I thoroughly enjoyed Blood over Bright Haven, particularly appreciating the novel’s inventive approach to frequently troped elements of magical systems. These elements were cleverly refreshed through a compelling blend of Victorian-era aesthetics and steampunk sensibilities, bringing new life to familiar magical themes. The characters were well-drawn, each exhibiting a nuanced balance of flaws and virtues, creating a narrative free from the overly sentimental romantic tropes often prevalent in similar works.

The imaginative landscape of Blood over Bright Haven captivates initially through its richly Dickensian texture—vivid in its evocation of class disparity, urban decadence, and sprawling, oppressive institutions reminiscent of Victorian London’s dense social tapestry. Scenes such as the destitute inhabitants living in stark contrast to the extravagant lives of the aristocracy powerfully underscore these class divides. However, despite these vivid portrayals, the Dickensian elements do not fully support a profoundly impactful narrative arc, remaining captivating yet somewhat superficial. It was here, in many measures, that I found myself disappointed by the novel – not due to the skill of execution, but rather the depth of exploration, and the feeling of a “rush to get it done in a book”.

Analyzing Bright Haven’s necromantic utopia reveals conceptual similarities with seminal speculative literature. Echoing Walter M. Miller Jr.’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, Bright Haven venerates arcane necromantic knowledge, preserved in a manner similar to Miller’s fragmented historical lore. Much like Miller’s preservation of relics and rituals, Bright Haven hints at a deeper philosophical narrative around the use and preservation of dark knowledge, yet it never thoroughly explores these implications, leaving critical questions unanswered and its thematic potential largely unexplored. There is an academic exploration, but the narrative structure severely inhibits the ability to go in-depth into many of these elements.

Bright Haven’s society also shares thematic resonance with Garth Nix’s Sabriel, particularly in how necromancy subtly integrates into societal functions. While Nix deftly uses necromancy to illustrate moral complexities and ethical conflicts, Bright Haven presents necromancy as a normalized, theocractic practice, a public held back from a secret apparently most of the ruling class understood and was at peace with. The novel’s characters accept these practices without significant internal conflict or societal debate, thus lacking the narrative tension and ethical depth present in Nix’s work.

Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall offers another critical comparative perspective, specifically regarding the societal mechanisms of enforced ignorance or collective denial. Asimov effectively illustrates how fragile societal order can be, highlighting the tension between knowledge and stability. Although Bright Haven similarly incorporates themes of societal ignorance, it falls short of thoroughly investigating the psychological or philosophical ramifications of its own narrative constructs.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” further contextualizes Bright Haven’s moral landscape. Le Guin vividly portrays moral complicity and societal rationalization of suffering, a concept that Bright Haven superficially reflects. However, Bright Haven fails to develop characters that grapple meaningfully with these ethical dilemmas, resulting in underdeveloped characters and missed opportunities for deeper moral exploration.

Contrastingly, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World effectively highlights Bright Haven’s thematic shortcomings in exploring conformity and systemic manipulation. While Huxley interrogates the psychological impacts of a seemingly ideal society, Bright Haven’s citizens remain oddly passive and psychologically simplistic. This deficiency becomes especially glaring regarding the unexplained betrayal by Bright Haven’s first archmage, whose motivations remain inadequately examined, depriving the narrative of vital psychological and philosophical depth. There is so much hinted at there, as a means of exploration of “how this came to be”, and it is left sitting, rather than expounded on in a way that links the underlying past to the horrible present.

In conclusion, while Blood over Bright Haven impresses with atmospheric detail, Dickensian settings, and ambitious thematic elements, it ultimately falters in delivering the narrative depth and philosophical complexity evident in its literary predecessors. While the book explores topics of classism, institutional racism, sexism, and the necromantic underpinnings of capitalism within a fantasy milieu, it does not do so in a way that digs deeply to the roots—rather, it tills the surface, bowling over the weeds. Perhaps this approach is purposeful on the author’s part, or perhaps it reflects a broader societal shift away from saga-based storytelling, as suggested by declining reading trends among younger audiences—it is unclear.

References

Asimov, I. (1941). Nightfall. Astounding Science Fiction.
Dickens, C. (1837-1839). Oliver Twist. Richard Bentley.
Dickens, C. (1859). A Tale of Two Cities. Chapman & Hall.
Huxley, A. (1932). Brave New World. Chatto & Windus.
Le Guin, U. K. (1973). The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. New Dimensions.
Miller, W. M. (1959). A Canticle for Leibowitz. J.B. Lippincott & Co.
Nix, G. (1995). Sabriel. HarperCollins.

Memorial Day is always so complicated for me. I both love, respect, and miss the family I have (and lost) who have served. I also can see, as a firsthand, how their sacrifices led to a better world for the future of their children, and, in turn me, the children of their children.

I can also attest that the world I lived in, which was riotous and confusing compared to the world they came from, as well as how I was shaped by that world (ending up very very far from where they were, on almost every major axiom aside, perhaps from ethics and belief in the core tenets of democracy) led to great divides. My grandmother’s lasting legacy was showing me how love can supersede even the diametric opposition of viewpoints.

As a parent, I am left with this pit of anger and grief. I don’t believe the world my children will inherit and inhabit will be better off than mine, which seemed unlikely two decades ago, but almost a certainty now.

The republic’s founding covenant—life purchased through voluntary sacrifice for collective liberty—faces systematic dissolution through institutional capture and societal atomization. Memorial Day’s commemorative function exposes this degradation: the dead secured constitutional governance while contemporary power structures operate through regulatory complexity, financial extraction, and democratic theater.

The American Dream’s death manifests in structural terms: median wage stagnation against asset inflation, regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship, and credentialing systems that substitute institutional loyalty for productive capacity. These mechanisms concentrate wealth while distributing debt, creating permanent economic subjugation disguised as meritocracy.

Technological capability now exists to eliminate material scarcity through automation, distributed manufacturing, and information systems. However, implementation requires constitutional restoration and economic restructuring away from rent-seeking toward value creation. Current institutions profit from artificial scarcity and will resist technological disruption of their revenue models.

The pathway forward demands jurisprudential enforcement of constitutional constraints alongside popular recognition that individual prosperity depends on collective institutional health. This requires abandoning the false choice between capitalism and socialism for a third path: constitutional republicanism with technological abundance, and universal rights and privileges for all the citizenry. This is not a failing, it is an aspiration, and, frankly, should be the lowest bar.

The critical transition involves citizens understanding that their individual economic security depends on dismantling systems designed to extract value from productive activity. Technology becomes liberating only when deployed within governance structures that prevent its capture by existing power concentrations.

The fallen died for constitutional principles that can still govern technological implementation. Their sacrifice becomes meaningful through institutional restoration, not merely through memorial observance.

Can enough of the populace get through the “me” generation thinking to change it?

This is why I never sleep anymore.

Freedom Spill by B McC and Midjourney

​It was late January of 1571, when midday, Inti hid from
his people.
The world ended for them, like in November 2024.
For the children of Ruby Bridges and Pachamama,
the sons and daughters​ of Kamala, Sapa Inca, and Leonard Peltier.
Los conquistadores set sail months before,
but they would not take Cusco until after Inti hid his light,
they would not take the Capitol until cowards called them hence,
but as all who worship the sun know must happen –
the whiteness of light always breeds the darkest of shadow.
​
Those Spaniards, made red by Inti’s love, would kill his children
lay waste to the cities, the priests, the khipu, the temples, the empire –
enslave whomsoever they could not kill, rape, or who twisted to their ways,
and take Inti’s heart back to the head that guided the hand of fire and pain –
The fifth Pious one, who killed a civilization, a hemisphere;
in the name of a god of love, sacrifice, grace, and forgiveness.

The heart of Inti was gold,
Our hearts are of muscle.
Gold melts, bends, shatters –
Muscle strains, tears, fails.
Gold gets hammered back into shape,
Muscle only heals when it stops.

For centuries, Inti could not stop, did not stop –
the heart and blood and life of his children,
they needed the light he carried to survive the cruel
jungle
that would eat them all alive if he stopped dragging that heartlight
across the sky.

What happens if I stop
carrying
all those tied
to the day-to-day
for whom the jungle waits
to subsume?

The Sun God Meets the Conquistadores – B McC./ Dali-E 3

After Inti faltered in the midday,
He picked his heart, the light, back up
and next dawn,
carried that light around the world,
for all the people
even the blood-soaked rapist Spaniards,
their pederast friars,
and the asiento slavemasters in Gibraltar.

Even though his children died, he did not stop –
The system, did not stop –
The colonist millstone ground and ground and ground
the maize until gold was crimson,
and the blood plague of the Spaniards,
killed ever so many more than
Inti ever kissed
with flame and bloody lips
at the top of handmade basalt mountains.

How can those of us, facing new conquistadores,
wielding fresh-bound torches of policy and supremacy
crying for the death of
brown and black bodies,
people who speak languages other than
American?
Those who want the death and deportation of
gold and love and maize and music
just the same as those six centuries ago
called for the death of the
of children of the god light?

How do we face the emboldened racists
born on the eclipse of
January 6th –
the conquistador horde of
othering and bigotry and fascism and supremacy?

How do we,
the post eclipse
children of the sun –
hope to last longer
than those children of
Inti
slain by Spaniards?

The offspring of the gold-heart sun
outnumbered the conquistadores
tens of thousands to one –
but can only be seen today in
vine-choked ruins,
rubble-sturine mountains,
colonist-edited history books,
or white-curated museums.

I am told –
the light will fade
forever
If we don’t stop to
breathe,
rest,
heal our torn hearts,
and hold the light for all we shine on,
despite the looming eclipse.

I’m not proud,
but I beg you Inti –
tell me how you stopped
to heal a heart broken
by hate
and still hold the light
for all
even after they killed
everyone who revered
and loved you?

At its core, Two Princes dramatizes a rivalry between two suitors vying for the affections of a single woman. The speaker—one of the two contenders—positions himself as the better choice, contrasting his sincerity and love with the material wealth of the other. This dramatic tension mirrors the romantic dilemmas found in Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies alike, as well as in Pyramus and Thisbe, a tale of forbidden love that Shakespeare adapts into A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Shakespearean drama often foregrounds romantic competition, particularly in plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night. Two Princes employs a similar structure, where love is not merely a matter of individual choice but is complicated by external pressures—specifically, the dichotomy between wealth and genuine affection. The song’s speaker, much like Shakespearean lovers such as Orlando (As You Like It) or Bassanio (The Merchant of Venice), argues that his love should be valued over material prosperity. The song’s line “If you want to call me baby, just go ahead now” evokes the kind of direct appeals often found in Shakespeare’s romantic dialogues, in which lovers entreat their beloveds to choose passion over pragmatic concerns (Shakespeare, Much Ado 2.1.180-190).

Ovidian Tragedy and the Problem of Status

The contrast between the two suitors also recalls the class-based barriers in Pyramus and Thisbe, a tale recounted in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In Ovid’s narrative, the lovers are separated by their parents, who disapprove of their union. Although the song does not explicitly mention parental interference, it implicitly invokes societal pressures through the opposition of the rich prince versus the sincere but impoverished lover. The speaker’s plea suggests an awareness that love is often dictated by social constraints—a theme pervasive in both Pyramus and Thisbe and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which directly adapts the Ovidian source material (Romeo and Juliet 1.5.92-109).

Furthermore, Pyramus and Thisbe is famously adapted as a play-within-a-play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where its exaggerated tragedy is used to satirize the conventions of dramatic romance. In this light, Two Princes can be read as similarly playful; it employs hyperbolic romantic rhetoric but ultimately resists tragic resolution. Instead of death, as in Pyramus and Thisbe, the stakes in Two Princes remain within the realm of emotional rather than existential drama, aligning it more with Shakespeare’s comedies than his tragedies.

Repetition and Theatrical Persuasion

A notable feature of Two Princes is its repetitive lyrical structure, particularly the refrain “Just go ahead now”, which functions as a rhetorical strategy akin to persuasive monologues in Shakespearean drama. The speaker’s insistence and direct address to the woman resemble the way Shakespeare’s characters, particularly in soliloquies, attempt to assert control over their fate through language. In Richard III, for example, Richard woos Lady Anne despite having killed her husband, employing relentless verbal manipulation (Richard III 1.2.225-250). Similarly, in Two Princes, the repeated invitation for the woman to choose mirrors these rhetorical strategies.

The lyrics also contain an almost comic self-awareness, akin to Benedick and Beatrice’s witty repartee in Much Ado About Nothing (Much Ado 5.2.35-50). The speaker’s awareness that he is competing with a wealthy rival but still framing himself as the ideal choice adds a dramatic irony reminiscent of Shakespeare’s more comedic love scenes.

  1. “One, two princes kneel before you” – This lyric establishes the competing suitors, reminiscent of Helena and Hermia’s rival lovers in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2.2.125-135), where Lysander and Demetrius both suddenly proclaim their devotion to Helena.
  2. “That ain’t what I said now” – This phrase echoes misunderstandings and comedic miscommunication often found in Shakespearean dialogue, particularly in Twelfth Night (2.2.20-35), where Viola (as Cesario) protests her unintended wooing of Olivia.
  3. “Marry him or marry me” – The direct appeal resembles Orlando’s passionate declarations in As You Like It (3.2.320-330), where he inscribes poetry to Rosalind and insists on his unwavering devotion.
  4. “I know what a prince and lover ought to be” – This statement encapsulates the speaker’s belief in romantic idealism, similar to Bassanio’s reasoning in The Merchant of Venice (3.2.10-24), where he gambles everything for Portia’s love.

Subversion of the Love Triangle

In both Shakespearean and Ovidian traditions, love triangles frequently result in either comedic resolution (as in Much Ado About Nothing) or tragic demise (as in Romeo and Juliet). Two Princes, however, refuses to provide a resolution. The song ends without revealing whether the woman chooses either suitor, leaving the question of love open-ended. This ambiguity subverts traditional romantic narratives, in which love is either consummated or doomed, and instead offers a modern, postmodern meditation on choice, agency, and the performance of romantic appeal.

Ultimately, Two Princes serves as an unintentional but rich intertextual dialogue with the history of romantic storytelling. By engaging with tropes of wealth versus sincerity, persuasion through repetition, and the love-triangle structure, the song taps into a literary lineage stretching from Ovid to Shakespeare, repackaged within the idiom of 1990s alternative rock.

Works Cited

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by A.D. Melville, Oxford UP, 1986.

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing. The Arden Shakespeare, edited by Claire McEachern, Bloomsbury, 2016.

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Arden Shakespeare, edited by Harold F. Brooks, Bloomsbury, 2007.

Shakespeare, William. Romeo and Juliet. The Arden Shakespeare, edited by René Weis, Bloomsbury, 2012.

Shakespeare, William. Richard III. The Arden Shakespeare, edited by James R. Siemon, Bloomsbury, 2009.

I haven’t made or sold any gaming stuff in a few years, and had a resolution for ’24 to do so. I didn’t actually sell anything, but I did make, a lot! Like, a whole campaign setting! I’m almost 200 pages in at this point, and I still have SO MUCH to add. This thing is quickly going to rival my mind-set-place-idea warehouse of Toworia.

Here’s a map, for anyone who care:

as midnight tolls its solemn chime,
old whores sip bitter wine with time,
fig jam and sharp cheddar pair,
leftover shrimp in cocktail wear.

new year’s eve, a feast of jest,
melancholy gluttons can’t resist.
wool socks on cold feet slide,
past and future gently collide.

underneath the fireworks’ bloom,
melons cut through festive gloom,
in laughter, old stories replay,
as time slips another year away.

in quiet corners, some reflect,
on years gone by, and what’s next,
the night deepens, so does cheer,
toasting hopes for a brand new year

by DLC, prompt poem, Dali-E 3
In this detailed view from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the so-called Cat's Eye Nebula looks like the penetrating eye of the disembodied sorcerer Sauron from the film adaptation of "Lord of the Rings." The nebula, formally catalogued NGC 6543, is every bit as inscrutable as the J.R.R. Tolkien phantom character. Although the Cat's Eye Nebula was among the first planetary nebula ever to be discovered, it is one of the most complex planetary nebulae ever seen in space. A planetary nebula forms when Sun-like stars gently eject their outer gaseous layers to form bright nebulae with amazing twisted shapes.

In a cold and dark universe, a star burns bright,
A fiery orb of warmth and light in the night,
A beacon of hope in an endless void of blackness
, A shining example of resilience and might.
But as all things must, the star begins to fade,
Its once fierce flames now dwindling and dim,
The light it gave now a distant memory,
As it succumbs to the inexorable grim.
And yet, in its dying moments, the star glows on,
A final burst of radiance in the cold,
A last, defiant act in a universe that’s grown old,
A testament to the beauty that once it behold.
For though the star may fade and die in the end,
Its memory will live on and never bend.

scrambling
always rushing to get to the start
never quite making the finish
will one year be newer than the last?
or are they all just chains of duller links,
the further they string from the forge…

About two months ago, I started working on content for Toworia.com. I am going to really make a go at it. We will see how much I get done before life intervenes, but I’ve done more than I thought I would when I started.

sangre de las llaves

professional writing is rarely a burden, though i do a lot of it. between recent gradschool obligations and the impending policyageddon about to hit NYC schools, i am finding my brain stretched quite thin. in order to make sure i didn’t go over an assignment limit last week, i installed a word counter widget, which i then promptly forgot was running. this was last thursday.

tonight i realized the widget was running, and checked it. it clocked me at over 47k.

there are times i can’t get that far in nano in a month.

no wonder my brain feels like it is slowly leaking out of my ears, and onto my keyboard…

In answer to my past self, more than a month in, and it feels like it has been a year. I haven’t worked hours like the ones I am pulling since I started writing online, several lifetimes ago.

People are healthy, overall. My grandmother turned 99. We tore up a big chunk of backyard to start a garden. I aced my first semester of gradschool, pandemic included.

I have about four weeks to read everything for next semester, while I don’t have coursework. Unfortunately, in that time, we have to string together the logistics for a virtual gala, three end of year celebrations, an online art show, an online music night, and a graduation. In some ways, I think the end of the year is going to be harder virtually than analog, at least on resources taxed on my team.

Part of my brain lives 60-90 days in the future. I am trying to plan logistics for times with so many external variables – it makes it insanely complicated, given the huge number of unknowns COVID-19 has introduced to supply chains and labor allocation.

I just hope everything stays buckled down for the forseeable.

@staci_larson_animation

Here comes Mr. StealYoGirl—— #lol #boredathome #plaguedoctor #earthchan

♬ Interior Crocodile Alligator – Chip Tha Ripper

Happy St. Patrick’s day!

If only I had some sense of the outer bounds of the new normal, it would be less stressful. I cannot fathom how this is only the second day, and feels like it is already a month in. What is it going to feel like in a month?

If there is any truth to the pithy truths of parables and fortune cookies, it is the absolutism with which some people will believe or deny the contents of distilled experience in the form of advice. I have always found it surprising to me who gets advice from whom, about what, and why. Who asks for help or guidance, as opposed to those who might be more inclined to solve a problem for themselves and perhaps make a mistake, but do so privately.


I am at a crossroads of life. I need to make more than one decision within the next year, and have multiple internal and external pressures weighing on the pathways and outcomes.

I hope I choose wisely, as the old crusader offering advice once warned.

I didn’t complete NANO 15, but man did I almost die trying.  Good stuff came out of it – just wish things were not so nutty that I couldn’t complete the work.

There’s always next year.

circle4_zps8dd70f75

novemberNo shadow
No stars
No moon
No cars
November
It only believes
In a pile of dead leaves
And a moon
That’s the color of bone 

Writing has been hard.  I sometimes stare and count cursor blinks. The inspiration is there, in pan flashes and spotlight dances, then it is gone, and I’m hollow and can’t bring myself to get past fragments – shards of stories or splinters of people.

That is why I am going to try to do Nanowrimo.  A huge external force pressing down on my desire to flit away from the process.

It will probably kill me, but I’ll die writing.

Last week I got a Samsung S5 – I like it a lot, but it was impossible to root.  I won’t run unrooted due to ALL THE CRAP VZ (my carrier I have to stick with) forces on your phone.  For the S5, AT&T and VZ both fucked with the simple root process pretty much any other carrier can run with.

In frustration, I swapped out the S5 for a M8.  I dislike the lack of battery control, but a totally useable phone in all ways.  Unlocking the bootloader was NOT simple, since VZ stepped in here too to fuck with HTC’s policy of allowing phones owners to unlock the bootloader.  Luckily, there are ways around this.

  1. Temp root via weaksauce the phone then install supersu
  2. Install s-off via firewater (which requires root to run correctly)
  3. Change CID to 11111111 – this allows you to bypass the restrictions VZ put on HTC to unlock your bootloader
  4. THEN you can use HTC Bootloader Unlock Instructions

Once you do that, it wipes your phone, but your bootloader is unlocked.  Then you can have fun.

Tricks:

  • You have to uninstall the HTC App after you get the USB drivers set up
  • You DO NOT have to update the Android SDK ADB/Fastboot you can download from HTC that are found in the sdkplatform-tools directory
  • You DO need to know how to issue both fastboot commands (with the phone in fastboot) and adb commands

 

MayThe past two weeks are quite literally the longest I have gone without writing since I started writing, Amazingly, I feel like last moth, had someone asked me that question – “When did you start writing?” – I would have been able to answer it in a year and part of a month. Now I have only the vaguest impression of the story and the circumstances.

I have found that with the astounding clarity of the memories past thirteen days has come a dulling of things that once stood out sharp in my mind thirty years ago and more. I am hoping it is exhaustion coupled with emotional strain, rather than a permanent loss of things that came before. I don’t really know how I’d cope if I started losing my past.

In those past 13 days, I have done more than I thought humanly possible. I lost a father, driven more than a thousand miles, coordinated details, mortgaged personal stakes in life and family, tried to keep what remained of my immediate family together, balanced those needs against the needs of my extended family, and navigated the treacherous dangers of the outpouring of love, sympathy, and sincere admiration for my dad which washed my way.

I have not written.

I have birthed words in the way of survival – texts, emails, business. It is my livelihood to write – to communicate. I have written plenty, but none of it with meat. I have been a typist of bones only for almost the past two weeks. I haven’t been able to reply to any of the genuine beauty of some of the expressions of sorrow sent to me with anything approaching eloquence. I dare not try to get any of the things that have flooded my mind, for fear that once I open a valve in the skunk-works, I might never be able to close it again the the deluge that would follow.

I am not a danger to myself, or others, but fucking hell do I know what I am doing is dangerous.

I left my job to deal with my father’s death in the absolute worst seven-to-ten days of the 365 we so name a year on account of our sun and the way we revolve around it. I have paid for that, since returning to work, but not nearly so much as those I left behind paid for in my absence. I carry guilt for that, despite a sure knowledge that it is a stupid thing to feel guilt about – a legacy of my father’s, for good or ill.

I’ve focused on the minutia of death – on logistics and business and the _process_ that follows the demise of a person. I have completely barricaded away the loss, or the grief, or the pain – I keep telling myself there will be time enough for those things once the business end is taken care of. When my siblings and mother don’t have to worry about houses and rents and cars and insurance and obituaries and memorials anymore – then I’ll be able to find a quiet corner and fall apart.

Only now I am not so sure I can do it.

There will be a memorial service for my dad in a couple weeks. It is going to be a watermark for me in my life the way nothing that has come before ever has been – it is going to be a time where I finally relieve the logistical self that has been at the helm since the morning of Friday the 13th, or it is the point where I am the former helmsman goes to a watery grave, in the murk and dark, like so many other things I have buried in the past 13 days.

I’m torn between trite imagery from either of my two favorite fantasy series – in the Wheel of Time when one of the protagonists loses an arm, and doesn’t even pause before moving on after he is healed from the wound. Someone slaps him and tries to force him to mourn the loss – his response was simple – he had too many things to do to spend the time and energy on mourning something he could not change. A dangerous perspective.

In Game of Thrones the men and women of Westeros labored to create an impenetrable barrier between that which nearly destroyed them upon a time – a nimbus force of dread, death and superstitious fear that could easily be forgotten behind hundreds of feet of glacial barrier – never melting, never faltering. Time and change and corruption leave the once-noble upkeep and defense of this barrier a punishment or peril for criminals or those who have no other choices in life. The barrier turns on itself, in more than one way. What was once a great bastion of security is a liability of weakness.

And so poorly manned, by the time the reader encounters it.

Maybe that is what I am worried about the most – why I am sitting here trying to find words around my lost arm, and the secret tunnels beneath the internal glacial walls – I know that down the road, not dealing with what I have subjected myself to at a distance will have far more dire consequences than dealing with it.

The lesson of the book in the Wheel of Time where the aforementioned protagonist loses an arm is that true strength requires laughter, hardness, and flexibility – the riddle of steel, in a different turn of phrase. Too humorless, and it will not matter how hard or flexible, you will lose your purpose and be swallowed by oblivion. Too hard, and not flexible, and you will shatter under pressure. Too hard and humorless, and you will crack under pressure. Flexibility is the key – mutability – my greatest strength in all my external interactions with the world.

I feel like I am losing that mutability with my past, with my father. I need to either rediscover channels to it, or reinvent it, or I am going to lose more than a father – I am going to lose myself.

I recall in the midst of the dying of my grandfather, which was neither sudden, nor surprising, how overwhelmed my father was, in the face of all the things he was trying to deal with. Ultimately, one of the things that caught him most off guard was the fact that he felt like he was too young to have to be dealing with the loss of a parent – nearly two decades before my mother had to cross the bridge and, amazingly my grandmother – his mother – lives on to bury him.

I don’t know what that says about the perspectives on age and death. Maybe something – maybe nothing. I just remember with no small amount of sorrow more than six months after he buried his father, him holding the phone in his hand as he teared up, still in shock that he couldn’t believe that he had halfway dialed the number to ask for help with a mechanical issue we were having with rebuilding a pump engine.

My father had some time in a hospital to prepare for what he had to deal with. Not that he was prepared when death finally skated in in black sequins to bad music – he could not have been, but he did not go from parked to fifth gear and stay there for a week and a half. He saw what was coming, even if he hoped against it. There was a part of him that was prepared – banked for the turn, braced for the g-forces, and better able and capable of weathering it.

I was not so prepared. I am younger by more than a decade than he was at the time. I feel like I am doing so much alone, and whistling in the dark – hoping I am doing the right things in the way that ends the best for the most people – for other people.

I don’t know what the fuck I am going to do.

For now, I guess I am going to write. Most of it will not be public, but this will be, both as a reminder to myself, and as a goad for those few who still read what I write, to kick me now and again, and remind me of all the important things I will be squandering if I just box this up and move on.

Too many years of too many things boxed up. I’m out of room in the warehouse.

Time to move some crates, I guess.

 

To everyone who says that you should have nothing to hide if you do no wrong, ask yourself why so much of what our government does is classified?

Originally at: http://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1fwj66/u161719_tells_us_all_why_surveillance_is_not_ok/

I live in a country generally assumed to be a dictatorship. One of the Arab spring countries. I have lived through curfews and have seen the outcomes of the sort of surveillance now being revealed in the US. People here talking about curfews aren’t realizing what that actually FEELS like. It isn’t about having to go inside, and the practicality of that. It’s about creating the feeling that everyone, everything is watching. A few points:

1) the purpose of this surveillance from the governments point of view is to control enemies of the state. Not terrorists. People who are coalescing around ideas that would destabilize the status quo. These could be religious ideas. These could be groups like anon who are too good with tech for the governments liking. It makes it very easy to know who these people are. It also makes it very simple to control these people.

Lets say you are a college student and you get in with some people who want to stop farming practices that hurt animals. So you make a plan and go to protest these practices. You get there, and wow, the protest is huge. You never expected this, you were just goofing off. Well now everyone who was there is suspect. Even though you technically had the right to protest, you’re now considered a dangerous person.

With this tech in place, the government doesn’t have to put you in jail. They can do something more sinister. They can just email you a sexy picture you took with a girlfriend. Or they can email you a note saying that they can prove your dad is cheating on his taxes. Or they can threaten to get your dad fired. All you have to do, the email says, is help them catch your friends in the group. You have to report back every week, or you dad might lose his job. So you do. You turn in your friends and even though they try to keep meetings off grid, you’re reporting on them to protect your dad.

2) Let’s say number one goes on. The country is a weird place now. Really weird. Pretty soon, a movement springs up like occupy, except its bigger this time. People are really serious, and they are saying they want a government without this power. I guess people are realizing that it is a serious deal. You see on the news that tear gas was fired. Your friend calls you, frantic. They’re shooting people. Oh my god. you never signed up for this. You say, fuck it. My dad might lose his job but I won’t be responsible for anyone dying. That’s going too far. You refuse to report anymore. You just stop going to meetings. You stay at home, and try not to watch the news. Three days later, police come to your door and arrest you. They confiscate your computer and phones, and they beat you up a bit. No one can help you so they all just sit quietly. They know if they say anything they’re next. This happened in the country I live in. It is not a joke.

3) Its hard to say how long you were in there. What you saw was horrible. Most of the time, you only heard screams. People begging to be killed. Noises you’ve never heard before. You, you were lucky. You got kicked every day when they threw your moldy food at you, but no one shocked you. No one used sexual violence on you, at least that you remember. There were some times they gave you pills, and you can’t say for sure what happened then. To be honest, sometimes the pills were the best part of your day, because at least then you didn’t feel anything. You have scars on you from the way you were treated. You learn in prison that torture is now common. But everyone who uploads videos or pictures of this torture is labeled a leaker. Its considered a threat to national security. Pretty soon, a cut you got on your leg is looking really bad. You think it’s infected. There were no doctors in prison, and it was so overcrowded, who knows what got in the cut. You go to the doctor, but he refuses to see you. He knows if he does the government can see the records that he treated you. Even you calling his office prompts a visit from the local police.

You decide to go home and see your parents. Maybe they can help. This leg is getting really bad. You get to their house. They aren’t home. You can’t reach them no matter how hard you try. A neighbor pulls you aside, and he quickly tells you they were arrested three weeks ago and haven’t been seen since. You vaguely remember mentioning to them on the phone you were going to that protest. Even your little brother isn’t there.

4) Is this even really happening? You look at the news. Sports scores. Celebrity news. It’s like nothing is wrong. What the hell is going on? A stranger smirks at you reading the paper. You lose it. You shout at him “fuck you dude what are you laughing at can’t you see I’ve got a fucking wound on my leg?”

“Sorry,” he says. “I just didn’t know anyone read the news anymore.” There haven’t been any real journalists for months. They’re all in jail.

Everyone walking around is scared. They can’t talk to anyone else because they don’t know who is reporting for the government. Hell, at one time YOU were reporting for the government. Maybe they just want their kid to get through school. Maybe they want to keep their job. Maybe they’re sick and want to be able to visit the doctor. It’s always a simple reason. Good people always do bad things for simple reasons.

You want to protest. You want your family back. You need help for your leg. This is way beyond anything you ever wanted. It started because you just wanted to see fair treatment in farms. Now you’re basically considered a terrorist, and everyone around you might be reporting on you. You definitely can’t use a phone or email. You can’t get a job. You can’t even trust people face to face anymore. On every corner, there are people with guns. They are as scared as you are. They just don’t want to lose their jobs. They don’t want to be labeled as traitors.

This all happened in the country where I live.

You want to know why revolutions happen? Because little by little by little things get worse and worse. But this thing that is happening now is big. This is the key ingredient. This allows them to know everything they need to know to accomplish the above. The fact that they are doing it is proof that they are the sort of people who might use it in the way I described. In the country I live in, they also claimed it was for the safety of the people. Same in Soviet Russia. Same in East Germany. In fact, that is always the excuse that is used to surveil everyone. But it has never ONCE proven to be the reality.

Maybe Obama won’t do it. Maybe the next guy won’t, or the one after him. Maybe this story isn’t about you. Maybe it happens 10 or 20 years from now, when a big war is happening, or after another big attack. Maybe it’s about your daughter or your son. We just don’t know yet. But what we do know is that right now, in this moment we have a choice. Are we okay with this, or not? Do we want this power to exist, or not?

You know for me, the reason I’m upset is that I grew up in school saying the pledge of allegiance. I was taught that the United States meant “liberty and justice for all.” You get older, you learn that in this country we define that phrase based on the constitution. That’s what tells us what liberty is and what justice is. Well, the government just violated that ideal. So if they aren’t standing for liberty and justice anymore, what are they standing for? Safety?

Ask yourself a question. In the story I told above, does anyone sound safe?

I didn’t make anything up. These things happened to people I know. We used to think it couldn’t happen in America. But guess what? It’s starting to happen.

I actually get really upset when people say “I don’t have anything to hide. Let them read everything.” People saying that have no idea what they are bringing down on their own heads. They are naive, and we need to listen to people in other countries who are clearly telling us that this is a horrible horrible sign and it is time to stand up and say no.

Forget, for a moment, that there are still thousands of New Yorkers without power, and even more who are have no heat or hot water in housing developments.  Forget that the governor is starting a commission to go after the power companies for criminal neglect. Forget that the MTA has told people who rely on them for transportation on a monthly level that they will see no extension or refunds for the time the system was shut down.  If you can, ignore the fact that there are still thousands of New Yorkers without basic needs for life, dependent on the good will of others.

Below is an actual e-mail sent to anyone who works in the law division for NYC.  All non-exempt NYC employees who couldn’t get to work or a shelter during the Hurricane now have to use vacation days for those days, or they get docked pay.  The city is being _generous_ enough to advance people future vacation, in the case that they do not have one.

The Mayor’s signature is not on that email,  but he is the one making this decision, ultimately.  It is unconscionable to ask hard working New Yorkers who couldn’t get to work or a shelter due to weather AND an MTA shutdown that they should be giving their time back to the city.

~~~~~~

From: Higgins, Malachy [mailto:mhiggins@law.nyc.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 12:46 PM
Cc: *ALL SUPPORT MANAGERS
Subject: Timesheet for the week ending 11/03/2012 – Hurricane Sandy – Handscan/Webclock Users ONLY

To All Support Users ONLY,

This email is regarding how to record your time and leave information for the week ending 11/03/2012. 

Please use your annual leave for the week of 10/29/12 to 11/03/12 in the following instances:

  • If you were unable to:
    • report to work at either your permanent location or one of our other locations or,
    • to a shelter in your community or,
    • reported to a shelter but were turned away and returned home.
  • The reason for this Annual Leave is Other Usage, this leave is located on the left side navigation bar and requires two levels of approval – your approver and Timekeeping.   
  • If you do not have annual leave and would like to have annual leave advanced for Hurricane Sandy event ONLY, please send an email requesting an advance of your annual leave to Kathy Bryan via email, copying your Division Chief . 
  • However, if you were pre-scheduled for annual leave during the week of 11/03/12, you must use your annual leave.  If you were also sick during this time, please record accordingly.

Recording Volunteer hours for week ending 11/03/12 and onward  

For all employees who reported to a shelter and were able to volunteer, the hours will be noted on your timesheet.  You would have received an orange colored timecard – “NYC City of New York Emergency Response Staff (ERS)” from the shelter to record the hours.  Make a copy of the timecard and send the original to Timekeeping via email, fax or interoffice.  Timekeeping will make the change to your schedule for the day/s that you volunteered.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Kathy Bryan and Timekeeping via email.   

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . . Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under I green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, — My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
the Gunpowder Treason and Plot,

I see no reason why Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent to blow up King and Parliament.

Three score barrels were laid below to prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s mercy he was catch’d with a dark lantern and lighted match.

Holloa boys, holloa boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!

Hip hip hoorah!

A penny loaf to feed the Pope
A farthing o’ cheese to choke him.

A pint of beer to rinse it down.
A faggot of sticks to burn him.

Burn him in a tub of tar.
Burn him like a blazing star.

Burn his body from his head.
Then we’ll say ol’ Pope is dead.

Hip hip hoorah!
Hip hip hoorah hoorah!

I just had the fastest commute of my life. I made it from Hamilton Heights to Brooklyn Heights in 22 minutes. This was, in part, due to the fact that I managed to drive from 34th to the Brooklyn Bridge never once tapping my breaks aside from when I crossed the West Side Highway.  Though on some level, shooting 50mph down  dark stretch of road normally snarled with cars, cops, and trucks was surreally exhilarating, it was also nauseatingly eye-opening.  All the images I’ve been seeing secondhand came home in a visceral wave. Driving throughower Manhattan left me feeling like a tomb robber, skulking about a dark and forbidden place, waiting for something horrible to happen.  It was not until I turned on to Broadway, and was faced with the flashing cavalcade of the NYPD ‘security stop’ at Fulton station that it dawned on me just how dark it was beyond the glowing cone of my headlamps.

I have written a lot about NYC over the years – flights of fancy, poems, and odd lots of experiences lurking at the periphery of dawn. Never have I seen her like this. I feel like I was witness to a compound fracture, but the break starts in midtown and travels the remaining length of the island, rather than a femur or shin. To those living downtown, as I once did, my morbid moment of self-realization is two drops of pee in a roiling cauldron of a pisspot, but that connection was sobering. Strength and resilience – hell, maybe even stubbornness have seen New Yorkers through worse, but rarely, and even more rarely with the wounds so garish and laid bare. My heart goes out to the populace of the city which will never quite be the same again. For all our concrete and macadam, copper and steel, wireless and fiber optics, we really aren’t much more than a colony of fleas precariously colonized in the mane of Nature, gambling on our survival through the next big itch.

You cannot know what the sadness in you does to me,
the same way that you cannot know the
heat of the jealousy your sadness enkindles.

Who is the fool so lucky to have you as a possible
companion
seeker
laughter
lover

And turn it away? For what?

I would forsake all I have, to hold that momentary gleam in your eye
which makes someone else’s poor judgment
something that hurts you so
and reminds me that no matter how much I am entwined by you
it will always be by limbs invisible to one of us.

This is a friendly reminder from a local board of elections volunteer that the deadline to register to vote is tomorrow!  This means that if you are not registered to vote in NYS, you have until tomorrow to do one of several things if you intend to participate in the election on November 2nd:

 

Life has been hectic and chaotic and exhausting, so what do I do?  I dive me into some fantasy.  In this case: creating a minAnd or &?i-world to run a DND Next playtest campaign in.  Two of my players are opting for magic users – a warlock and a cleric.  Since my players are all veteran roleplayers, the idea of using the cookie-cutter options presented in the playtest packet didn’t _quite_ jive with character concepts or ideas.  Also, I have never dug the generic gods of published DND worlds – Greyhawk was meh, Faerun had too many, Dragonlance had the best, but the least accessable in some ways, and who knows who they worship now that I stopped reading books…

I am placing the mini-campaign in a newly spawned sandbox world to test the rules, without tainting Toworia‘s ruleset/canon. The first session went fairly well, and I am optimistic about where it will develop.  In order to assuage the aforementioned discomfort about magic-user character classes, I spun up some new content I am giving away below:

Peace Domain (new Cleric Domain):

Eldritch Pact – Herjul the Mistbat (new Warlock pact):

Over the years, my experiences in digital have led me to be seriously paranoid about backups.  Over the summer, I took a big power zot from a breaker cascade caused by my wife running dishwasher, AC, and washing machine simultaneously.

I was prepared.  Within a few days, I had my archive drive loaded up on the network, and started restoring away.

Then it happened again, while I was doing the restore.  My backup drive was fried, as my source had been.

Since mid-July I have been doggedly avoiding digging through all my archival files trying to replace whatever was lost in that aborted backup.  I’ve been working online since about 2008, so what I was missing was more of an archive of work in progress, old completed work – letters, poems, notes…

1994 to mid 2007 are now lost to me, permanently.

I’ve manually gone through 22 hard drives, three old laptops, and run every undelete and unpartition utility in my bat-belt.

The data just doesn’t exist anywhere else.

I can’t even begin to calculate the loss – how many hundreds of hours of writing, mostly, gone.  There were six novels, probably two-dozen short stories, and a bunch of Nanowrimo in there.

It is horrifying, and somewhat freeing at the same time.  Some of those writing projects were so poorly executed that they needed to be edited so heavily that it might as well have been a re-write.  Now, I guess it is a re-write.

Everything else is getting triple-clouded now.

I think the poetry hurts the most.  I can replace the fiction eventually, but poetry is way more ethereal for me – I can’t ever put the genie back in the bottle once out.

I guess I need to figure out where to start.

Today marked the launch of DNDNext’s first round of playtesting.  The rules are compact, but intruiging.  The launch, however, much like Diablo 3, has overshadowed the game.  Like Diablo, this was a frigging trainwreck.

I mirrored my packet on google drive, which promptly went 404:
http://tinyurl.com/6rxahrv

I have re-mirrored on Dropbox:
http://tinyurl.com/cfrumgs

I am also mirroring here:
D&D_Next_Playtest_5-24-12.zip

Mirror via @thenexted

http://wobzip.org/file/71bJP

Bonus – Blank Character Sheets for anyone who wants to try and hack together their own stuff

http://tinyurl.com/dy2amzk

Best luck to all!

 

Recently, I had a bit of a falling out with my ISP – this was related to the bricking of an internet router, and complicated by arcane corporate bureaucracy.

The short of all this chaos and churn is that my internet service was interrupted for a few days, and chaotic for a few days on either end of that outage.  As a result, my entries via DYNDNS were hopelessly disconnected from reality, and the handful of sites still connected to my home server were disconnected from the aether.

So, I decided to migrate this blog to my paid hosting account – I still have and use Livejournal, but I distrust it implicitly since it was bought by the Russian mob, so I cross-syndicate there, but want to keep proprietary contol over my years-worth of writing.

This move has been quite a mental process.

The actual transfer of files and settings was not a big deal – that was a couple hours at most.  What changed is that my new install of WordPress is apparently now cross-syndicated to the blog post services out there.  This means that I’ve become a target for smapbots that leave comments.

Interestingly, these comment bots come from all over, and have quite a wide range of styles and content to post.  In certain cases, I think, to get past automated filters, they leave what seems like constructive comments.  In other places, they are obvious link touts.  Occassionally, I get Finnegan’s Wake-esque content, with a link embed in the account name.

The bots have been commenting on over nine years of content.

_THAT_ has been what is rough – I have taken these automated comments showing up in my moderation folder as a form of daily mental exercise and a dash of oracular ghost-in-the-machine.  Some of the posts commented on are dead-link web content.  Some are old writing segments.  Some are inside jokes of yesteryear made public.

All of them have been things that I would never mine in my own data collection.  I have gotten 177 spambot posts since last week, and none of them have been on what I would consider the dozen and change posts worth anything in the thousand-something I’ve written.  A number of them, however, have driven me down roads of nostalgia and past situation I often avoid – my reactions, in some cases, are identical to the reasons I avoid the issues in the first place.  In some cases, however, I have found my mindset to be better or worse than the sentiment in the post, or the power of the comments.

It has been interesting.

I assume once my validity as a data mining enterprise is exhasuted, the comments will subside somewhat, and, after that, the outpouring of nostalgia will die down a bit.  For now though, it is an interesting intellectual process – almost like having a future curator pick what is relevant out of your life, and forcing you to think about those things, even if you see them as marginal in most cases.

I’ll have to work on the insights all this braintime is providing sometime soon, in the near future hopefully.

 

In the deep dark, beneath the clan-hold caves,
Light was brought by those from beyond the Mist.
The eight-clan’s ranks and allies did not quave,
united behind the clan-lord’s glowing fist.

A carv’d salt shrine and prayers to unknown gods
brightened darkened grotto and brought a chance
to the clan’s best blood, gathered in grim squads
awaiting arcane call to deadly dance.

Jagged shadows crossed the blessed grotto,
as claws and fangs of those gathered unsheathed;
tense growls drowned out fear’s heartbeat staccato,
awaiting the attack call to be breathed.

In brightened darkness they bled, died, and fought,
to end the curse the Lich’s reign had wrought…

Of those who answered battle’s bloody roars,
one in ten lived to see the rising dawn –
a blood-price steep, but less than all the scores
the Stalker’s blades over the years had drawn.

With draughts and blessing, battle spell and claw
against grey flesh and profane mattock blows,
victory was snatched from the titan’s maw
but exultation only brought new woes.

For while the brave battled and bled below,
above, a bloodless coup was being fought –
as Boar fought to alter tradition’s flow,
and claim Alpha’s name not with fight, but plot.

In brightened darkness they bled, died, and fought,
to end the curse the Lich’s reign had wrought…

When victors returned, thinking trials done
bearing bloody trophies and battle song,
the Sharptusk’s craven battle had been won,
infirm and child alike were sworn lifelong –

to darkened ends of traitors’ cunning plot.
In Sharptusk guile were childrens’ lives entwined,
by hostage blood was the true Alpha caught,
and with black deed was leadership maligned.

A combat call was lifted once again
and challenge changed to counter Alpha’s arm,
and though the mattock’s grip brought only pain
the Sharptusk leader claimed it to deal harm.

In brightened darkness they bled, died, and fought,
to end the curse the Lich’s reign had wrought…

Within the caves, there were one time eight clans
Before the time of Sharptusk’s wicked plans
But mattock fell to Alpha’s silvered hand,
and Sharptusk’s cursed clan forever banned.

At times where you find yourself at a juxtaposition of options, none of which lead to an outcome you seek pursuing, what do you do?  In the days of old, crows’ cages and hangman’s gallows were erected at crossroads, to prevent the spirits of those who were condemned to those same roadside sideshows from following their executors home, and haunting the ever-loving shit out of them.

Is that the option?  Hang out with the hollowed faces that once held bulging eyes and purple tongues, before the ravens hanging around looking for a quick peck at some newly abandoned bones-in-a-cage got bored from the incessant waiting, and decided to see _just_ how different the board of fare was on the other side of the crossroads?

Psychopomps, I think, are part of the human cultural identity because of these connundrums.  You need to know who to follow home, when all the options look shitty, and, clearly, the afterlife beats what will leave you swinging – one way or another.

If all goes well in the next two weeks, I’ll graduate college, eleven and a half years after the computed trajectory of post-high school catapult dictates I should have landed.  Part of me is proud, part of me loathes that I caved to play the game.  Part of me wants to go on to greater things, and part of me feels like I don’t deserve the life I have, and that I should be languishing somewhere right now, for collusion, or terrorism, or whatever other excuse los federales can come up with to justify getting me off the street.

I worry a lot about the world my son has been born into.

A speaker at a presentation my wife recently went to opened with the concept that, once upon a time, the ideal was to leave a better world behind for future generations – since that idea was totally fucked, the goal should shift to leaving behind a better type of person for that world which has been so royally screwed.

Where, exactly, does personal choice kick in here?  I once confronted closed fist and deadly anger with the bald truth that “I never asked to be born…” Will I face such an accusation someday?  Worse, will I think it myself, that consigning my offspring to the world they will inherit is a crime worthy of such a pondering?

I wish real life came with a Konami code.

The Hotel Tropicana is not a place I would usually stay, nor Atlantic City a place I regularly frequent, but I have been there enough times to know that when booking accommodations for a close friend’s bachelor party, there are few establishments with more commanding views of AC, and no place you want to avoid more than the part of the hotel that was not the Havana Tower.

Armed with this knowledge, I booked my reservation by calling and speaking to an individual who, though obstinate, was eventually helpful, in her own way, after sufficient cajoling and reference the Tropicana’s website, which she was thoroughly unfamiliar with. After, literally, reading the website to her, detailing the package I was trying to order, she admitted she didn’t know how to enter it into the system. It took a manager escalation to get those terms met, in coordination with my other requests, which should have been my warning.

To say that the accommodations we were furnished with were plush (top-corner party suite, with an adjoining room, and another next to that) is to understate both the view and decor. To say the service which accompanied these accommodations was anything close to what we were paying for is a fallacy of the highest order. I could have gone out and hired a meth-riddled beach bum and gotten more prompt, rapt, and helpful service than I did from any employee serving the Hotel Tropicana.

The package I had reserved was for two queen-sized beds per room, and two rooms, which were going to be shared by four people, apiece, with the extra two staying in cots in either of the bedrooms, or in the party suite. Considering the suite cost twice what a room did, this seemed like a reasonable idea on paper, but the reality was quite another thing.

Instead of two adjoining rooms with queen sized beds, with one of those rooms adjoining the party suite, we were left with two “suites” with king-sized beds, none of which adjoined with each other. I attempted to work out the unacceptable change in accommodations at the front desk at check in, which, after the intercession of the manager, was resolved by us putting multiple cots in the party room, and the party room cost being reduced by 50%. Not thrilled, but satisfied, we moved on to the remainder of our weekend festivities.

The party room advertized “a fully stocked wet bar”. What this means is that the room has a bar, with a sink behind it, which is wet, when you run the water. Calls to concierge to try and stock the bar were met with lingustic incomprehension, followed by a four-transfer pivot which left us back at the concierge routing desk. When asking to speak with a manager, we were sent to someone who was completely not helpful. I escalated that to _his_ manager, and explained what we had been through thus far, despite a fairly hefty outlay of cash.

We were told the wet bar was not stocked with mixers, nor could we order mixers from room service. Furthermore, our request of additional glassware was met with another round of bafflement, which ultimately resulted in us being told that the glassware would cost 5$ per piece, and would not be to our room for two hours. When one of my friends on the other line asked if this was because they had to blow the glass themselves, before bringing it up, the query was met with a deadpan “ha ha sir, very funny”.

I went downstairs to deal with the fact that our cots had not yet arrived while people settled in. Ultimately, I was assured by the manager on duty that, in lieu of cots, we would be getting the mystery room between the two rooms had been given, which, lo and behold, was furnished with two queen beds. I would interject that this reasonable resolution was only reached _after_ a rather direct and blatant threat to discuss the matter with the fine customer service folks at American Express, who would doubtless see my side of the story in being charged for something I was not getting. I was told that the room had to be cleaned, but that I could pick up keys in a few hours.

It seemed like we were finally on the right track. Putting administrivia and frustration aside, we decided to partake in one of the fringe benefits of our weekend package – a total of 300$ in credit towards a meal at the Seaside Cafe.

I have been to a lot of restaurants.

I’m no Frank Bruni, nor am I by any means someone who prides themselves in haven eaten at every “must go” place in any town I happen to be in for a six-hour layover, but I have been to enough establishments (geographically) of both high and low quality to say that it is not easy to either shock or surprise me eating out for a meal.

That is, until the Seaside Cafe at the hotel Tropicana.

The decor at the Seaside is something between the clearance isle of the hardware store recently put out of business by the arrival of a new Home Depot across town, and a garish collage scrapped together from the pages of “Better Homes” from twenty years ago. Enhancing this decor is the helpful and attentive staff, who could be escapees from the meds line at the nearby nursing home, looking for a cover until they can figure out how to blend back in with society, or the mid-stage of secret government lab tests which will one day soon bring about the zombie apocalypse you read so much about.

Bypassing the dour inarticulateness of our hostess, who gestured towards the large tile-bedecked table behind her like an HBO crypt-keeper with a bun of silver hair, we were (eventually) greeted by our waiter, Juan. If this was a Lovecraft story, I would pepper the mental image of Juan with phrases like “batrachian face” or “formed of an ill-moulded lump of clay”. H.P. is dead, so I will leave it at saying that Juan was the first person at the Tropicana to smile at us all day, which got me a fair mark in my book, at least, until we came to the point of us being at the restaurant.

Juan insisted on a round of drinks, despite the fact nobody was really looking for one – the concept of “waters all around” seemed to dully bounce off his forehead, and caused much blinking and fishfacing until eventually one of our party of eight ordered a soda, and that seemed to get the gears grinding again. We were furnished with a stack of menus while he went off to get our drinks, and a few appetizers were agreed upon in his absence.

The first warning sign that we were in trouble, really, which should have gone off like the screaming robot from that sci-fi classic of yesteryear, was when the question of “what is the soup of the day?” was met with a reaction not dissimilar from the one you might expect of the earlier-mentioned meth-head beach bum being asked to balance the national budget with a pad of paper, a pencil, and an abacus.

Juan ran off to find out about the soup, after we ordered apps. We promised to order our entrees upon his return. Triumphant, Juan returned with the information that the soups of the day were “chicken matzo ball, and cream of chicken tortellini”.

Believe it or not, one of us got the chicken and matzo ball soup – and it was edible. There ends the happy part of the tale.

After about ten minutes of pleasant banter, Juan returned with our appetizers – a few orders of chicken wings, and a few orders of shrimp cocktail. The wings, as expected, were sub-par; frozen and deep-fried, with pre-packaged packets of generic Bleu Cheese, and soggy celery and carrots. The two shrimp cocktails that were ordered – they really took the cake. They were clearly quickly thawed from some grand bag of deep-frozen shrimps, and tossed on a bed of nearly browning lettuce with some pre-packaged cocktail sauce in plastic cups, complete with foil lid for us to remove. I have seriously seen better shrimp cocktail on an economy class airline food-service. It is the going assumption of all those who dined on the shrimp that they were the cause of the future gastrointestinal distress we were all to face.

It was about this time we agreed on entrees. Everyone ordered, and out of six diners, there was a heavy burger presence. I ordered something which sounded genuinely interesting – a Ruben burger. Pastrami and swiss with a patty on a bun with mustard… I know what you are thinking – why would you do that, if you just had this experience with the shrimp? Mostly, because we were elated to be out and about on a lovely Saturday afternoon, and, perhaps, I wasn’t using my best judgment. It may have had something to do with the bottle of scotch, bottle of rotgut whiskey, and bottle of unidentified brown limo liquor shared on the ride from NYC to AC.

When the orders came out, Juan was very through about naming each thing as he plopped it down before us, and whisked away the room-service aluminum lid separating us from our repast with a flourish. There was not enough room on the table to fit everything being delivered, and if it were not for the quick plate busing by those at the table, there would have surely been a spill. To be honest, I didn’t really pay too much attention to his arcane mutterings over the food until he got to my side of the table, which was all burgers. It went something like this:

::plop:: ::pop::

“One bacon burger with swiss..”

::plop:: ::pop::

“One bacon burger with swiss..”

::plop:: ::pop::

“One bacon burger with swiss.. ooooh”

To his credit, Juan realized he had screwed up. He took my plate away, and promised to have my meal right out. It was at this point that I decided to have a drink, and let everyone else chow down. Juan reappeared with my whiskey-coke about three minutes later, apologizing again for the food mix up. As I was trying to reassure him about it not being an issue, he spilled my drink on my back, trying to put it down.

“Oh.”

No offer of a towel, or napkin – in fact, he put down the half-spilled drink and scuttled away, for what I assumed was a bar towel, but he did not reappear for some time, and when he did, it was not with a towel, but a replacement drink for me. I made due with with what beverage soakers I scrounged at the table, and tried not to yell as an ice cube worked its way from my shirt to my shorts…

My lone whiskey coke was not long for the world, and when Juan e re-appeared to promise my burger in a couple minutes (for the second time) one of my table-mates went once more, into the breach, and asked Juan about available beers…

“Oh, I dunno. Bud, I think? And some imported stuff maybe? Heineken?”

Juan was almost as baffled as he was when we asked about the soup. Perhaps he was not as baffled, because we had already asked on ineffable question of him previously. Juan was asked to check on the beers, and three whiskey cokes were ordered in the meantime. At this point, most of the table was more than halfway done eating, and I was gnawing on the end of frozen-fried wings in a damp shirt and dour mood.

Juan returned, his wide-featured face split in a grin of success, with my burger, and a tray of drinks. After the ritual ::plop:: ::pop:: he jovially reached to serve us our drinks.

“Three ruuuummmm and…”

Clearly our waiter wounded by the daggers being stared at his beverage pronouncement, for he changed the order mid-phrase with no real attempt at masking is initial mistake.

 

“… whiskey cokes.”

Rather than assume he double-boozed our drinks, we accepted what, clearly, were rum and cokes. Juan tried to save the day by offering me a complimentary dessert, due to all the hassles.

Did I mention I had explained to him at the beginning of the meal that the whole thing was on voucher?

I demurred his offer, assuming (perhaps wrongly) that any or all attempts to seal the service breach with dessert would result in a new disaster. In good humor, I offered that perhaps, instead of an undesired dessert, he could comp me a drink. Like a wall in a racquetball court, Juan ignored what I sent his way, and bustled off to get a dessert menu. When he returned (I was now about halfway thorough my burger, and thoroughly contemplating a dine-and-dash), I explained, again, that I didn’t want dessert. Someone suggested that perhaps he at least comp me the drink he had spilled on my back… Juan smiled his unreadable smiled, and told us he would return shortly.

In this, Juan’s longest absence, much to our amazement, the chef wandered out from behind the yawning portal to the abyss which must have led to the Seaside Cafe’s kitchen. He shuffled aimlessly towards the hostess armed with a plate fully loaded with fresh french fries. After making a few moth-around-the-lightpost circuts to all the nearby tables, he approached our table, and offered me the fires, as compenstaion for our issues.

This might have been ample restitution, if my burger had not come with a similar plate of fries, or if we had asked for fries, or had made any mention at all of fries to Juan, in any of our exchanges.

Juan comped me a side of fries, to go with my fries, to make up for whatever you want to call the situations previous.

We thanked the chef, and ran for our lives after settling the bill as soon as humanly possible. It was not until an hour or so later that the shrimp-eating circle of the Venn diagram of our group was besieged by what polite company might refer to as “the most severe case of the shits this side of Montezuma’s revenge”.

After dealing with the joys of gastrointestinal wonder, in preparation for a night on the town, I went down to the concierge desk I had been directed to go to, in order to pickup the room keys for the room we were supposed to be comped in order to deal with our people-to-bed ratio.

It was as if I had never spoken to anyone in the establishment about the issue before.

I went through the same American Express-manager scorpion-mating dance conversation from hours before, albeit with far less poise or patience on my part this time around. I had taken the names of everyone I spoke with earlier, and, despite the fact that I pissed off a fair line of folks waiting to check in as I tried to get the issue resolved, I did, eventually, get what I was promised. I was told, however, that I would have to wait until after they cleaned the room… I was assured I get the keys from the concierge when we came back from dinner, and was told the manager would be on shift until midnight, so the issue would most assuredly be taken care of.

Amazingly, they did have the keys when we came back, and lo, they had even cleaned the room, as promised. With the addition of the third room, we had just enough glassware for everyone to partake in the mixers and imbibables we had purchased ourselves.

After a raucous night of gambling and assorted other bachelor party activities, the following morning, we called for some room service (one of the other perks in the package) to attempt to aid in the nursing of hangovers and whatnot. Despite the fact that it was 9am, we were told that there was no way we would get our food before it was time to check out, and, therefore could not place an order. When I asked if we would be credited the difference of the room service voucher, the concierge laughed, and hung up.

Enough was enough – checkout ho! After wending the snaky line for checkout (becuase, apparently, despite having no less than a dozen stations for staffers, the Tropicana never employs more than three people to handle check in and check out at their main desk, two of which are reserved for VIP), I found that the attendant had no record of rooms by reservation name. Basically, I was told that if I didn’t know my room numbers, I couldn’t check out. This would be a snap normally, except I had already discarded my key cards in the receptacles they so kindly place every three feet within the hotel proper, and the room numbers were written on the little envelope those cards were in.

In hindsight, I might have had an easier time trying to sort all this out with an automated teller and my credit card, but, surprise – every single express checkout computer in the hotel (both the main lobby, and the Havana Tower lobby) was out of order.

When we finally worked out the details of the room numbers with some smart-phone wrangling (I had texted everyone room details the night before as a safety against overindulgence) it turned out that not only did the management intend to charge full price for the party room, they charged for the extra room we had allegedly been comped, at a rate twice what the other rooms cost!

Needless to say, this meant that I went through the _entire_ saga all over again, for the third time, with a brand new bunch of people. After nearly a half-hour, we finally got the bill back to what I had agreed to, after dropping the Amex threat for the third and final time.

That should be it right? I mean, at this point, I should be able to stop writing.

Nope.

I wanted to pay a portion of the bill with cash, and the rest with credit. After a five minute call by the checkout clerk to her manager to find out if I was _allowed_ to do this, she then needed a quick tutorial in the POS system from said manager on _how_ to do it. By this point, I was past a half hour at the checkout desk, and about ready to stop fighting my shrimp-squidgy bowels and nausea, and redecorate the front desk in a choleric explosion of bodily excretions.

Fighting my better judgment, I waited until the end of her tutorial, then forked over the cash and the credit card.

I worked retail for five years. I know how to count money. I had counted out five hundred in cash, in tens, twenties, fifties, and one hundred, and arranged the bills by denomination. I triple checked the count before I even left the room.

My checkout clerk clearly had never counted money.

She re-arranged the bills, so that they all faced the same way, totally messing up the sort-by-value, _then_ started to count it out. She got to about three hundred and change, then lost count.

She started over, AFTER she once again re-piled the money to be sure all the noses on the faces were pointing the right direction.

This time she made it all the way through the stack, but missed a twenty somewhere, and informed me I was twenty short. I explained, using as few expletives as possible, that she should count it again, because I probably could have counted it drunk, and done a better job.

Third time, as they say, is the charm, and as my receipt printed,. it took every ounce of self-control I had not to vomit in one of the potted plants decorating the lobby on the way out the door – with the solid intent of making my opinion a matter of public record while improving the lobby decor simultaneously.

Instead, I wrote this review. I probably would have done it from the lobby, waiting for my ride, but despite there being dozens of Tropicana-named wifi networks throughout the hotel, neither I nor any of the other guests I was staying with were able to connect to any of them with any piece of wifi-aware hardware.

Buyer beware – this story, unlike the toenail tale, below, relates to staying in the _nice_ tower, in a situation where we were paying high-roller rates. I leave it to you to contemplate the unwritten horrors which may lurk in store for you if you dare book a space in the older part of this hotel, or expect any service above what you might expect of a mid-graveyard shift at a local IHOP on New Year’s Day.

You have been warned.

 

Today is the first day in ages that I have had time to try and write my collected thoughts down… Looking back it has been a little over three months.

I turned in my last paper of the semester today.  I don’t think I’ll ace it, but I am beyond caring at this point.  The paper, which had no formal structure/defintion in its assignment was returned to me (second revision) for being "too long" (okay, maybe 18 pages was overboard), having too many sources cited (prof only wanted me to cite the core textbook) and for "taking on more than the core of the paper’s assignment".  I translate this to lazy professor, personally, but, I guess you get what you pay for.  Assuming all my life credits go through, I will be free and clear of this nonsense come the fall semester’s end.

The Sea Monkey is going to come along any day now.  We are t-minus six days to the rune-cast date the sawbones conjured when we first sought her insight on the matter.  It amazes me, somewhat, how little science, and how much tradition there still is to the assignment of something like a due date. I cannot believ how generous friends/families/coworkers have been in the baby department – it is stunning, really.  I hope we end up with a kid worth all the pre-emptive admiration.

In other news, my twitter entry to the creative process of the 8in8 initiative of Palmer et. al (Nighty Night) ended up being the title/subject of the first track of the album!  Tesla is a hero of mine, and I am glad there is now a song about him, in addition to all the other dear little factoids orbiting my central cortex that I maintain.  The entire 8in8 concept is really awesome, and you should go read all about it if you haven’t already.

In related but out-of-left-field news, yesterday marked the close of my annual reading of IT.  This is the twenty-fifth year I’ve stumbled across the epilogues of Derry, Pennywise, and the kids who took a stand.  As always, I find myself taking away something new from the reading – this time, I was focused on the brief musings King offers on the nature of fear, and the elasticity of the mind.  Throughout King’s works, there are examples of children confronting situations which would drive a rational adult mad, and taking those situations on with a limited impact on their day-to-day.  When I pause to think about how much stupid little things can phase me sometimes, it is almost discouraging.  I try to remain mindful of both my impulses, and my imagination, which I agree with King, are the spark-plug and cylinders which the mind of a child run on.  Somewhere along the way, in me, these have transitioned to the power steering belt, or the automatic transmission – still important,but not core. 

This scares me, a little, in the face of being a father.  More than anything, I want my child to have a powerful imagination, but it is going to be born into a world which seems more than a little limited in the opportunties to flourish, and keep that mindset intact.  Besides the worries of the yet unborn, there is a bit of a selfish worry in it for myself, wondering if I will be able to maintain the responsibilities that come with being a father, and the limited time indulgence I allow myself to maintain my innerspace – my conenction to impulse and imagination.

My hope is that I will channel it in storytelling and games, of a different sort than the kind I engage in now. 

I am going to try to take three weeks off work whenever the Sea Monkey arrives.  I am highly dubious I will be able to pull this off, but I am generally positive about his providing me with the means of negotiation (having secured the three weeks in wiriting) of taking an easeful summer, as A. and I adjust to the thousands of changes family life will bring.

The foremost of those, in regards to estate planning and potential mortality, comes in a signifigant shift in my post-mordem allocations. I have long maintained that I want no traditional funerals or burial processes, and have set aside a fund for having a big-old party.  I am afraid that plan will have to be curtailed to a meagre reservation fee, as the bulk of whatever possessions I would have (monetary or otherwise) are now the key domain of this child-to-be’s future and prosperity.   I’ll have to engage a lawyer whenever my revisions are complete – when I contacted the lawyer I have been working with for the past fifteen years last week, in order to get the paperwork rolling, I found out he died of a stroke in December, and his partner (who I loathe) has taken over the business.

Anyone have any referrals?

 

Share on Facebook

Load More