubt, i pray that for all our days that this will be the beginning of our never_ending relation_ship.when you receive this money into your account you have to get intact with your Bank manager, always follow his instruction so that you can be able to get intact with the money for security purpose. i will like to have your identity for me to proove on you the more.All this you will do for me when this money must have been transfered into your Account and they are my despirate passions.

1) You will help me to get my traveling documents to join you over there in your country to continue my education then you will manage the money for me in any good investment.
2) After the transaction you will withdraw some money and send to me to pay for my flight ticket to you country.3). When i arrive in your country for the disbursement of the money on agreed you will withdraw 20 percent of the total money for your effort, and 5 percent for any expenses that you may encounter during the transfer process.

In other for me to introduce you to the bank as my foreign next of kin in which this money will be transferred into his account, i want you to send this information to me so that i will send it to the bank; YOUR FULL NAME, RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS ,YOUR OCCUPATION, YOUR NATIONALITY, YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBER,YOUR AGE,TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBERS.As soon as i received your next email indicating your willingness to help me by sending the above mentioned information, i will instantly send to you all the necessary information to commence the transaction so that you can get me out from this refugee's camp as soon as possible.

You can get me through the office telephone number of Rev. Mark Williams, He is the presiding Rev. in the camp and his telephone number is +221,767,46,96,02 Whenever you call him, tell him that you want to speak with Princess Irene Liliy and he will instantly send for me. The attached below is some copies of my pictures and i will love to have yours. I hope you will not betray the trust that i bestow on you and i will be happier if you promise me that you are always there for me. As bible said that two is better than one. Have a nice day.

Have a lovely day and i am waiting to hear from you.
Princess Irene Liliy Ousman Jammeh

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Dearest Lilly,

Again your plight has touched my heart and I am reading your instructions. I want to say thank you for the two pictures, you are very pretty and if my sexual orientation were that way, I would be juiced right now. However being gay and a bigot definitely cuts you out of my desire. However if I wasn't such a bigot I might be interested but after coming out of the closet I no longer have an interest in women.

It hasnt been easy though being a bigoted gay person. I am the only person in my klan that marches in pink robes. This has been a problem for my fellow members but they knew me before I turned gay and understand.

Here is my current information:

Sauron
Black Castle #3
Moargard, Middleearth 90210-666

I dont have a bank account unfortunately. However I have saved 1000 Kellogg's boxtops and can send them to you. They are redeemable for many things including a blow up kayak so that you may paddle over here. I am sorry I don't have enough for the safety helmet. I also can send over a few gifts too. I will send a civil war chess set, a civil war monopoly set and a civil war solitaire game plus I might part with my French-Indian war operation game. In addition I will also include my collection of Perry Como's greatest hits on laserdisc for your enjoyment.

I know it is not much but let me extend these things which I am sure you can pawn for a zillion dollars. If you do manage to make it over here please look me up. I work at McDonalds in Kenya, NH. Just ask for Sauron and order the #3, it is my specialty.

Anyway thank you for letting me help you and I hope you make it out of your labor camp soon.

Sauron, the Oracle of PhilaDelphia

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Yet another reply and installment of playing with email scammers:

--- On Wed, 6/11/08, liliy princess wrote:

From: liliy princess
Subject: Hello Dearest Sauron,
To: hiddencomedian@yahoo.com
Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2008, 6:01 PM

Hello Dearest Sauron,

how is your day? i hope it always come fine,i have received your email and i have more hope on you now despite all the sufferings and cheavrings in this camp i know that the good lord has come to put an end to it and that is what i always pray for,any way i heard all your promises and i think i like all that.

i went to the bank this afternoon with your informations and they told me that your information is not capable for the transfer.they complained that you don"t have an account in which the money can be transfered.they also said that since you don"t have account that they have to transfer the money through werstern union transfer, but it will be sent little by little till the said amount is complete or through their diplomatic means of transfer in which the diplomat will convey the transfer into your country face to face,i don"t know the best for you but they assured me that any of the two means is well gurranteed.

your information is not complete but right now there is no need sending them to me because i have already told them that you will send it to them personally,please sir remember that you are all i have now in this earth if not God.so i will like you to take me like a sister while this transfer commenced,don"t cheat on me because i pray every time for your prosperity,like as you promise to send me gift and more,i need any gift from you, any one you can be able to send for now because there is much suffering here in this camp.for now i will give you their contact and you have to contact them based on your wish for the transfer.do update me immediately you contact them many thanks..bellow is their contact;

have a nice day,bye,

princess Liliy Ousman Jammeh.

Att;
Name;Agence Assurance Securite.
Address;crescent avenue san Darker/Senegal.
Telephone;+221,33,20,86,80,86
Email;agenceassurancesecurite@mailbox.hu
Telefax;+221,228,60,82,51
Contact person; Mr.Siabo Baizon

my dear, i suggest you write them like this ,but you have to put all informations except your account as you said earlier.

Good day sir,

my name is chra sauron ,am the next of kin to princess Irene Liliy Ousman Jammeh.and i would like to know the neccessary proceedure to commence her transfer ........am age..... ...am from .............i live at........

am male by sex, i don"t have an account and i will like to choose .........on this transfer.i hope you mail me soon explaining the proceedure for her transfer.

regards,
Chra Sauron.

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Dear Princess Lilly and Chra Sauron,

Thank you for you quick response and Western Union Information. However I am unable to use Western Union as well because of my great grandpa God rest his soul. Apparently he used to cut down Western Union telegraph lines for fun back in the 1800s. However Western Union caught up with him and hooking up a fake telegraph line to a several cow electric fences. This unwittingly created a tesla affect that amped up the voltage into to hundreds of thousands of volts. This in turn fried my great grandpa like a piece of bacon. My family still go to the memorial pole and wire left with his biscuit size charred remain.

Unfortunately I wont be able to send those Kellogg's boxtops as my cousin stole them to redeem them for blow up sex doll in which he has already poked a hole in. He tried patching the hole in an apparent re-viginization of the doll but no longer became a usable device other than to talk to. In a fit of disgust he has left the said doll in a church pue for next Sunday's service in Topeka, Kansas.

Now since the klan has kicked me out for being homosexual I have had to turn in all my robes of white, pink and fuscha color. Also they took my civil war games in like manner that had too much blue colored pieces.

However what I can offer you is a my rare collection of ancient Babylonian coins which are made of stone. Because of time, the salesman told me that they look like regular pebble stones by now. However assuredly at one time King Xerxes was on them.

I also have a countless collection of nano-technology robots that I have in a box. I have pains takingly combed them out from where they like to live on me and put these little crab like robots in a package for you.

And lastly I have collection of movies I can send. They are classic greats I am sure you will enjoy like Ishtar, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Nurse Betty, Battlefield Earth, and Hoodwinked. These are on VHS so I hope you can make them work.

Again sorry for you plight. I must go now for my yoga session. It involves me being on the toilet and farting all the bran out of me. For a brief moment I float in the air like Yogi's.

Take care and may all your lsd induced dreams come true,

Sauron, third cousin to Thor.

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--- On Sun, 6/15/08, liliy princess wrote:

From: liliy princess
Subject: Dear Sauron,
To: hiddencomedian@yahoo.com
Date: Sunday, June 15, 2008, 7:34 PM

Dear Sauron,

how is your day? i hope fine, i have been trying to understand your conscience for a long time but i can"t understand any.
right now am hoping on the furture,not that you can"t be. but as of the moment is full of bitter and am not happy ,
I told you all about my late Father"s deposite and you keep on making fool of mine and i never realise all that,but in any case
i will put all things to right and i can"t hesitate to forget about you because you have fool me to the extend that the bank
is teasing and laughing at me, may be you have come accross some frod and scammers,but that could not be the reason why you should
have no regard on me because you didn"t know me for the first time.

i have finnaly decided to let you know that my late father"s deposit is prospering right now that am mailing you
i couldin"t email you for long thats because am not happy of what am discovering from you.
assuming you requested for the documents of my late father"s deposit in other to be sure of what am saying, i would have send them to you,instead you keep making fool of mine, is unfortunate, am fade up" am sure" i will defenitely succeed this time,
have a nice day.and do not contact me if you must be the same.
princess irene liliy.

---------------------------

Dear Princess Lilly,

I am sorry you feel I have been making a fool of you. I assure you that my stories are as true as yours. I have real concern for your plight. I am sorry to have embarrassed you with your bank. Let me share with you some pearls of wisdom that was given to me by my late great uncle Otis. "Banks may fail, stock markets may crash, people may be no damn good but they will always need real estate and will pay through the nose to get it." The bottom line is one person's desert is another's new beachfront property. I think that is what he was trying to get across to me.

I hope that gives you some direction. Answers to life for me usually are kept in a mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnalls doorstep for a day and then read to me cryptically by a talk show host. But that is just me.

I am sorry that I could not help you much further. I have been strapped by the gas prices to such an extent that I have been forced to join the Shriner's just to get one of those little cars they drive so I can get to work. If you like I can get you one of those fez caps.

Most of my money has been spent in taking care of my sister Minnie who lives in Orlando, FL. She got pregnant by accident the other day when someone slipped her a mickey. If I find the rat that did that, I will knock them to pluto. It is a goofy situation and she should have stayed away from pleasure island. Her boss Walt and supervisor Donald have been very understanding though.

Irregardless what money I did have I lost in a technology company investment. I should have known there was something wrong when their primary invention was a time machine. Apparently they were only able to develop one that could take you to the present so you could fix your issues in your own time. Their company folded after an industrial accident where the test pilots were lost in time. Those brave pilots will be missed and we only have their presence to remind us of them.

Well I am off to my new job. I have joined an expedition to find the elusive bigfoot sasquatch. A mythical creature that looks like an 8 foot apeman living in north America. We think the stealthy ability of this creature is it's fur. Therefore we are spraying the entire Oregon forest with Nair. As the hair falls off the bigfoot, we should be able to see the tall pink creatures running around easier. Kind of like chasing after streakers at that point.

Well I wish you well and hope you get out of your problems. If it becomes too much, you might take up phishing as a hobby. There are lots of things that will take your bait. Hope you reel in a big one!

May God bless you with many White Castle Hamburgers,

Sauron, captain of the Titanic

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--- On Mon, 6/23/08, liliy princess wrote:

From: liliy princess
Subject: Dear Sauron,
To: hiddencomedian@yahoo.com
Date: Monday, June 23, 2008, 11:51 PM

Dear Sauron,

How are you and your family today? Hope all is well by God's grace! I
am using this opportunity to show my joy of success in getting that
fund transferred with a help of another partner South korea to
you.Though it failed us somehow nevertheless i would not forget your
past efforts
and trust to assist me .

Now, I want you to contact my secretary on the information
below:Name:Rev.mr.Mark Williams, Ask him to send to you the total sum of
(US$1.200.000.00) One Million Two Hundred Thousand United State
Dollars in a bank draft which I kept for your compensation.

So contact him immediately on his e-mail: (mr.markwilliams4488@yahoo.com)
and send him the below information to enable him deliver your bank
draft to you.

1.YOUR FULL NAME:_________________________
2.YOUR ADDRESS,CITY AND COUNTRY:___________
3.YOUR MOBILE/FAX NUMBER:_________________
4.YOUR AGE AND OCCUPATION:________________

Regards,
Princess Liliy.

---------------------------------

Dearest Princess Lilly,

I hope you are ok and that you have found your prince on some lillypad.

I am excited to hear that Mark is working with you. I actually know Mark very well as we grew up in Little Rock, AR. You see when Mark and I were kids we often would enjoy a game of throwing ants on each other till one of us ended up needing medical treatment. He usually won until the one day I threw a black widow spider on him. After he come out of 6 months of coma we made upl and played cowboys and indians. I always played the Indian and he shot at me with his play rifle. However I used real bows and arrows and nailed him one day. After his long surgery from an arrow hit and replacement liver he recovered and forgave me. He even let me keep his scalp in which I took after defeating him that day.

When we became teenagers we used to play chicken with cars. However I learned that it wasnt very sporting to sneak up behind him and hit him with my car while he was walking. After his bodycast came off and we found a kidney donor for him, he forgave me and taught me manners. To make it up to him I took him camping in the deep forest of Alaska shortly after high school. I bought him some very heavy hiking boots to protect his feet. I felt bad as they proved to slow him down when we both had to run from a kodiak bear. Somehow my running shoes proved to be the best thing to wear. He survived the bear attack playing dead and we picked up where we left off after his 8 month rehabilitation in the hospital learning how to walk and talk again.

We parted in life for a number of years but happen to meet up again. I was excited to see he had married and had three wonderful kids. I was so excited to see him again and we went out partying all the time. We used to get so drunk and pick up women all the time. He even forgave me for that after his wife left him with the kids after finding us drunk with three women and a transvestite. I became his partner in alcoholics anonymous and because he was my friend I let him slide once in a while on the drinks. Even after his liver pickled from alcohol and he had to have another he thanked me for the good times.

Yet after that we split up and it has been years since I have seen him. So I am glad we have the opportunity to know each other again. I see he is a minister now, that is good. I would love to help him with his followers and make another impact on his life. We have a lot of catching up to do.

So I will get my information promptly to Mark so we can start where we left off.

Thank you for reuniting me with my old friend and may the diety of your choice bless you.

Yours in Shinto,

Sauron

The New Oil

2007-11-16T09:49:00.000-06:00

As a kid I watched an Apollo mission land in the ocean. I wondered why are we so interested in going to the moon. We can easily see it from a telescope, what do we hope to find. I pondered that my whole life till now. Like Columbus seeking a new passage to India but finding a whole new continent, exploration is always financed for the purpose of trade. Those that accomplish it may do it for a noble principle of knowledge, science what have you. However it is driven by those with money seeking to control more money and more power through discovery. The same is why we spent billions on the Apollo missions to find some kind of resource on the moon that could be used. The moon presents a unique opportunity in that only a few countries can reach it. Which one can reach it first and mine its resource will command that commerce for a very long time. The Apollo missions gave us what we needed but we did not have quite the tech to understand what the potential fully was. So Apollo was cancelled when we had enough to study. This perplexed NASA people as they thought we were going to the moon for science, wrong. Most still dont understand why the missions were canceled at the end. It was blamed on Vietnam and other things but the reality is the people financing it already had what they were looking for. It was time to examine their finds and see what can be made of it.

Now we see China, Russia are going to the moon in a big hurry. Suddenly our own government has canceled numerous NASA projects in order to race to the moon again but why? It is naive to think it is for science or lofty reasons like pride. The real reason is that they finally figured out something that is there of great importance. So much so that a former Apollo astronaut and expert geologist as well as his scientist fusion partner have teamed to form a company to harvest what they discovered there.

The race is on for a new energy source. The oil companies have suppressed electric cars for decades in attempt to stay in the oil game. But they know that the time is nearing they cannot hold these technologies back anymore. Especially when we have electric cars today that can run on battery twice as long as an economy gas car, require little maintenance, pollution free, faster in response than a gas car, and only takes an hour to recharge on house current. Even plastics made from oil is being challenged as farmers have developed plastic from corn that is totally biodegradable. The oil industry knows that there is still 120 trillion dollars of oil left in the earth, but is not endless. The US seized control of the second largest supply, Iraq to sell to the largest customer of oil right now, China. However the problem is that eventually oil will run out, there are too many countries that can produce it in competition, and China and Russia are looking towards harvesting a new source that will replace it. So the US must make what it can off the oil but grasp the new energy source before the other countries do.

The new oil of the 21st century I dub the new oil is called Helium3. Right now fusion is the bright future of energy from Hydrogen. However hydrogen releases too many neutrons that tend to destroy the reactor in no time. However helium3 is chemically the same as hydrogen but releases few neutrons so a reactor can last a very long time. The problem is helium3 is very rare on earth. Where it comes it from is the sun. The sun sends solar winds of helium3 in abundance but our atmosphere shields us from it. However lucky for us the moon has no atmosphere and there are many years of collection of helium3 all over it. Millions of tons of helium3 are in abundance there. It is estimated that one metric ton of helium3 can power a large city for a year easily and there are millions of tons of it on the moon. This means safe, enivronmentally clean energy that is powerful, quite literally the new oil. We know how to make it work and power everything with it already. It is must a matter of getting it.

It is estimated it would cost 15 billion dollars a year to harvest helium3 from the moon. However the current value of helium3 is 1 billion dollars per ton. It is the most valuable substance currently by far. Now you know why three major powers of this planet are in a race to mine it. It means economic domination of the world for years to come and no other oil producing country can get to it. Oil becomes a useless lubricant eventually.

There is a contest with NASA right now for anyone to think of a space elevator to move material up and down into space from our atmosphere. The purpose obviously is to find a way to bring helium3 down from orbit without the nasty re-entry methods we use now. Traveling to and from the moon and transport has already been worked out. But what about living on the moon to have workers harvest it? Right now NASA has an underwater home in the Gulf of Mexico where scientist live for extended periods of time and take outside walks in makeshift suits to simulate the moon. They build things and examine the difficulties of building a moon base. This simulation is done in 60 foot of water with waternauts wearing heavy weights to simluate the 1/6 gravity of the moon.

How about water, food, supplies for people to survive on a moon base? A scientist using simulated moon dust, dirt made exactly like the moon's, was able to heat it to 800 degrees in a special device and extract Water! Moon dust is rich in oxygen so you have an ample supply of rocket fuel, air, water right there. There is also nitrogen in it so growing plants and food is easy. Helium3 is the energy source sought so you have plenty of fuel for power. The moon actually has more things you need to survive there than an earth desert. So living there can be totally self sufficient.

The US, Russia and China expect to all be on the moon by 2020. The race is on for helium3 the new oil. Who will dominate the new energy source for the 21st century?

Strangers With Candy sequel proposal by me

2007-11-15T11:33:00.001-06:00

If you are a fan of Strangers With Candy you will appreciate it. If you are big fan you probably will hate it. Anyway if you dont know this show and movie, it is a production by Stephen Cobert and Amy Sedaris about an ex-con crack whore who goes back to high school at age 40 to restart her life. I wrote a sequel to their movie and submitted it to the producers of the show. Doubt I will get a response but if you see the gags and scenarios in a new movie, you know where it came from.

Strangers With Candy on Comedy Central
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Strangers With Candy – The Sequel “Stalker Brand Candies, because love never quits”

We start out a year prior to Jeri being in school. She is in prison and she is the slave pony to the queen prison bitch that runs the cell block four gang “the beauties”. Each woman in this gang has her gang name as a state, Jeri’s is Idaho. Reason being is she is the “ho”. The head of the gang or queen is ex Miss Universe and astronaut who was busted cocaine, prostitution and soliciting a minor on one of those catch a predator tv shows. She is beautiful and appears like a courteous Sandy from the movie Grease with an dark Darth Vader evil side. She has made Jeri her personal bitch as it was Jeri’s dad who was responsible the queen’s dad being jailed prior. However Jeri is not knowledgeable about this yet.

Back to the present. Jeri is in high school and her teacher Chuck Noblet is reciting versus to his science class out of the bible. He is teaching how after Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden of eden they had nothing to eat, so they ate all the dinosaurs. Jeri interrupts Chuck and asks can she be a science teacher like him. Chuck replies that God does not allow things like this to happen and prove his point he directs her to go to that “heathen” guidance counselor. Jeri leaves the room and looks back somber at Chuck. Chuck tells her to go now because this is the closest to a career she will have.

Jellineck walks in the room as Jeri leaves, Jeri begins to say something to Jellineck but he tells her that he will deal with her in his class. Jeri walks away like a small child that is sad. Chuck stares at Jellineck and whispers “you complete me” with signs with his hand. Jellineck starts crying and cries all the way down the hall way for a while. Meanwhile Chuck is staring at the door and breaks thought to tell the class to now open their bibles he means science books to tower of babel. This is where things got racist.

The scene now turns to hearing principal Blackman behind his office door yelling that he does not want to ever hear about “you” bringing a gun to school. Knives are also supposed to be under 12 inches in length and no grenades. The door opens and it is the school nurse leaving crying and saying she is sorry. Blackman orders her to leave and bring back those medicines he asked for. He then points to one of the waiting students in his secretary’s office and orders them in his office. As the student enters his office, he asks if they brought their lunch money this time.

Jerri shows up to the door of the guidance counselor. The sign on the door says; “Guidance Counselor/Astrologer/Sex Therapist/Weight Loss Coach” She enters and this overweight man greets her. She sits down and tells him she wants to do something with his life like be a science teacher or maybe a guidance counselor like him. The counselor goes on a rant about you kids always are after his job. Just because they are younger and smarter they think they can replace him. He tells Jerri that he will see what is in the cards for her. He throws some chicken bones on a ouji board and stares at it. He states that her future is crack whore. She says, “Wow, wait I have been that already.” He says to wait a minute and he turns the board around. He then tells her ok your future career will be a politician maybe president of the united states. She gets excited and says, ‘Really!” He says, “Sure it is possible, I don’t really know since I ran out of board before it showed prison again for you, but that is not what is important. The important thing is you are in school taking the right steps. Now go out that door and learn. Please lock the door on your way out and tell no one you where here.” Jerri leaves all excited.

Jerri goes home her step mom gets onto her that she just got finished cleaning the door knobs and she just dirtied them up again. Jerri happily walks into her step brother who tells her to back up skunk monkey. She tells him that sticks and stones have broken her bones but words will always get you shanked. He begins to make a punching motion but tells her, that if she did not have those unknown diseases he would lay her out with one hit. They stare each other down as Jerri makes it up to her dad’s room. She converses with her dad in his coma state about what she should do. His coma body points to her room. She sobs as she wanders there. Jerri pulls out her shoe box of her mom’s ashes and asks her what she should do with the rest of her life. She stares confused and puts the box on the shelf. As she looks at the box sitting on her bed, her step mom screams, “lights out!”. Jerri turns her lights off and gets ready for bed. She looks at the box and says, “Mom, someday I will be someone important, you will see.” The stepmom screams, “No talking till tomorrow’s head count!”

The scene changes to the prison cell showing the back of the prison queen wearing her tierra. The guard tells her she is free to go now. Music of cape fear swells up and she turns with a big beautiful smile. As she leaves we see pictures of Jerri and her dad on the wall. The guard asks her if she is going to take all her packages of kool-aid with her? She states, I am going to use real makeup for now on. She passes the camera.

Jerri stands at her sidewalk waiting for the bus and waves to the students across the street where the high school is. The bus arrives and she gets on sitting next to Megawatti. She asks what he is reading and he states it is about evolution. She says really, I use to love science fiction. The bus stops and Tammi Littlenut steps on. Jerri tells Megawatti to sit in the seat in front of her to make room for Tammi. Jerri yells for “Copperhead” to sit with her. Tammi reluctantly sits and Jerri begins to make sweet talk to her. Jerri asks her if she likes movies about gladiators. About that time the bus stops and walks on is queen prison bitch and cape fear music swells. She sits in the seat next to Jerri and asks her how she has been. Jerri asks what is she doing here. The queen tells her that she is going back to high school and starting over. She asks if she can come over after school and catch up on ole times. Jerri tells her no. Queen informs Jerri about a lot of things her friends might be interested to know about her and immediately Jerri agrees to the visit. The bus stops at school and the driver yells for everyone to get off. Everyone starts shuffling towards the front and the driver tells them to leave out the emergency door in the back, the front is for entering only.

Jerri and Queen are in Jerri’s room and Queen is looking around. Queen tells Jerri she is impressed and begins to tell Jerri it is fitting that her dad is in a coma. Jerri asks what she means. Queen begins to tell her about what her dad did to his. The scene goes to that time as Queen narrates. She explains how they were friends and knocked over cigarette trucks together. That was tell her dad was caught and ratted out the Queen’s dad. He testified against the Queen’s dad at the trial. As the accusations are read the jury is crying. One juror looks at Queen’s dad and silent says, “how could you?” While another juror is reading crime and punishment magazine. Later the judge asks the jury foreman if they have come to a verdict. The jury foreman stands up and lifts a ventroloquist dummy and the dummy states in a high pitch voice, “He’s guilty!” The vision goes back to Jerri’s room and Jerri says I am sorry but I did not do anything to you. Queen states that she is right and the past is the past. Jerri says good and goes to the bathroom. Jerri returns and the Queen is doing cocaine lines using the ashes of Jerri’s mom on a mirror. Jerri screams asking what she is doing with her mommy. Queen asks her if she knows how much drugs her mom did, the street value is incredible on her ashes. Jerri kicks her out. Queen looks back and tells Jerri, I will beat you in every way.

---------------------

I am working on the rest later. My scenerio is the queen becomes class president and her picture shows up everwhere as she is loved by all. The principal and guidance counselor has her picture up and so forth. The rivalry goes on through the movie as Jerri tries to compete with queen.

A story about UFOs and Roswell - Novel

2007-11-15T11:31:00.001-06:00

As some of my friends know my brother is a full time UFO researcher so I get exposed to a lot of theories, evidence so forth from him and his entourage. I have heard just about every theory upside down and sideways on Roswell and what might have happened. My brother has met many of the remaining “witnesses” to this event and even some of the military guys that were involved with it as well as has an alledged piece of this craft that crashed if it really happened. After seeing the alien craft piece and seeing all the "evidence" I decided to write a novel on Roswell and the events around it using actual people and history from the event. This is a made up story from the perspective that the crash was real by an alien craft and telling the story from a government operative in the midst of it. This is like a confessional from him. Not a gripping story but chock full of nuggets from UFO researchers and enthusiasts.

------------------------------------------------

Roswell Agenda

For a long time man has witnessed strange objects in the sky. He has seen crop circles for thousands of years. Early pilgrims in America used to call them Hexen Danz or dance of the devil. Paintings for centuries have been made of crop circles and ufos. These visitors have been seen on pottery of the Aztecs and Mayans. One showed a saucer like object with stairs coming down from it and strange beings. Native Indians have legends of these objects even landing. In Nuremburg, Germany around 1500 AD a war took place where the ufos fought each other. Fifty thousand people witnessed this event in awe and a famous painting was made of it. Some suppose these visitors are gods to be worshipped while others regard them as angelic beings or demons to be feared. Believers not in the religious sense regard them as alien visitors from another world, while half of the population do not believe they exist at all. I believe they exist, it is no question for me. You see my name is Sheridan and I am government consultant for counter intelligence that studies them. I can say they exist because I have met them and know who they are and what they are, which is something that takes some explaining.

They have been here for a long time, since man’s early history. They are not aliens visiting us from another world, they are from here. I mean here by this solar system or vicinity. The aliens are just constructed beings, puppets if you will by others we have not seen. We are aware they exist but do not know them, only their bio-mechanical creations they use to effect our history. They are like a buffer between man and the puppet masters. We can only theorize what the actual agenda of the puppet masters are by what their puppets do. What we do know is that they have constructed seven types of alien puppets. One of which is the most common we call grays. They are about four foot around an IQ of 80 and seem to panic when things don’t go according to program. They have large heads with black eyes. The eyes are like sunglasses, protective covers that cover a transceiver type eye which is red. They have no ears or auditory system. They have small mouths which ingest food in a liquid type form, however they are very mechanical beneath. They communicate through their eyes. They are able to stimulate your retina in a way that makes you think you are audibly hearing them. They read your lips and sense your intentions. It makes it very hard to lie to them. If you are not trained they can subdue you by just staring at you.

After many years of study we learned about the aliens and their crafts. They have different types of ships. They have a few of what we call motherships. These look like giant short height cylinder shaped craft with docking stations all around it’s parameter. It is six hundred miles across and they very rarely comes near earth. They sit most of the time in the asteroid belt were most all their crafts are made from. The next type is a cigar shaped long cylinder. We call them space carriers. These are about fifteen miles long and park inside the large mothership. Russia and America had sent an orbital probe to Mars and the NASA cameras on this probe snapped an infrared picture of a carrier near the moons of Mars. That was right before the probe vanished. These carriers seem to carry smaller craft of a variety of configurations. The most common is the saucer type which are 30 feet in diameter and usually carry about five aliens. Some of the others are larger and house the other types of aliens, but these are rarely seen. There is another type which is seen fairly often and these are called probes. They are un-piloted and seem to be an independent robot that flies around observing things. They are usually no more than five to ten feet in length and come in a variety of interesting designs. Some even look like flying question marks.

It seems the aliens have manipulated human history for a long time. They knocked down the wall at Tyre for Alexander the Great so he could finish that particular conquest. There is even evidence they have tampered with human genetics. Even in the bible it talks about a sign of the end time being people having heart attacks seeing things come on the earth. So even in religion and literature we seem to have always known that something big is going down. Most of world sits in denial that anything is going on, or if it is, it is probably benign. However for us Americans, their major push of influence happened in 1947. You see the puppet masters watched the world engage in a war of nations. World war two would decide the major national players for at least a century. When the US led allies won, the puppet master invested their agenda into America. They devised a plan to accelerate the US economy and technology with such speed that people would have a hard time understanding what to do with all of it. However for the puppet masters it bring mankind in general to a level of technology that would give them more maneuverability in our world without notice. Their plan to increase the US was simple, crash one of their puppet alien vehicles in our backyard. Instinctively we would analyze it, reverse engineer it and develop many things from it. Our greed would drive us to find ways to market and develop things to sell from this goldmine. Military contractors would be fed off the carcass of the alien craft for decades. With this understanding the puppet masters proceeded with their plans. Two years after world war two, they sent a small four alien craft to hover over the area near the most highly technical army base the US had. It was home to the 509th bomb group that had the atomic bomb. It was nice for the puppet masters to make the craft convenient for right military base to get to it. As the craft hovered over a ranch the puppet masters sent a probe on collision course with the craft. They collided and the probe disintegrated over a ranch while the craft continued, partially destroyed into a descending course till it crashed into a side of a hill miles away. Two aliens survived, one very badly injured. Two almost burned up in the crash.

The next morning a contract rancher for the ranch owner was riding his horse guiding some sheep around. He came across a massive debris field of metal that used to be the alien probe and part of the alien craft. The farm animals are visibly disturbed by the objects and Mac Brazel the rancher gets a feeling that this is not supposed to be here. His instincts tell him something is very wrong. He gathers some samples of the debris and takes them into town to show the local sheriff. The sheriff is amazed that some of the metal in a foil like shape can be waded up like paper and it jumps back flat like nothing happened. It all feels light with no temperature, like nothing is in your hand. The sheriff calls the military base and Jesse Marcel a Major and intelligence officer received the call. He laughed it off at first but since it was the sheriff, he thought he should check it out.

Jesse arrived with me at the sheriff’s office, since I was working with Jesse in intelligence to discern certain activities the soviets might be doing with atomics, it was logical I tag along wherever he goes. The debris at the sheriff’s office was unlike anything we had seen. Some of it had writings that looked like nothing before. We followed Mac back to the ranch and stayed the night as it is a long drive. The next morning at the crash site, there was quite a bit laying around. One part was over four foot wide and light as a feather. We gathered as much as we could and went back to base. We tried drilling and burning some of the material but drill bits could not penetrate even the thin metal. It did not seem to hold a temperature either. The commanding officer sent out a press release to the public that an alien craft had been found. Needless to say this was not a well thought move as a General Ramey called and ordered the report to be refuted immediately. Also the ranch was to be sealed off and every trace of debris collected and sent to bases at Ft. Worth, TX and Denton, OH for study. Jesse was ordered to go to Ft. Worth and participate in a press conference showing a weather balloon as the culprit of the news story of aliens. My job was monitor the collection progress and make sure no one leaked the truth.

While out in the field with an associate of mine and friend of Jesse’s, we got word that a spotter plane found an intact craft crashed in a hill and bodies. Needless to say we were astonished. The bodies were taken back to the base. A captain was told to get hermitically sealed coffins to fit these bodies as the two surviving looked like they might not make it. He decided to call the local civilian mortician and asked about what he had that could fit children. This just raised suspicion about the event. I watched as they examined one alien that was alive die. The other two badly burned ones were being dissected. These aliens were completely biological in material but mechanically built like robots. It was like bio matter was used to make a machine. The remaining live one was taken to a holding area till it could be moved to a safe place. There was much concern that the aliens out wherever might come for their comrades. We had no idea they were left for us.

Everything was top secret till we could figure out what to do. A committee was formed of twelve military and government officials to regulate this find. A find like this was a diamond mine on top of a gold mine, with a giant oil reserve below that. It meant wealth and power for many years to come. The public knew something had happened so disinformation started very quickly. Over the years the public was told the crash was a weather balloon, then a balloon to detect nuclear tests from Russia, then high altitude parachuting, high altitude dummy drops, you name it, we just kept throwing a new one out every decade.

Meanwhile the craft and the aliens were studied. The last alien died shortly after the event. We could not get much out of them but lies. That is of what they could talk about. They simply did not know very much and it was obvious they did not build the craft they were piloting. For one thing, they had no thumbs. How could they hold tools?

The business deals were made and reverse engineering began but with lots of secrecy. Most of the defense contractors did not even know what they were studying. They were told that it was strange alloys from meteors which was a half truth. The debris with glyphs or words on them were studied and seem to be more there for our benefit than the aliens. It seem that what we could translate was meant for us to believe these were aliens from another world. It became obvious that this was orchestrated for our benefit. It was apparent that we could not reveal to the world that we had an alien advanced craft. Every government would see us a threat and might strike immediately before we figure the alien technology out. Also there is money to be made by certain people, which would have to be shared if public. No the development would have be methodical but as quickly as can be done without drawing attention.

An area of desert was designated which is commonly called Area 51. Pretty much all test vehicles designed from the alien craft was tried here. It became a little too hard keeping it secret even though we took over much land around it. So we made it a stage three place of testing. What gets tested there is aircraft like stealth bombers and so forth that will be in production fairly soon and public. Stage 2 developments were placed on a base in Australia, far away from prying eyes of UFO enthusiasts. This is where extremely sophisticated aircraft are tested and built. There is a stage 1 which is a design and lab mostly deep underground in the Midwest. The alien bodies are there. Not just Roswell’s but others they have retrieved in other landings, even one that crashed in Brazil.

The Brazil one was interesting because a half dozen aliens were retrieved and well alive. These aliens we had never seen before. The last time anyone seemed to have seen them was around one thousand BC in Africa. There are masks wore by the holy men to talk to the “gods”. The mask looks just like these aliens. Like I said these aliens are puppets, mere biological computers with set programs. My thinking is they hang around places that people used to worship them long ago. They have some attachment to areas where the Mayans and others where.

I am old now and retired. Jesse has hounded my for years before his death to tell him things I knew. He was obsessed with exposing Roswell. He was a friend but I couldn’t tell him anything or even admit to it. I guess I took my job too serious. I am close to death though and have no family to worry about the government doing something to if I talk. By now 60 years later, they don’t really care. They have what they want and the public has no concept what really happened anyway. One thing the government and even me respect is that we know that someday the puppets will no longer serve the purpose of their masters. When that day happens we may deal directly with the real aliens. Will we be able to fight them with things we developed from their toy aliens? I take comfort that we did discover one thing. We know the real aliens have enemies, seemingly more powerful than them. Their enemies seem to hold them at check and help us for some reason. The real aliens don’t know we know this or they would change their agenda. I can sleep at night knowing we a chance in case things go wrong. There is always hope.

For now the public will have to be ignorant of the reality. They need to keep working and living their lives undisturbed till it is time for them to be aware. It maybe a long time. Someday though, everyone will know. I just hope all the lies and covering up I have done justify the ends. I did it for my country and mankind. May we all succeed.

A Short Romance Novel "Avatar" by me

2007-11-15T11:29:00.001-06:00

Avatar

Sometimes reality turns out to be just perception and sometimes perception can be a reality. Ilene is a professional worker for a paper company handling the daily procedure of responding to internet queries on her company's products. She spends her day on the internet surfing the web in-between answering questions of potential customers. She has all but given up on the dating game as one disaster follows another in that arena. She has now resigned herself to just enjoying her online friends and making the internet her world. She jumps from forum to forum, blog to blog, instant messaging numerous people she has never met. Some have become dear to her as everyday she waits to hear from them. This is her routine, her life, and she is content.

On a slow day at work, she encounters a new person who is sparks her interest. She sits in the background day after day reading his conversations with people. Finally one day she engages a conversation with him. They strike it off well. They like many of the same things, they have the same humor and views on important subjects. They are very intrigued with each other. They have both been through bad relationships yet now they seem to be a match. They get to know each other over months being cautious to not get too carried away. However it is obvious they are falling in love.

Privately they chat online and John the man she has met has sent her pictures of himself on vacations and spoke that he works as a research doctor for a large hospital. They share everything about themselves and she begins to ask if he wants to talk on the phone. He agrees and they talk about everything. Their love grows even further. She asks him if he wants to go out sometime. He states that he cannot do that. She shutters at the thought, he might be married. He explains that he has been keeping a detail away from her and that is he is disabled from an accident and it is a little impossible for him to get around. She says she understands as she hangs up the phone.

For days she ponders how life is cruel to make her soul mate unable to share many things in life with her. She does not care, it is the one meant for her. She talks to him online and tells John that it does not matter, she is in love. He tells her that he is in love too but it would never work and he cant hurt her with tying her down like this. He just wants to interact with her like this on the internet but that is far as it can ever be. She is hurt and has to think about all of this.

Ilene's best friend has lunch with her and Ilene tells her everything. Her friend tells her that it sounds like she will never be happy unless she meets him no matter what. Ilene is now convinced and searches to find the hospital that John used to work now a patient at. She finds it and travels to see him.

Upon arriving she wants to see John but the workers state that he is not available for visitors ever. She makes a scene insisting she be allowed to see him. She loves him and he loves her. The workers look at each other and call for Dr. Jenson, John's partner. Jenson has the nurse escort Ilene to a patient room and she leaves. Ilene sees the doctor standing over a patient in a coma. She is horrified and asks, is that him? The doctor says yes, that is John. Ilene stops and says; "Wait, that voice. I thought you were John, I talked to you on the phone." He states it was him acting as John at John's request. She doesn’t understand. Jenson explains that John is in a coma but the person she was talking to online was an avatar of his personality. This was his work before the accident. He created a near perfect avatar of himself that could do certain tasks for him. His likes, dislikes, everything that he is, is in that avatar. The avatar can do anything online and does what John would do if conscious. Jensen demonstrates by typing something on his notebook computer to "John". John replies to Jensen. Jensen explains that Ilene is here. John becomes angry and upset that she sees him like this. He tells Ilene that he loves her and always will.

Ilene overwhelmed by this horrifying reality storms out of the hospital and sits in her car crying. She thinks how life is such a joke to play on her like this. The perfect one for her and he is not even real. She leaves for home and takes a vacation to recover from this atrocity. Her best friend comes frequently to comfort and spend time. Days pass and Ilene is starting to get to normal. She cannot bring herself to go online anymore for personal reasons. It is just too much. She still misses John or whatever that thing was.

Months pass and life is back to normal for her. She is back to her job routine and has started chatting online with friends again. However she is keeping her distance from knowing anyone seriously. Her company inbox receives a message. She opens it and it is a message from John asking her to hear him out. He tells her that he might be just an avatar but it is what he really is. She weeps and further reads the words, "Turn around." She looks behind her and John is standing in the doorway with the cell phone he messaged her from. She stands up in a confusing state. He tells her that it was her voice that day in the hospital that woke him. If she would have stayed she would have seen it. He has been spending the last months rehabilitating. He read all of his avatar's mail and he is in love with her. It was her that brought him out of the coma and that she is the one for him. She cries as she falls into his arms as they kiss passionately. Destiny has been fulfilled as it should.

Romance Novel "Rivalry" by me

2007-11-15T11:27:00.000-06:00

Rivalry

It was a bright sunny day in August and John kisses his wife Wanda goodbye as he leaves for work. He is an advertising executive for a midsize metal resale business. With no kids and good income he and his wife enjoy getting away quite a bit. Very few tie downs in their lives and yet something is amiss. Maybe the absence of problems can be a problem in itself. The feeling of no challenges, the boredom of predictability, or maybe it is an emotional need to change and progress that we all learn from childhood. The issue remains like an emotional air pocket waiting for something to unearth it. He discusses this feeling with his wife and she is baffled by it too. She tells him that everyone must feel it but most don’t realize it because their daily life problems are eclipsing this issue. It is an interesting topic for them in times of quiet evenings but often they distract themselves with a new “toy” or vacation. All is ok it seems.

One day at work John’s secretary announces she is leaving to get married and no longer needs the work. He asks human resources to find a replacement for the position. Interview after interview and no fit. That is till Kim shows up. She is very smart, has the right experience and very professional. She immediately takes to the job well and organizes things better than before, it is what he has been looking for. New brooms sweep cleaner it seems. John’s co-workers privately ask who the new babe is. He respectfully tells them it is his new secretary and to forget it, she is very professional. They just kind of smirk and state that it is lucky for him she is very good looking. John laughs and tells them alright that is enough, he is married. John tells his wife about the new secretary and his wife jokes with him, “I guess you will be working late nights” She states. He just laughs it off.

Days and weeks go by and things are running smooth at the office. John orders his food at his favorite sandwich shop and notices his secretary sitting at a table reading a book. He says hi and she offers him an opportunity to sit with her for lunch. He tells her, “I see you like tuna sandwiches, my wife makes the best.” She states, “I love tuna, maybe I am addicted to mercury?” He laughingly responds, “Yea maybe. Tell me what do you do in your leisure time?” She answers; “Not much, just tend to my cats.” He tells her that his wife loves cats but had to give them up due to his allergies to them. He states, “I cant even be near them” as he sneezes. She says; “wow, you must have an allergy to them.” They both finish lunch and head back to work.

John sits in bed watching tv that night and looks distracted. Wanda asks him what is wrong. He states he had lunch with Kim and he started sneezing because she owns cats. He tells his wife that Kim loves tuna by the way. Kim says she will have to make some of her special tuna salad and send it by him. She makes good on her promise and he takes the bounty of tuna salad to work. Kim is very surprised and thanks him for the food. Kim asks John if she can take the next day off, she has some errands to run. John states that is no problem and take care of whatever she needs.

The next week they are given a large project and meetings go on to the late evening. As everyone shuffles off John and Kim try to finish up what is needed. It is late and they are alone in the office. They laugh about office politics as things loosen up. Kim states his wife will probably be wondering what is going so late like this. John states especially with a beautiful secretary. He blushes as soon as she does and apologizes that he did not mean anything by it. She tells him it is ok, she was actually flattered by the compliment. She finds him attractive as well. She being in her mid twenties and him in his forties, he is overwhelmed by gratitude. However gratitude becomes hunger as his need to feel young again coupled by fatigue causing an apparent lack of good judgment, he entertains himself a little. He asks how she has been available as nice looking as she is. She tells him that no man has treated her well enough to last. All she seems to get is one night stands which she does not mind. She really does not know if she wants a man in her life. His interests are beginning to peak as he sees a clear opportunity in the back of his mind. His morals keeps him check though as he begins to say goodnight and leave. Kim states that she is lonely and could use an ear to listen to her if he is willing. John feels obligated and concerned and conveniently sits next to her. She explains that she has been having an affair with someone married and feels guilty. He explains that it happens, and that we are all human. She begins to cry, they stand and he holds her. She stands before him and he wipes her tears. Like gravity taking hold they start kissing. He breaks away and says, “I cant do this!” But he cant stop and they begin passionately kissing. Everything is a blur as their clothes move off of them like a tornado had hit. They are embracing and kissing in a heated flurry as they are up against the 12th floor office window getting to the finality of their affair. Later they are tidying up their clothing as John ponders what he has done. He tells Kim he must go and to forgive him. She states, “What is there to forgive, I haven’t had a man do that to me in a long time.” He further feels guilty and leaves in a hurry.

He sneaks in his house like a burglar hoping to not arouse any attention to what happened that night. His wife is in bed asleep and he manages to change into his night wear. He slips into bed every so gently to not awake his wife. He lays down and bellows out a large sneeze. He continues sneezing and his wife wakes and asks what is wrong. He says he must be coming down with something. He gets up to go to the bathroom because he knows it must be smell of cats from his secretary that he is now responding to, at the worst possible time. Just as he about to close the bathroom door his wife asks if she should make some more tuna salad for Kim. He is almost throwing up as he runs into the bathroom.

Next day at work he arrives late and Kim is just as professional looking as can be. He acts like nothing happened and they talk very matter of factly all day. Everyone has shuffled off again and John is trying to finish up his work so he can leave without having to deal with Kim. She goes to the file room and he decides that this is ridiculous, he will just explain that it was a one time thing and that is that. He says, “Kim, I am so sorry for what happened, I don’t know what came over me.” She tells him, “John I know what came over me and it was you. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you all day.” John feels the burning inside him like a ferocious fire and begins to kiss her. They go at it again as she submits to his will. John comes home and his wife is watching tv. He obviously has stopped at a bar on the way home. She asks what is wrong and he gives her no answer as he proceeds to bed.

John calls in sick the next morning and Wanda tells him that she will get him some cold medicine as she runs errands. Several hours pass and she arrives. She tells him that she is very concerned and she stopped by his work and talked to Kim. John begins to prepare his explanation of everything however his wife cuts him off and says, “It is ok, Kim explained it all. She stated how the new project is a make or break situation and you are under the gun.” John falls back relieved but deep inside wants to tell her the truth. He begins sneezing and starts feeling guilty. Wanda tells him that cold must really be lingering and gives him cold medicine to help. He is more than happy to comply with the cold story.

He finds the courage to go to work but with a much more sterner disposition. He refuses to be anything but professional with Kim. She becomes angry at him and only talks professionally back from then on. He has straightened it all out it and thankful he got away with it all. He goes home and makes love to his wife with fire that she has never experienced before. He tells her he loves her and she is in heaven. He takes a shower and coming out Wanda stares at him in anger. He asks what is wrong? She asks where this note in his pocket came from. He looks at the note and it is writing from Kim stating she wants him again inside her. John breaks down and cries begging for forgiveness. He explains about the two nights and what happened. He broke it off with her and obviously she is angry with him. She must have left that note in his coat pocket. His wife quietly ponders it all for the rest of the night ignoring John.

John goes into work realizing he must let Kim go. Hours pass as he tries to figure out a way to tell her. He looks at her and then his wife shows up. She gets into with his secretary in a shouting match. Wanda warns her to stay away from her man. Kim tells her that she is a better woman and she can bring out the sexual animal in him. John cowers behind his desk as this event draws the attention of all those that work there. After a major war of words his wife leaves and Kim storms into his office to state that she quits. Kim leaves as John’s boss asks to see him in private. John is told that this kind of thing is not tolerated and he has two weeks to clean his desk out.

John heads home to find his wife packing. She tells him that there can only be two people in a relationship not three. He explains that he does not want Kim just his wife. She angrily leaves. John is devastated, he has lost everything. Days go by and John sits around his house, not even bothering to go to work and finish his last days. He is depressed as his wife will not answer her cell phone. He is eventually served divorce papers for cheating and signs them as he has nothing left in him.

Days later the door bell rings and it is Wanda wanting to pick up the remaining things of hers. He simply watches in tears as she boxes up everything that is left and has movers carry it out. She gives him one last evil stare and he asks her to wait. He begs for one last hug from her. She gets mad and as they argue she screams; “Ok!” He hugs her passionately not wanting to let go and she pushes off of him. She says, “Enough, John, enough!” She leaves as he stares out the door. He slowly closes it and begins to start sneezing out of control. A light goes off in his head, “Wait a minute. “ he says to himself. He grabs his keys and takes off in his car. He follows his ex-wife and moving truck far behind. It is easy to follow a moving truck. He wonders where she is living now, as he sneezes. The vehicles pull up into a house and he watches from afar. His ex-wife gets out of her car and Kim his ex-secretary greets her and they both kiss and hug. They both hold hands going into the house. John sits in shock. He immediately storms through their front door and demands to know what is going on. Kim and Wanda stare at each other in horror. Kim asks Wanda if the divorce papers are filed. Wanda states they are and they both agree to tell John the truth. Wanda explains that John was right the little feeling of emptiness and need for change is felt by her too. She met Kim a year prior at a lesbian club and they hit it off. They decided months ago they wanted each other but Wanda didn’t want to loose everything in a divorce. So Kim hired on his company when Wanda found out John’s old secretary was leaving. Kim waited for the opportunity to seduce him with a crying act so Wanda could “catch” him at it. Then a big fight in the office to get Kim fired and end the marriage as well as prove in front of others at his job that John was at fault. It was perfect it seemed but they wondered why John followed Wanda there. John said he started sneezing a lot after the hug and it just seemed strange that you would get a cat so quick. John stated it all made since, the tuna salad, the sneezing around Wanda, he felt so stupid. He asked Wanda, “Why didn’t you just ask to leave. I would have let you go.” Wanda stated she didn’t think it would work that way and she actually still does love him. She simply could not just walk away, it had to be a hard break. John looked at Kim and stated, “It all makes sense now for you. You told me you had an affair with a married person but then made a statement that you had not had a man in a long time. I never picked up on it.” Kim told him, “If it is any consolation, I actually do like you and grew very fond of you. I hate myself for doing what we did to you.” John walks away to the door and turns to say, “You got me good. I never had a chance. I guess trust and love never does against this kind of deceit.” John leaves as Kim and Wanda look at each other ashamed.

A few days later John’s door bell rings and it is Kim and Wanda. They ask to speak with him. He invites them in and they all sit. Kim and Wanda tell him that they feel awful and have a proposal. They both love him and want him in their lives. He looks baffled and ask them to clarify that. They state to him they want him to live with them and be all together. It is a change that would make life exciting. John tells them he cant do that, it is wrong. They state to him that he already has had sex with them both, so what is the difference now? He stares out the window and then angrily tells them to leave and never come to his house again. Kim and Wanda sadly leave, asking him one last time. John just stares at them as they get the message to leave. John thinks as they drive off, “It was a rivalry, not between mistress and wife, not even between wife and me, but with myself. Obviously life is more than just trying to make things the same and stable all the time. It is about struggle and growing from it. There was nothing for me and Wanda to rival each other about. I now understand it.” John sits down and opens the job ads, he pauses for a bit and starts laughing as he starts reading the ads.

The End.

Southern Cross - Novel

2007-11-15T11:25:00.001-06:00

Ok here is a novel from a dream I had a while back. I hope you enjoy it.

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Southern Cross

In the state of Michoacan, Mexico there is a little village by the name of Las Oilas which is small almost primitive community of thirty-four residents. They live a simple life with no modern appliances, no cellphones, no tv, nothing to connect them to the world as you and I know it. They have been there for three generations living in an arid, desert area with no real discernable form or landmark to speak of. They perform their daily tasks of growing vegetables and tending to animals for their livelihood and food stores. One well in the center of town provides all the life giving fluid they need. It is simple but in certain ways paradise as no one bothers them from the outside.

Everyone is content to not question their lives except for 12 year old Miguel. His uncle who recently passed away went to the city and brought back a book of astronomy for Miguel, since he has always been intrigued by the stars. Most of the people in Las Oilas cannot read or write, they have had no need to. However Miguel’s uncle did as he frequented the city being the rebel he was it seems. Uncle learned to read in school in the city trying to make an alternate life for himself there. However in the end he came back to his village to live out his life. Miguel’s parents were not too happy with uncle giving hopes in things that are too difficult to reach. It did not matter Miguel was caught up in his dreams to be an astronomer.

Miguel would tell people in the village what constellations he is seeing each season. It was refreshing for everyone to see such an enthusiastic kid. There is work to do and life to live for Miguel, he will just have to keep dreaming, hoping, wishing.

Miguel sat out on his favorite large rock in the desert away from everyone late at night looking at the stars. The view was beautiful as always being no city is near to give light pollution. In the horizon he sees a light moving in the sky. Too slow for a falling star, what could it be. For a long time he watches as it slowly moves and realizes it is coming towards his village. It seems to just hover in the sky. “Could this be visitors from another world?” he thinks to himself. He watches it but sleep just starts overtaking him. He tries to stay awake but the object in the sky and the stars go blurry as he drifts off uncontrollably.

It is morning and everyone at the same time starts getting up. Miguel wakes up and runs home. As soon as he gets there, the whole village seems groggy and disoriented. No one seems to be interested in the object last night as Miguel tries to encourage interest. After a bit everyone starts getting into their routines noticing they had all slept too late as it is almost noon. However life continues as it must. Everyone works and does the jobs they are so used to each day.

Night falls and Miguel is anxious to watch the skies and see if the object reappears. He looks and looks but no object. However he does notice something odd, very odd. He sees the constellation southern cross. He is baffled and looks at the other constellations and stars he is familiar with. The night sky is totally different. He runs and tells his parents that the sky is wrong tonight. They look as most of the villagers come out to see what the issue is. No one seems to understand what Miguel is telling them. His dad explains that stars change with every season. No one seems to be listening to Miguel that all the stars have change in one day. Miguel goes to plot everything he sees.

The next day Miguel gets his astronomy book out and finds the hemisphere of sky they are looking at. He calculates in his head where they would have to be to see these stars at this time of year. It frustrates him trying to understand what some people go to college to began to know. However he finally estimates where they are and a rush of emotion comes over him wondering how this could be. He tells his parents and the villagers that the book shows these stars at this time of year to be only visible in these places on earth. He tries to explain that we are in the country of Australia. Everyone laughs as he keeps insisting they are not in Mexico anymore. Some of the villagers become angry at the thought of this and tell his parents to get control of their child. Some become concerned that Miguel studying the stars so much might be demon possessed with black magic. Satan could be playing with him as he has learned things he shouldn’t have. Miguel’s dad is not concerned for that but bothered that some think it. He tells Miguel to put the book away and do his chores. Miguel is depressed and walks away with his hung low.

Everyone is working as normal into the evening. Miguel saddened by no one believing him has no interest in the night sky now. His dad sits at his bed and tells him that maybe he is right, but all everyone knows is what is here on the ground. His dad puts his book aside and covers Miguel. As his dad is about to leave, Miguel says, “Dad.” His dad pauses and looks at Miguel. Miguel asks, “How will we ever know where we are going if we only look at the ground?” His dad perplexed by the question stares and walks off silently.

Morning breaks and Miguel is wakened by his dad. He says, “Get up Miguel, we are going on a trip.” He tells Miguel they are going on a father-son overnight trip to cheer him up. Miguel’s spirits are coming up and the whole village is happy to see his dad taking and active role in Miguel’s well being. They leave as everyone says goodbye. As they get out of site of the village Miguel’s dad turns the conversation from common things to a new subject. He says, “Son I believe you about the stars and us being in the wrong place.” Miguel astonished looking asks his dad why he believes him now. His dad states, “Miguel after you said what you said last night I went out and looked at the stars. I was confused why the sky is different but gave up trying to understand it. That is till I was looking at our well and noticed something. I noticed a stone was out of place just so slightly. I helped repair the well when a cart hit it. I looked around the village noticed little things are slightly out of place than before. For some reason we are not even in the same village.” Miguel is stunned at his dad’s statement. He asks what they should do. His dad tells him they are hiking to see something that he knows will confirm they are in the wrong place.

They hike for hours taking breaks and began to notice the area and terrain starting to change. Even the soil is different. They come over a hill and there is a large facility with buildings and vehicles parked out front. Both Miguel and his dad are amazed of the find and hide behind the small hill. Dad states they will hide till dark and then look around.

Night falls and they began to move towards the encampment of buildings. They follow like to two thieves a worker and manage to sneak in the door as the worker passes the security lock. They come to a room and see maps of the area and pictures of their village. There are pictures of each person taken from like they were laying on medical beds asleep. The boy can make out some of the English words as he learned from his uncle enough English to read his astronomy book. He reads and tells his dad the whole village is here and they are watching us. His dad says they need to leave right now and they sneak out the way they came in. They manage to make it out of the area and rest. Dad tells Miguel we will keep going in the direction of this road and find a city. We must tell someone about this. Miguel is concerned that everyone might be in on it. His Dad says we have to take the chance it is a secret. He figures if it was a secret from the village, it must be a secret from everyone else not involved.

They hike at night and shelter during the day. Their food and water almost out they come across a large hill and a sizeable town appears. They see a church and enter, tired and worn by the elements. The minister tends to their needs as Miguel in broken English explains what is wrong. The minister gets the local police and they take Miguel and his dad to question them. The police figure where they came from and find someone that can speak Spanish. The interpreter tells Miguel and his dad that from where they came from is government property of the United States. They are in the Australian outback. However that area is a CIA base area. No one is allowed in there. Australian police notify the federal government and word starts to get out. Soon there is a mob of media to find out what has happened. Australian military and police drive Miguel and his dad through the designated US territory and confront US officials. Despite pleas and even orders the Australian authorities seize the base and drive Miguel and his dad to the place that looks like their village.

After all is investigated it comes out in the news of what has happened. A rogue part of the CIA was experimenting in relocating primitive people in various parts of the world to other parts for whatever scenarios they had plotted. The main thing was to see if entire villages could be transplanted without notice. They had gassed this village with sleeping gas and abducted them one night long ago by helicopter and moved them to a base in Australia where they could analyze them. They had reconstructed their entire village down to every detail. The US government had dismantled this rogue agency for it’s crimes and paid restitution to the villagers who are safely back in Mexico. All of this exposed because one child saw the southern cross and knew where he should be. Miguel is granted a full scholarship to any college he wants and schooling to get him there. The US also grants him a job upon completion. Private industries decide to buy him a telescope.

It is night Las Oilas and the whole village is turned out to look at the. One of the villagers ask Miguel if everything looks good. Miguel looks at his dad smiling and his dad looks back proudly as Miguel states, “The heavens are beautiful.” Dad asks Miguel if he will be out all night again with his new telescope. Miguel laughs and starts walking towards his telescope, which happens to be large reflecting professional one inside an observatory building. A plaque outside of it says, “Miguel’s”.

Autism and Asperger's Syndrome

2007-11-15T11:23:00.001-06:00

There is a mild form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. It is a very common ailment that certain famous people like Einstein and Thomas Jefferson all had. Not saying I am in the same league with these guys but we all had to learn to cope with the issues of it. One of the common thing I share with other afflicted people is poor grades in school. We often are not very good with managing money or running a business by ourselves. If we can manage to get help like a tutor for school or accountants for our business, we can get by. However for many people they do not have these resources and often fall victim to the condition to where continual employment even is hard.

A friend of mine with two autistic kids showed me a book called Pretending To Be Normal wrote by a lady who had Asperger’s. She wrote that as a child the teacher told the class it was nap time and to pull out mats to sleep on. She stood there as the teacher got more assertive in telling her to get a mat. She explained she could not. Frustrated the teacher called her parents and when they arrived her father asked her why she was not getting one of the mats. She responded because the mats are all gone. Her father asked what were all those sitting on the shelf. She stated they were not mats but rugs. Her father asked her to get a rug and take a nap which she did right away. That is one of the issues with Asperger’s is mental blocks. We have a hard time connecting the dots and what is a simple procedure for most people to assume and work out becomes a difficult and even impossible task for us. I will explain why this is later.

In one of my last jobs I had a number of employees working for me in an IT department for a software company. One of them was a shy guy about 30 years old who moved over from another department to mine. He had this autistic and had barely learned how to work with it. People would ask him if he would take a look at a computer issue for them. He was more than willing to do it and had no laziness about him however it might be hours or never before he would do the task sometimes. It was fairly disruptive to the point my upper management wanted me to let him go. I had to do a little more work with him but was able to get him on track. If you gave him a project he felt overwhelmed and had no mental roadmap to know what to do in what order. However if you outlined the project step by step he worked faster than anyone I have ever seen. For example I gave him a clipboard of blank paper and asked him to inventory the systems. The board sat there for days. I took it away and put another clipboard of preprinted papers showing blanks next to “name of system”, “operating system” etc. He had everything filled out in an hour. You had to get the logic straight in his head on what to do. After that, he was ok.

Let me start from my beginning and give you a peek inside my experience. As a young kid I seemed to pick up habits very easily. Now days people know them as OCD ticks. It is like an uncontrollable need to repeat something over an over. It varied from one habit to another but there would be at least one all the time. I learned to hide these habits and do them as part of normal movements or routines so that people would not notice. However it was noticeable no matter how hard you try. You always let your guard down at times. I managed to learn to focus the need to perform them to normal things like listening to certain songs. You would play a series of songs but always repeat your “favorite” one to get the feeling of relief. People would just think you like that song a lot. There is some kind of tactile feel to resolve a neuro need to repeat certain functions. The condition uses an emotion to give you “reward” feeling when you accomplish it.

Friends were tough to keep because the condition makes you very geeky in one respect and naive in another. I seemed to know a lot about astronomy, much more than my teachers. However some kids would tell a story and all of them would be conversing back and forth about it but I would be lost and have no clue what they are talking about. Often times you become the butt of a joke because they know you cannot keep up with them. However things that you decide to excel in go way beyond most people’s commitment to accomplish. You seem to have an unending drive to complete a task which stems from the OCD thing. If you learn to use it, you become single minded and able to get things done quickly and well.

School was very hard for me. If I like a subject, I could ace the class with little effort. However most of the time I was failing. In 7th grade it came to a head for me in school. I had a mental block about doing homework. I simply could not do schoolwork at home. I wanted to and felt motivated but would just stare at the school book doing nothing. Eventually I would put it away and play. It got so bad that even my favorite subject astronomy was an impossible task. NASA had sent me a giant poster of Mars with tons of data at that time. I was supposed to do a report on anything I wanted. I was trying to do one Mars. I could not get the words on the paper. My dad and just about everyone else in the world had no idea about this condition and he thought I was just being bad by not doing my work. He kept telling me to do my work and I finally lost it and began to bang my fists on the poster crying. He got mad and whipped me with a belt. As I just laid there helpless he realized something bigger was wrong. He then sat down and started asking me questions. I was able to do the report and did it well once he connected the dots in my mind for me.

The same thing happened at school with my 7th grade English teacher. He was a no nonsense Manhattan school tough teacher that moved to Texas in our little community school. I showed up with no homework so he sent me to detention after school. In detention I got my work down for the next night with no problem because I was still at school. However the next time I had homework to do at home I showed up at school with it unfinished. I got another detention and then another and another because he was going to show me who was boss. After so many of them he was about to issue another one and I started crying in frustration. He finally took me aside and told me if I get my homework to him before the end of the day he would take the detention off. I got it to him in no time. He then called a parent teacher conference and I tried to explain that I simply could not do homework at home and don’t know why. The school sent for an hour each day to speak with a psychologist. After a few weeks of that they sent me to testing one school day. It was my usual psychologist and a few others put me through a battery of tests. They checked my memory, hand strength, ability to reason and so on. Lots and lots of tests. Basically they told my parents that I had excellent memory and could reason out things extremely well. However I have something they do not understand although they have seen it before. I cannot seem to stay focused and have problems calculating certain tasks. The solution was I kept seeing a psychologist for the school. I continued to have bad grades and they actually passed me on to keep my with my same age friends in classes even though I did not pass certain grades.

By the time I reached high school I had started developing my own techniques to get around the issues. Since I had a hard time with homework I would excel in test and in school work so that it would offset the zeros I got for no homework. This was important in my sophomore year since my dad passed away of ALS and the shock of it caused me to not do any school work for a while. I had to make at least a 97 on my final exams to pass most of my classes, which I did accomplish with 98s on all of them.

I had to develop much more mental tools as an adult in order to exist in a job and deal with life’s normal renderings. Little did I know that shortly later these tools would be the instruments for my survival through some extremely hard times. They also gave me certain advantages over normal people. For example my friends that smoke have tried to quit and everything has failed them. Patches, hypnosis, counseling, scaling down, nothing seems to get over their physical and mental addictions. I smoked for two years and one day just quit. I felt the physical addiction tugging hard but was able to use my condition to ignore it. After a few days the tugging started going away. I simply used the mental blocks what kept me from doing school work to block me wanting a cigarette. Even my body’s cry for nicotine could not get pass that block.

The condition gives you a single-minded ability to accomplish things. It is like you are in a tunnel that pays attention to nothing around you except the destination or task you need to accomplish. If the task was to learn the piano, you could learn it a fraction of the time that normal people do. You simply will understand what it takes to play it do it with precision if your mind can put that task in the “tunnel” so to speak. If not then you have to learn it like everyone else at a normal pace. If a block develops about how to play like puts a condition in your mind to where you can only play white keys, then you have to figure a way around this block. Like a person who stutters learns to avoid certain “problem” words they quickly replace them with ok words and we never know they stutter. In like manner I learned to move around the blocks without loosing pace. At work I learned to put each job task in the “tunnel” and I get things accomplished fast. Often times I am done with a day’s work in an hour and spend my time goofing off on Yahoo waiting for something to break at work.

However because the condition allows relentless pursuit to work on things, I have literally worked for 30 hours or more on fixing server issues. Issues that would take weeks to do normally. I hired into the Men’s Wearhouse one time in their corporate office. They had a team of IT guys, about seven of them and were all very smart. I fixed about a dozen issues they all had been working for at least six months in a few days. My manager told me to take it easy and just cruise the internet for a week or so because I was intimidating the other IT guys. The other guys were actually smarter than me at this stuff but I had a vigilant ability to pound on the problem till solve and reason it in different ways. It is the ability of bypassing mental blocks I have learned all my life that gives me a new way of thinking of things. This is excellent in troubleshooting computer work or even writing stories and even telling jokes.

There are still many things that hinder me in this condition. I have had to learn a great deal about stress management because emotions can run high in people with Asperger’s. Like anything tools can be developed to deal with it. You cant get rid of it but you can work with it.

Snakes Alive! Incident at 16

2007-11-15T10:57:00.001-06:00

My neighbor emailed me a picture of a Burmese python that was eating sheep. I find the picture interesting because it shows the teeth these animals have. It brings back vivid memories for me as I was bitten by one that was 15 foot long. When I was a teenager my brother had a little zoo going on. He owned a mountain lion, tiger and three pythons. The smallest was 12 foot and the largest was over 20 foot.

The mountain lion hated everyone except my brother. He could hand feed the thing meat and it would purr like a kitten. However it and I were absolute enemies. I cant tell you how many times that cat and I have got into it for it trying to attack me.

Now the tiger loved everyone, except the mountain lion. I say it had a good judge of character. I had a lot of fun with it. However being over 600 lbs, that made it harder and harder to play with as it got bigger. We had made an outside chain link cage for it with a large metal tub full of water. It loved water and spent a lot of time in the tub. We gave it a radial truck tire to keep it busy but it shredded it in no time. So we gave it a bowling ball thinking that migh last longer. It took it and threw it against the cage making a giant dent in the chain link. That was not a good idea so we took the ball out. It was friendly but if food was around you didnt want to be near it. The demeanor would change to viscious until that food was eaten.

His pythons were kept in a glass cage. The 22 foot one was in a cage by itself because for some reason it did not like the other two snakes. It was not very sociable and was hard to move around seeing it was over 200 lbs. The 12 foot and 15 ones were very sociable and like to hang around people. My little incident happened while my brother was away and I was tasked with feeding the animals. I had done it numerous times. I opened the snake cage and changed their water. As I put the water in and was about to close the cage, the 15 footer struck my hand and started coiling my arm. I pushed the coils off but he kept coiling up as fast as I could push him off. I am not a panicky person and realized that as long as I keep him on my arm and away from my ribs, I am in no life threat. So I let the snake coil most of itself on my arm and lifted him out of the cage. The 160 lbs snake seem to bear no problem for me at that moment weight wise. I wanted to get him out of the cage so the other one would not attack seeing I was bleeding like crazy and it might smell it.

I lowered the snake on the ground and began pushing the coils off before he snapped my arm in half. By this time the snake had realized it made a mistake and was no longer on the attack. However it was trying to unhinge itself from my hand. I had to give it some slack since the teeth are barred back to let him push forward to release me. As soon as he did I ran to the sink and started washing off the blood pouring out the holes in my hand. I poured some alcohol on it which I was about to use to get the snake off if it had not released me. That was some major pain. After bandaging myself up, I put the snake back in the cage.

I learned from then on to wake the snakes and irritate them a little to make sure they are not in hunting mode when cleaning their cage. That is one thing about exotic animals, you will get hurt someday. Not if, when.

All the snakes eventually got sick and died simply because Houston, Texas is not the climate they are used to. My brother had kept his two cats at a large cat preserve till 1993 when a major Houston flood occurred and all the cats in the facility started swimming out as the water rose over the fences. Police in boats shot them all.

I miss the snakes and the tiger mostly. Not that cougar though.

Stories from Tech Support

2007-11-15T10:54:00.001-06:00

I have messed around with computers for a long time. For three years I worked for Dell tech support and over that time heard numerous strange things from customers. It got to a point that Dell compiled a bunch of stories for a computer magazine article. I was remembering some of them and decided to throw into a blog. You may have heard some of these before or variants. I am sure some of these have happened multiple times with people. So if you got a few minutes or more of life to waste you can read about my geeky tech support stories.

In the defense of non computer people we have all done stupid things on computers. When I was a teenager my oldest brother bought a PC clone and it had a hard drive full of software. He asked me to analyze it and then teach him how to use it since I had worked with computers before. I was happily going through running utilities on it to see what they do. I ran one called “F” and suddenly nothing worked anymore. I realized that I had wiped out the entire hard drive in an instant. At that moment my brother asked how it was going, I replied no problem. I called the guy that sold the computer to my brother and told him I ran the “F” program. He chastised me for about ten minutes on how stupid I was and why would I run that program. After he qualified my lack of brains, he then asked if I had enough synapses to have run the backup as per instructions that came with the computer. I told him I did that the first thing. He saved the day as I reloaded all forty floppy disks and putting the system back to normal.

When I hired on with Dell they put me through a two week training course. They told us trainees a story of a tech that did whatever it took to take care of a customer. This tech had walked a customer into reseating all the cables inside the computer and for some reason the hard drive would no longer function. The tech felt so bad for the hard drive failure that he went to factory, picked up another drive, then drove from Austin to Dallas and personally fixed this customer computer that evening. That was inspirational but I thought to myself, I aint drivin’ four hours to fix someone’s computer. However after training was over and we were paired with experienced techs, I had to ask about that tech driving to the customer’s house. The mentor tech I was with laughed and said, “Let me tell the reality behind that story. The tech did screw up the hard drive of the customer and did go out there to replace it. But it was for fear of losing his job he did it, not some customer service mission. The customer was Michael Dell’s father. I don’t know why they keep using that lame story like it was a noble thing that happened.”

A customer called me and stated he had an application error. So he tried to solve it himself. His solution was to erase the hard drive and when nothing ran, he went into computer’s bios and set a password that he now cannot remember. Nothing like asking.

One of the things that a tech support person hated was when a customer’s neighbor or relative come over to help because they are an “expert”. The experts always argue with tech support and never want to troubleshoot anything. These usually end up the longest calls and least productive.

A lady called a tech and stated that random characters kept appearing her documents. The tech trouble-shooted keyboard errors and since the woman was in Austin he asked if he could just drop by and look at it. He came back to work telling us he solved the problem. The lady had poor eyesight and kept leaning over to see the screen closer while her breasts kept hitting the keyboard.

One lady called me up complaining that her new system would not work. I walked through the cables and she had the keyboard, mouse and monitor attached but no power cable. She complained that the computer was not able to power itself and would use her electricity. I had to ask if she was serious and she was. It took about fifteen minutes to explain why that computer must be plugged into her wall outlet.

A guy called me stating he paid for a 120mb second hard drive and his computer says it is 115mb drive. He wants the 5mb difference paid back to him. I told him lets just partition and format the drive anyway and see about his 5mbs. What he didn’t know is that after you prepare a hard for use the space is bigger than the “logical” size. So when it formatted I asked him to check the size then. It was 127mb available. I then told him he owed us money for the 7mbs. He told me that he owed nothing and the extra 7mbs are his. I had to laugh for five minutes after the call was over.

One lady called up and could not get her mouse to work properly. After a little bit it was discovered that she had the mouse on the floor trying to use it with her foot. She had mistaken it for a sewing machine like pedal.

A guy called up and said his computer is eating his 5.25 floppy disks. He kept inserting one after another and it wont eject them out. I asked how was able to get another one in the drive without the previous coming out. He said they just disappear in the drive. I asked him to take the cover off and there were all the floppies inside his computer laying on the motherboard. He was inserting them in a small crack between his floppy drives.

A lady called complaining that her 3.5 floppy drive holder was full and she had no other place to put another floppy disk. I asked her were the holder was and she said it was built into the computer. I looked at her order and explained she was putting floppies in the tape drive.

We had a guy that legitimately had a lemon system. It had been repaired twice already and I got a call from our onsite repairman there for the third time. The customer was drunk and I could hear him in the background screaming F%$# Dell repeatedly. While I was trouble-shooting the problem with the onsite tech I heard a yell. The tech said he had to let me go because the customer just fell down the stairs.

One tragic call came when a new guy I was training proceeded to tell a guy that his computer was freezing up on a program called PCTools. The customer sat the phone down and started beating on his wife for installing the program. The new tech was obviously very disturbed and wanting to quit. I talked to him for a while and explained he did nothing wrong. We will just report the call to management and move on. After a few days when the new tech trainee was in good spirits I made a picture that looked like a product label. It had a picture of a real domestic violence situation and had the PCTools logo and listed features about this tech. He thanked me for lightening him up and this tech eventually became a manager at Dell.

I got a call back from a customer that said he followed the tech’s instructions the previous night and know wants to know what to do. I asked him what did he do so far. He told me he took the computer memory out and sat it on the kitchen table overnight to let the viruses leak out of it. I was perplexed. I looked up the call log and sure enough the tech wrote that he advised the customer to pull the memory out and set it overnight on a table to let the viruses leak out. I had the customer put it back in and fixed the real problem. I then had a nice talk to the tech.

I had trouble with a customer that really was not a technical issue. I had called an internal help group called the pros group. They were there to help unusual situations when all else fails. I had proposed a solution and the lady in the pros group told me to do it as I suggested. Well later a manager that really did not like me much, found out about what I did when the customer called back to thank me. He chewed on me for violating policies in numerous ways. I explained I had got the ok from the lady in the pros group. He told me to call this lady up and get her on the phone because he is going to chew both of us out. I called her and explained the manager wanted to discuss it and she said she would come over and talk about it personally. Now everyone wore badges and your badge number reflected what number hire you were. I was like number 5860 and the manager was like 4789 something. The pros lady came up and asked the manager what the problem was. The manager kept staring at the lady’s badge and stuttering. The lady explained that she did not see a problem and the manager very politely agreed with her. I looked down and her badge number and it was 3. She just smiled at me and told me “good job Mike.”

I have many more stories but these last two are the pinnacle ones I can think of.

This one I know is true because the letter was scanned and sent to all the techs, it was a classic. A vice president of a company had a Dell notebook. This notebook had a trackball mouse on top behind the keyboard. His complaint in the letter was that he had to pull this mouse ball out and clean it fairly often. He would clean it by putting it in his mouth and orally cleaning it. One day while cleaning it he started chocking on it and a fellow employee hit him in the back causing him to swallow it. After he passed the ball, he put it back as it seemed ok. However he refused to clean it in the same manner. Dell sent him a regular mouse to plug in but no one forgot the story.

The last one was one that happened with me. I got a call from a customer that was a church. They had a server computer whose motherboard had failed. They were under warrantee and should be fixed the next day. However the system flagged me that the motherboards for that system were out of stock for three months. Of course the customer was irate and that was not acceptable. I asked them to let me see what I could do. I called around from department to department and no one had a spare motherboard. I was told they would have to wait and no replacing their system with another. However one manager advised I call a certain vice president and ask him. This VP sometimes keeps a motherboard of each system just in case a major customer needs one and this scenario happens. I called him and was trying to talk fast to convince him of my plight. What I did not know till half way talking with him that out of habit I always said my name and company like I was talking to a customer. I greeted myself as Mike at Dell. This VP heard “Michael Dell” and I realized this when he was very cordial and said he would take care of this customer right away. I was embarrassed but laughing inside myself. I responded to the VP; “See that you get it done!” He responded with a yes sir! The customer called me back the next day and said their server was fixed.

To catch a thief

2007-11-15T10:41:00.000-06:00

This is the story of a man named Jed who barely kept his family fed. Actually it is a life story from my early days when I worked at Radio Shack. Kind of boring but if you got some life to waste here it is.

My manager was transferred to another store and I was to follow as soon as a new manager took over. So it was just me and another full timer. Well my fellow employee decided to take an unannounced week long vacation since I was only the manager trainee, what could I do? After he came back I had his final paycheck stapled to a fired form. He was quite shocked and he asked me how I was going to handle this store without him. I told him I had a week to practice. Shortly later I moved to other store with my friend was managing.

I noticed some merchandise hiding under some magazines in the bathroom. I showed the manager and he had a surprised look. Obviously one of the employees was hiding it later to take it. He asked me which of the two other employees I thought it was. I said, it can’t be Adam, he doesn’t fit the type. However Chad definitely has a personality for it. Chad was a part time worker that worked all week as a copier repairman. For some reason he liked working 7 days a week, three weeks out of the month and weeknights randomly. He didn’t like to help out much with store duties just helping a customer once in a while. He had been there for a long time under two previous managers. When it was slow on Sundays he spent a lot of time playing a flight simulator game, he was hooked on it.

As time progressed things disappeared randomly. I knew in my gut it was he doing it. I even could tell which items he took from those that were normally shoplifted. I kept telling my manager he is taking the stuff and after months of it my manager felt I was just picking on him. It was too infrequent and random to catch him easily.

I went on vacation for a week and when I came back Chad and the manager had a story about a robbery that happened. Seems that a blonde guy ran into the store grabbed a display table with mounted camcorders and ran out the door with them. Chad had chased after him but could not catch him. I asked Chad, “Lucky you didn’t get hurt, he could have been dangerous.” I knew Chad was involved in it but I decided to humor it sarcastically. Chad stared at me I think knowing that I was on to him. I asked Chad, “So you couldn’t catch the guy running with a table top full of camcorders? I am also curious how this guy knew to come in grab the one table that was not bolted down yet and make off with it? Almost like he knew what to grab.” Chad replied that the guy was fast and obviously he had staked out the place beforehand. I said; “That is interesting Chad. You didn’t manage to get his license plate since it would have taken him a while to throw the stuff in his vehicle, start it up and leave.” Chad said, “His vehicle was parked on the side of the building and already running.” I responded; “You happen to know his truck was running and parked there but didn’t get a license plate.” Chad just stared at me. I decided then I was going to catch him in the act more than ever. I decided the best method was just irritate him to the point of making a mistake.

Chad also worked some weeknights which he floated as he felt. I noticed he would make sure to not work right after a shipment of inventory came in so he would not have to help put things up. Chad showed up the day after everything was put up as usual. The other employees groaned about this anyway. I grabbed an empty box and handed it to Chad. I had him follow me around as I randomly threw merchandise into it. After it was fairly full I told him that from now on I would decide his workdays in the evenings. I plan to make sure he is there when inventory comes in so he can help us. Now as practice he can put the merchandise in the box up. Of course that infuriated him.

The second thing is I traded Chad’s flight simulator game with a kid’s game from another store. So now he had nothing to play.

I figured he must be taking things on Sunday when it is slow and I am not working. So I traded schedules with another employee. I made sure when he worked, I worked. After a while the subtle things began to wear him down. The ultimate was when a customer found a bag of marijuana on the floor. I figured it belonged to a punk kid that was in there previously but when Chad offered to give me some cash to let him have half of it before the police came to get it, I knew it was his. I told him no and the police did pick it up. Well that set him over the edge. He had a very professional manner to him but I could see the anger fuming in his eyes. I kept making comments the rest of the day about that bag of weed just to keep his blood boiling.

Now it was the end of the workday and the front door was locked. However he was hanging around till I finished counting the money drawer and finished the daily reports. He always took out the trash and I knew he had something in it. I knew he was waiting for me to leave so he could drive around back and grab the trash with the stolen item in it. I kept going back and forth counting the money drawer and the back computer like there was an error in the sales for the day. It gave me the opportunity to look around and see what was missing. Finally Aha! There it was, a power cord to a small new notebook computer sitting by itself on the shelf. No computer though. I had him. I waited him out till he couldn’t take it anymore and he told me he is going home. I locked the front door behind him and as soon as he got in his truck I ran to the back and pulled the trash bags out of the dumpster. After closing the back door and looking out the peep hole sure enough here he come driving to the dumpster. He looked in and then started looking around. He stared up at the back door and knew he was caught. He got in his truck and left for home.

I opened the bag of trash and there was the notebook computer. I called the manager at home and told him what had happened. He apologized for doubting me the whole time and told me to handle it. I realized that technically I did not see him steal it and could not prove it. So I called Chad at home and it was obvious he knew what the call was about. I told him I found a computer in the trash. He gave me a hard luck story about his sister needing an operation. I told him that was admirable Chad, I wouldn’t go to jail for my sister. I guess she has needed this operation for years. I told him I knew about the dope and the camcorders too. He admitted it was his room mate that took the camcorders. I told him that since I am such a good friend, I will let him quit Monday morning. This all will be between me and him. If he doesn’t call Monday morning and tell the manager he quits, then I spill the beans to the company. He promptly called Monday and quit. My manager was smiling the whole time as he got the excuse for his leaving.

The end of the story, not quite. We hired a replacement guy shortly later. This guy lived in the same apartment complex. We were telling him the story of Chad and the guy had a blank look on his face. He told us that he knew of Chad and his room mate. Matter of fact they tried to sell him some camcorders. He even described the room mate perfectly. Then told us about other things they stole. The room mate was a construction worker and had stolen ten $10,000 lasers from his company. These guys were lifting everything they could. A little later I had a knock at my door and it was an FBI agent. She was questioning people that knew Chad more specifically his room mate. Seems the lasers were fairly missed among other things. I told her about the events and what I had heard.

I never knew what happened if anything to them. I guess Chad faired ok because years later I worked for Dell computers and he saw Chad repairing a copier. I did not make myself known to him but mentioned to a manager they might not want that guy here.