by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644037)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644039)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644041)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644043)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644045)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644047)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644049)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644051)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644053)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644055)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644057)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644059)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644061)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644063)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:10PM (#47644063) 15

by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644075)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644077)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644079)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644081)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644083)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644085)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644087)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644089)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644091)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644093)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644095)
by jelIomizer (3670957) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:12PM (#47644097) 12

by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644113)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644115)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644117)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644119)
(#121 is by a real user who happened to post within this barrage)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644123)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644125)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644127)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644129)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644131)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644135)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644137)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644139)
by jeIlomizer (3670951) Alter Relationship on Sunday August 10, 2014 @04:16PM (#47644141) 13

Someone posted an ad to Slashdot, it looks like 40 times, in 3 batches.

* How did they get the system to accept 12-15 posts a minute from one account?

* In looking at the message ID's, I thought maybe it involved every other post being to somewhere else, such as to foil the moronic "slow down, cowboy" filter. But then I looked at the user ID's between these two accounts, and apparently /. had at some point gone to odd numbers only (to make activity levels look bigger?), as there are only two accounts created between them, #'s 53 and 55, and 52, 54, and 56 are "not found".

* Not new news, as RG got spoofed some time ago, but it was an unfortunate font choice that was made by /. that makes capital eye and lowercase ell look the same. The real "jellomizer" has a 103300 user ID, not a 3 million something.

* The spoofer even replicated the bio text from the real account's bio. This is pretty cold to poor old real jellomizer.

* I don't really have any way of telling how recently these accounts were created. But my what is maybe the non-subscriber's view of their comment histories shows only the spamming of two articles, today and Friday. And yet, they have "achievements". One they both have is a +5 score comment achievement. Which I guess would, of course, be all too easy to quickly garner if having just read /. for a little while.

* The newest account in the system as of this moment is #3781073, which is 55,061 account numbers away from this person's first here. I can't think of any way to estimate how many account creations /. sustains on average every day (sans going to the trouble of checking daily for a few days, which I won't), so can't tell if said spammer created these a while back, or say right before the weekend to do the posts this weekend.

Anyways, surely the system should disallow such things. Points to how /. is truly the one of the big dumpsters of the Internet (where at least the trash from spammers and trollers provides a little, humorous break from the tired, common trash from the hoards of commies that post here), and that the owners/operators, as always, do not care.

p.s. I wonder how said spammer picked that jello person to spoof.

' LIZA
                                    Where'd you get your subscribers?

JERRY
                                    I put an ad on a computer bulletin
                                    board. I log on at the library so
                                    I can't be traced.

LIZA
                                    Well, I've been tracking them down
                                    all morning.

JERRY
                                    You haven't been bothering them,
                                    have you?

LIZA
                                    They're dead. Four out of five
                                    anyhow. All in the last 24 hours.
                                    One car accident, two heart
                                    attacks and a stroke.

JERRY
                                    Jesus... It's my fault. They drew
                                    a black line over me and now I'm
                                    passing it on.
                                                  (realizes)
                                    I'm passing it to you, too.

LIZA
                                    I'll be fine. Let's worry about
                                    Henry Finch. P.O. Box in St.
                                    Louis. He's the last on the list.
                                    I haven't been able to reach him
                                    yet.

JERRY
                                    Maybe you better not try... I
                                    worked so hard to keep quiet.
                                    Like a mouse. I should have
                                    realized.

LIZA
                                    Realized what?

JERRY
                                    Henry Finch. That they monitor
                                    everything. That it was only a
                                    matter of time. And now four
                                    people are dead.

Liza reaches into her pocket, takes out the newsletter.

LIZA
                                    Elaborate on 'they,' okay?

JERRY
                                    There are all kinds of groups, all
                                    kinds of initials. But they're
                                    all part of two warring factions.
                                    One: families that have held
                                    wealth for centuries.
                                    They want one thing. Stability.
                                    Group Two: the boat rockers.
                                    Eisenhower's military industrial
                                    complex. They want instability.
                                    It's a trillion dollar a year
                                    business. When there isn't a hot
                                    war, they make a cold one.

                                                                LIZA
                                    Cold War's over, Jerry.

JERRY
                                    So now they feed us terrorists.
                                    To create fear. How much do you
                                    think an airport security system
                                    goes for? Then multiply it by
                                    every airport in the country.

LIZA
                                    And you think Group One is at war
                                    with Group Two.
http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/conspiracy-theory.html

Arena
        I woke up about seven, maybe a little earlier. I laid there a while before I got up and started coffee.
        I did my business in the head, and Destiny was just getting up. We had eggs over easy, sausage and toast. It was hard to hold the fork; I had blisters on my fingers from the plug on that stupid damned robot.
        They were trying to worry people even more about the Venus virus; someone had died. One of our competitors had a fire in its factory in Peru and somebody died in that, too.
        Someone tried to assassinate Britain's Prime Minister and their bobbies put seventy three bullets in the would-be assassin, as well as a few more bullets in some innocent bystanders. Why in the hell can't cops shoot straight?
        I was hoping today would be a lot lighter than yesterday. At least all I had to inspect was downstairs. The eight o'clock readings were normal so I sauntered down the hall to the damned stairs. Lek and Tammy were in the commons drinking coffee and reading. I marveled at the job Tammy was doing with Lek, Lek was really coming along.
        As I walked past I heard Tammy telling Lek "Your eyes are really getting bloodshot. Better have a dose before you start hurting and I can't help you." I didn't hear what was said after, I was just passing by.
        Two droppers were arguing in the hallway so I called Tammy, and she said she'd take care of it.
        Down my damned stairs everything was okay, except another robot was trying to plug itself in to seventeen, but was too stupid to know it had to unplug the plug I'd cut from the burned up robot. I logged it and trudged back up those damned stairs.
        Tammy'd had to spray one of the two I'd called her about, and the other one was being treated in sick bay for two black eyes. Luckily, Tammy hadn't been injured. Destiny and her was just coming out of the commons as I passed. "Rough one," Tammy said. "I'm sure glad my bottle worked!"
        "How did it happen?" I asked.
        "The one in sick bay had stolen her drops. The one I sprayed was almost redeyed. Quite frightening, but it turned out all right. Maybe Karen will think twice about stealing drops from now on after that, but I really doubt it."
        "Those poor women," Destiny said.
        "No kidding," I replied. "I wonder what time it is?"
        "I don't know," she said, "but my stomach says it's lunch time. Want to have lunch with us, Tammy?"
        "Sorry, I can't. I have a paper to work on and don't have time to eat right now, I want to get a passage written down before I forget what I was going to write."
        We went home and had fritter dogs and Turkish potatoes. I'll bet there's no way at all to tell that God damned stupid computer to make roast turkey and Turkish spuds.
        We had the news on as we ate. The closing of the Mexican hog farm, a huge operation that used a lot of human labor, caused a ripple effect through the Mexican economy and its two biggest banks went bankrupt. The closing of the banks had caused riots and Mexico had to get help from the American military. There was talk of Mexico becoming part of the United states. Most Mexicans wanted it, but few Americans did because of fears of what it would do to their economy.
        Tammy put on a short, really stupid twentieth century two dimensional science fiction movie called Arena about a spaceship's captain who has to fight a giant sentient lizard with a really bad costume. It was so stupid it was almost funny. Traveling faster than light was dumb enough, but the rest of the show was even dumber. No robots and everything looked really primitive, especially the costume the actor playing the lizard was wearing.
        We watched another Emergency; that one was pretty good. Then a short western, I forgot what it was called but it was a gray movie about a nineteenth century rancher and his young son.
        We ate some Irish sandwich Destiny said was an ancient Irish working man's lunch, with French fries and cole slaw and she put on a modern holo named Yesterday's Promise. Then we cuddled to some old classical blues and went to bed.

This is the newest chapter, so it's also the least edited chapter which is why it's quite a bit shorter than the following chapters. They've been edited extensively.

There are 11 more chapters.

I had one package that caused some warning but it was really out of date so I just removed it. It was VLMC and I'm not going to be using it on that machine anyway.
 
I finally got my taxes done. Life was so crazy this year that I just kept not getting around to it. Which is stupid on my part as I'm just leaving money sitting with the government that I could be using. I had a really odd thing this year, my Foreign Earned Income Exclusion was smaller than it has been in the past. I don't know why- but I doubt it's worth the time and cost to find someone who would know. With 3 kids and our income not too high, my tax liability is very, very low. And so it's all pretty small amounts involved.
 
We've been back a couple weeks now and I'm back to the weight I was before we went to the US. For that 6.5 weeks we visited we ate out a lot. There were a lot of places we missed that we wanted to eat at. And of course lots of good Mexican. That's pretty much impossible to get here. And in general we just consumed more. I think the first time we went out, they gave me my huge glass of diet coke that they would refill the moment it was empty and I must have gone through like 6 of those before we had even finished the appetizer. So funny.
 
Anyway, if we lived back home we wouldn't eat like we did when just visiting. The one thing that really struck me is how much more expensive fast food has become in the 3 years since we left. It used to be around 20 bucks for our family to go to McDonalds/Burger King. Now it's more like 30.
 
Of course gas and milk still felt ridiculously cheap compared to here in Hungary. I know why gas costs so much here, not sure why milk is so much. Probably due to the same reasons though - government choices. Just not sure which government, in which direction. Are Hungarian dairy prices inflated or does the USDA (or whoever manages dairy in the US) keep US milk prices artificially low? It was also fun to be able to buy milk in a gallon container. Buying it a liter at a time is a pain. Our kids go through them quickly.
 
That's all for today, more tomorrow.

It wasn't in the nineties when we had a series of very cold winters in central Illinois. Not even that frigid day when the high temperature was ten below (-23C) and I was trying to replace a heater hose in my old car. I finally wound up taking it to a mechanic, because my fingers were too cold to work.

No, the coldest I ever was was in the month of August, forty years ago sometime this week; I don't remember the exact date, although I'm pretty sure it was today or tomorrow.

Two days earlier I was in Thailand, where I'd been stationed for a year. Four of us were scheduled to go home the next day and decided to celebrate our upcoming trip on top of a large hill, where we could overlook the base for a final time and have a little "going home" party with wine and that great Thai ganga.

The bottles were empty and the weed as gone, so we got up to start down the hill, which was a pile of dirt and rock they had excavated to build some new barracks. A voice yelled "freeze!" and we all froze like statues; you could tell from the tone of voice there was a firearm involved. It was just like in the movies.

A guy came up the hill carrying what appeared to be a huge automatic pistol, and he was shaking like a leaf. "G-G-G-G-GIs?" he stammered.

"Yeah, man, don't shoot!" someone said.

He yelled down the hill, "Hold your fire! Hold your fire! For Christ's sake hold your fire!" and then asked us for I.D. After showing our IDs the five of us walked down the hill, where we were met by what looked like a whole army, with jeep mounted fifty caliber machine guns, rocket launchers, M-16s, all of them pointed at where we had been at the top of the hill. If one round had been fired we'd have all been MIA, because there wouldn't have been anything left of us.

That was certainly not the coldest night, though. The low that night, usual year around in that tropical jungle close to the equator, was well above 80 (27C). We all left for the US the next morning.

We reached Alaska (I don't remember if it was Fairbanks or Anchorage) about ten PM for a connecting flight to San Fransisco and got off the plane, and damn but it was cold. It had been over a year since I'd been in a temperature lower than 76 (25C), which was a record low, and they had been keeping records for thousands of years. The thermometer outside the terminal said it was 60 (15.5C). I was wearing a uniform designed for the jungle.

We got bumped off the flight so they could carry a fire truck somewhere and were all going to spend the night in the terminal.

I walked inside, the cold wind blowing through its open doors, as cold inside as it was out. I thought I'd succumb to exposure.

All the headlines on all the newspapers in the newspaper racks screamed "NIXON RESIGNS!"

It was the first I'd heard of it. Being stationed in Thailand, the only news I'd gotten was the Stars and Stripes and the Armed Forces Radio Service. Rent Good Morning, Vietnam to see how badly our news was censored; there had been no news about Watergate, streakers, or the Arab Oil Embargo whatever.

I was outside the Base Exchange, shivering and covered with goose bumps when it opened the next morning. I bought a blue jean jacket that I still wear, not caring a bit about uniform regulations or an Article Fifteen, I was freezing!

Nobody complained about me wearing it, though. I sure was glad to get the hell out of Alaska, with its tiny, weak sun.

I haven't written a journal in a while. We spent a good chunk of this summer in the U.S.A. It was a pretty full/busy time. We came back and then left again for a couple days hiking in Austria. Now we are home for a bit. I don't plan on going anywhere until next month.

I'm upgrading my Dell to Fedora 20 right now and trying to clean up my office. It's funny. It's a Latitude D620 and when I got it in 2006 it was the most powerful computer I had ever owned. It's got a dual core processor and has 2 gig of ram. At the time that blew me away and now I just use it for stuff where I don't mind how slow it is.

It is nice and sunny out. I brought a hammock back from Arizona - now I need to figure out how I'm going to put it up. Today would be a perfect day to take a nap in the sun.

Heat
        It was only a little after seven when I woke up. Destiny was asleep, so I put on a robe, started coffee, and went to the head to take a piss. I turned on the video; nothing on but the news. Nothing new, some "special report" about Martian piracy. I finished my cup and took a shower. Destiny was waking up as I was getting dressed.
        "You're up early again! Another alarm, sweetheart?"
        "No," I said, "I just woke up early. I don't know why I fell asleep so early last night. It isn't like yesterday was a busy day or anything. Hungry?"
        "I don't know, what time is it?"
        I had to ask the computer. It said seventeen after seven. She got a cup of coffee and told the computer to make a turkey omelette, and again the stupid damned thing said "There are no Turkish omelette dishes listed in the database."
        Stupid computer. She sighed. "Stupid computer," she said, "I want an omelette with turkey meat. A turkey omelette has nothing to do with the country called Turkey."
        The idiotic thing replied "Parse error, please rephrase."
        "God!" Destiny exclaimed, "Jesus but Dad's computers are stupid. Computer!"
        "Waiting for input."
        "I want an omelette with turkey meat."
        "There is no meat that has come from that country."
        "Turkey the bird, damn it!"
        "Parse error, please rephrase."
        "What meats are available for omelettes?"
        "Chicken, duck, turkey, and beef."
        "An omelette with turkey meat."
        "There is no meat from that country," the idiotic thing repeated.
        She was becoming annoyed. "Damn it, computer, I want an omelette with bird meat."
        "Please name the bird."
        "Turkey."
        "Acknowledged, complying."
        "That must the dumbest computer I ever saw," she said.
        "Waiting for input," the computer stupidly said, obviously picking up on the word "computer".
        "Damn it," she started.
        "Roast beef and cheese omelette," I said.
        "Complying."
        By the time breakfast was finished cooking I only had fifteen minutes to eat, the stupid computer had wasted most of our morning time together because its programming was so idiotic.
        The "special report" didn't have anything I didn't already know. The news is almost as stupid as the stupid computer.
        I left for the pilot room with two minutes to spare. I hadn't even finished my breakfast. God damned computer!
        There was a light on the map as I went into the pilot room. Damn, but that computer has shitty timing; I had to do readings and couldn't check it out.
        Luckily everything was normal; the computers were agreeing, we were on course, and it showed nothing except engine seventeen and the port generator had anything wrong with them.
        The light was pirates, about four and a half light minutes away, but they weren't headed anywhere near us. A few minutes later it was off the radar.
        Still, it was worrying. Even though we had tangled with pirates farther out, this was the first trip I'd ever seen pirates anywhere near this far from Mars. And it would still be well over a week before we met the fleet.
        I went back to our quarters to fill my coffee. Destiny asked "Trouble?"
        "Pirates," I said. "They showed up at the fringe of radar but are gone now."
        The robots hadn't thrown the rest of my breakfast away, so I finished eating before starting inspections, chatting about droppers and pirates with Destiny. I kissed her and started inspections. Luckily I only had to inspect downstairs. Luckily? Hell, there were all those damned stairs... but I guess that has nothing to do with luck.
        At the bottom of the stairs there was nothing wrong except number sixty two, which had a robot attached, and seventeen. I logged sixty two and started towards all those damned steps.
        But as I passed the starboard generator, there was a yellow light. What the hell? I looked closer and checked the panel -- it was dangerously warm. Damn it, that should set an alarm off! Looking closer, number seventeen was drawing an obscene amount of power. I hit the generator's emergency shutoff, and the readings said the batteries were draining at a rapid rate as gravity got lighter.
        I took off at a run to seventeen, and the robot attached to it was starting to smoke badly. I also saw that the robot had plugged itself into the main power. I tried to disconnect it from the engine, but the lead was too hot to touch. My fingers were going to be blistered. I kicked the robot's main power cable loose from mains with my boot as the robot burst into flames and the alarm went off. I got the hell out of there and ran back to the generator room.
        The batteries weren't draining like they were; something in the robot had shorted and had been feeding number seventeen with the mains it had plugged itself into. At least the yellow light had gone out, but it was still way too hot for my liking, it being our only remaining generator. I'd let it cool some more before I fired it back up.
        I went back to seventeen, which was in a vacuum by now. I waited for the door to open. Still smoking, the robot was half melted. This robot wouldn't be doing any more repairs! It was surely totaled. I found a pair of gloves and was able to disconnect it. I got some cable cutters, cut off the plug and plugged it back into the engine's robot plug. Maybe other robots couldn't try to fix it. I hoped so, anyway.
        I walked back to the generator. It had cooled almost to normal, so I restarted it. Gravity started to rise again.
        My phone buzzed; it was Destiny. "What's going on, John?"
        "Trouble with an engine and the generator," I said. "I hope it didn't upset the droppers too much. I'm on my way upstairs now, have you had lunch yet?
        "Well, yeah, it's two in the afternoon. I was worried."
        "So was I," I said, "but I think it's okay now. Have the robot make me a sandwich, would you?" I was starved, but I'd been too busy to even notice I'd been hungry.
        I trudged wearily up all those stairs to correct the ship's course. Destiny brought my lunch to the pilot room. "You're sweet," I said, "thanks, but this will only take a few minutes and I'm done... I hope. Just put it on the table and I'll be right there." She kissed me and left.
        I went and finished my lunch, and had a beer with it. This had really been a crappy day. Shit, except for Destiny the whole damned trip was a trip through hell.
        We sat on the couch cuddling and I didn't even hardly notice that an old gray Dracula movie was on. I must have been really tired, because even though there weren't any colors, Dracula's eyes looked red.
        Destiny was comforting me after my bad day, and I fell asleep in her arms. She woke me up and led me to bed, but I was too tired to do anything but sleep.

I woke up early yesterday, and as I do on early days I turned on the TV news and opened Google News on the laptop. After I opened a dozen or so tabs, the notebook ground to a screeching halt. Obviously its 1 gig of memory was completely full. It took a full five minutes for task manager to come up.

I rebooted it (the ancient Linux box with 750 megs never needs rebooting!) and did something I should have done years ago -- I installed Flashblock. After whitelisting KSHE I opened the news back up, and the notebook performed flawlessly.

After reading the news I opened Mars, Ho! for editing. I'll go through the whole book, reading and editing, and when I get to the next chapter to be posted here I post it. Thirty seven was Monday, I reached chapter 50, the last chapter, yesterday.

I've been struggling to get books into e-book format for almost a year now. The trouble wasn't Calibre, even though it has its quirks. It was Open Office's confusing documentation (in fairness, Microsoft documentation sucks, too). It made an incredibly easy and simple procedure seem obscure and convoluted.

I'd decided that on the next pass through Mars, Ho! I would format the typeface and size of chapter names and numbers, and mark it so I could easily convert it to the ePub format.

I had struggled with and experimented with converting Nobots while not exactly sober, but Oo's documentation was as confusing full of coffee as it had been when I was full of beer. But when I opened the file in an eBook reader it became apparent; it was dirt simple. I spent as much time on Nobots yesterday as I did on Mars, Ho!.

I did run across two minor problems with Calibre. It wanted to remove paragraph indents and add blank lines between paragraphs. A little mousing around the interface and I found where to fix it.

The other was a bug in Calibre. You're supposed to be able to drag and drop image files for the cover, but it simply didn't work. It displayed the cover in Calibre, but not in the eBook reader. However, there's a button that lets you choose a file, and that worked.

This morning I converted The Paxil Diaries, uploaded the ePub files and edited the index files. So if you would like an eBook version of either of these books, they're available for free download at my web site. A little googling showed that the Nook and Kindle and about all eBook readers support that format. I neither know nor care if Sony's reader supports it, and in fact would rather people not be able to read them on a Sony device; I've hated that company with a passion since my daughter infected my PC with Sony's XCP malware. Their CEO should have gone to prison!

I'm taking a different approach with Mars, Ho! than with my previous two books. Having them printed is terribly expensive and I'd at least like to make the money back on copyright and ISBN registrations, so I'm going to release it as a two dollar Amazon eBook first, with PDF and HTML versions still free.

If you want an eBook version of the two finished books, rather than making you visit my web site I'll just link them here:
The Paxil Diaries
Nobots

Couch
        I woke up about twenty after seven. I put on a robe and trudged bleary-eyed to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. Destiny woke up just as I was going to the head. I still think that's a stupid name for a bathroom.
        She had the robot make French toast and sausage and was in the living room drinking coffee and watching the news when I got dressed and went in there. "I wish we had some pork sausage," she said.
        "You should have brought some," I replied. "I wish we were on Mars!"
        "Yeah, I should have," she said. "Oh, well, I ought to be able to get it on Mars."
        "It's four times as expensive there," I said. "Shipping costs."
        She smiled. "That's okay, I can afford it even if it does make me feel guilty."
        "Why does it make you feel guilty? I could see it if you were spending the rent money on pork."
        "I don't know," she said.
        Huh? I don't know, we were gabbing and not paying attention to the news. We ate our breakfast in the living room, and the map lit up just as I was finishing eating. I went to the pilot room, mug in hand. It was about ten 'til so I'd be in there a while.
        The blip was a cargo ship from another shipping company. I wondered why other companies didn't have radar absorbing coatings and passive radar like ours did, our boats are easy to hide and hard to find, or Bill's goose would have been cooked when he ran across the pirates I rained on, and they would have had his boat.
        Eight o'clock finally came. Funny how long it takes ten minutes to pass when you have absolutely nothing to do. It looked like this was going to be a really easy day; no course corrections and the only red light was engine seventeen, and I didn't have to inspect upstairs today.
        I stopped by our quarters... yeah, our quarters, she was living with me and we're getting married. So shut the fuck up before I walk out of here, asshole. Anyway, I stopped by our quarters to fill my cup, kissed Destiny, and started my trek to my dungeon, with its torture equipment. Huh? The stairs, of course. I hate those God damned stairs.
        The German woman was, as usual, in the commons eating. Tammy walked past and said "hi".
        I went down the torture equipment, which is worse coming up, to inspect my "dungeon".
        Everything checked out, all lights were green and all readings normal and the only robot doing anything was on number seventeen. I hauled my aching back up the torturous stairs.
        The commons was just starting to fill with droppers and was still pretty empty, I must not have spent much time at all downstairs. Destiny wasn't home, probably in Tammy's quarters, I thought. "What time is it?" I asked the computer. Wow, only eleven! I was home really early today.
        I turned on the video and checked listings on my tablet. All right! A zero gravity football game was just starting so I switched it to that.
        About quarter after, Destiny came home. "Wow!" she said. "You're really early today!"
        "Yeah," I said. "I haven't had a day this light since the first week we were in space. Cross your fingers! Want to watch this game with me, or do you want to do something else?"
        "I like football," she said. "We'll watch the game." Right then the map lit, but only for a second.
        "I'll be right back," I said. I went to the pilot room to see what the light was, but it hadn't had a good enough signal to even tell what kind of vessel it was. I went back home. A robot was cooking hot dogs and french fries and making potato salad.
        Huh? How the hell should I know what the damned hot dogs were made of, except I know it wasn't pork.
        I missed a goal while I was checking out the blip, St. Louis had scored against Novosibirsk. One nothing, and it was really early in the game.
        We moved to the dining room when lunch was done cooking and turned the game on in there. By the time we got the video turned on and on the right channel, it was one up; Novosibirsk had scored. Wow, two goals this fast?
        The cookbot brought our lunch. When we finished eating we moved back into the living room. Two to one Novosibirsk. Damn, I'd missed all three goals.
        When the game ended it was still two to one. Novosibirsk had beaten St. Louis.
        We watched some old short gray movies; two episodes of Rawhide, part of a silly serial called "Buck Rogers," a different Untouchables movie that wasn't nearly as good as the long one that was in color we'd watched quite a while ago, and one in color called "Emergency!" about a fire department in the second half of the twentieth century.
        Destiny asked "How about burritos for supper?"
        "No way in hell," I said. "If I eat Mexican food my asshole is on fire the next day!" She had a burrito and I had beef stew.
        She put on Hardly Ever After, a new holo. I fell asleep on the couch, and she woke me up when it was really bedtime. You would think I'd have stayed awake after such an easy day.

Oops, that's "get off of Weird Al's lawn."

Rummaging through Google News this morning I ran across what I considered a humorous article on Time about Weird Al's song Word Crimes, a diatribe against poor grammar. Of course, being a writer who (not "whom") has no editor, I really have to watch my own grammar closely; books are supposed to be grammatical. Uh, was that sentence grammatically correct?

I must confess that besides the fact that some folks I know IRL (Al and the article's author would hate that "IRL") had trouble with some of the vocabulary in Nobots ("Are those all words I can look up in the dictionary?" Well, yeah, mostly) that's one reason I chose to make the lion's share of Mars, Ho! to be a first person perspective from an undereducated viewpoint. Thank you, Mister Clemons. Twain was bashed for Huckleberry Finn's atrocious grammar, when having Huck, Jim, and Tom speak proper English would have been stupid and ruined the story.

It's hard enough writing a 100,000 word novel, and I'm failing at this, I doubt it will be anywhere near Baen's lower limit. Baen's management must not have read any Twain. When Twain was asked how long a novel should be, he replied "as many words as it takes to tell the story and not a single word more." I refuse to pad it out to drearyness, as was a long, boring, pointless 450 page science fiction book by a writer I used to enjoy greatly before publishers started insisting on books as heavy as the average American.

Plus, the poor grammar of the character allows a little humor (Knolls: "Computer, what's the best way to knock them bitches out?" Computer: "Parse error, there are no female dogs on board and 'knock' is not in context, please rephrase the question or order"), even some poetic humor such as "the heavy German woman with the heavy German accent", playing on the multiple meanings of the word ("Whoa, dude, that's heavy!! Pass me that bong, man").

But I have to say, I agree with Al and with the article's writer, Richard Corliss, who (not whom) makes his own grammar errors, such as "And the copy editor of a book I wrote for Simon & Schuster corrected my frequent use of years as adjectives ('the 1955 novelty tune...'). I didn't know that was a word crime, and, between you and I [sic], I keep breaking it." Uh, that oughta be "you and me", dude. And yes, that error of mine was on purpose; I realize that "oughta" ain't a word any more than "ain't" is a word.

This paragraph is, I think, 100% factually correct:

Nothing in a living language is written in stone. Over the decades, words go from wrong to right. Speak as you will; others will understand you, whatever offenses you utter against hoary* tradition. Just realize that the people in a position to hire you, mark your exams or fall in love with you may have stricter standards of written and spoken English. Like Weird Al Yankovic, or the reporters who noted the less and fewer mistake on Greg Maddux's Hall of Fame plaque, we grammar snobs are listening.

That goes quadruple for literature, even my poor attempt at literature. But those of you who "could care less" (which the writer correctly points out actually says that if you could care less, you must care at least a little) should know that when you don't know the difference between there, their, and they're, you come across as being so uneducated that your viewpoint can be safely dismissed. The literate is unlikely to learn much from the aliterate.

* I have GOT to find a use for that word in the book!

It annoys the hell out of me that my books are so damned expensive, which is why I wanted Mars, Ho! to be 100,000 words. I'd hoped that possibly Baen might publish it so it would be, oddly, far cheaper. I can buy a copy of Andy Wier's excellent novel The Martian from Barnes and Noble or Amazon for less than I can get a copy of my own Paxil Diaries from my printer, and Wier's book is a lot longer.

It's no wonder they're not selling; not only can I not afford merchandizing, but they're way overpriced. I can't blame anyone for not wanting to buy one. I'm still looking for ways to make them cheaper.

I went to check sales this morning and saw that they have some new, cheaper formats. So now there's a 6x9 paperback version for a much less unreasonable $7.00. Unfortunately, this one can only ship to U.S. addresses and will only be available at my website or the printer's website.

I don't think Mars, Ho! will reach Baen's required 100,000 words; right now the manuscript is just short of 60,000 words, a lot more than Nobots' 42042 words and there's only a chapter or two left to write.

Of course, I'm not writing these books for the money (fortunately!); my pension and Social Security pays well enough to meet my needs. But of course I want as many people as possible to read them.

Cory Doctorow's tactics aren't working for me. I may do what Wier did and publish Mars, Ho! as a $2.00 Amazon ebook if I can't find a good publisher. It's most likely I won't find one.

There are two more chapters of Mars, Ho! ready to post, chapter 37 will be here in a day or three.

Drills
        I got woke up early again, about five thirty this time. Fire in passengers quarters number forty seven. God damned drills, but I had to get up and inspect forty seven anyway. I put on a robe and trudged down there.
        Yep, just a stupid drill. I noticed that Tammy was in the commons with the German woman as I walked past on my way back home. It was still early enough that I could still get another hour's sleep or so.
        Nope, as soon as I got back there another damned alarm went off, this time a fire in engine seventeen. This one might be real, so I hurried down there and told the computer do deliver some nasty robot coffee.
        The computer wouldn't let me in at first, it must have been in a vacuum. The door finally opened, and the robot that had been working on it was charred and still smoking a little. I unhooked it from the engine, and another one rolled up for me to hook up, and a third dragged the smoking robot to the repair shop.
        I logged it and trudged back up the five damned flights of stairs towards home, but by then it was too late to go back to bed, quarter after six. I made a pot of real coffee and put a game on, but it was almost over. When it was over I switched it to the always old news.
        Nothing new, of course, they were still trying to scare people about the Venus virus. Destiny came in, kissed me, and poured a cup of coffee. "You're up early again," she said.
        "Yeah," I replied, "fire drill in the passenger section and a burned up robot down in the engine room. I was up at five thirty. I'm sure glad we went to bed early!"
        "Did you eat yet?"
        "No, you hungry?"
        "Yeah. Computer, make a turkey and cheese omelette."
        I said "Computer, a turkey Denver."
        The stupid thing said "Error, no Turkish dishes named Denver are listed in the database."
        God damn stupid computer. "A Denver omelette with turkey meat you dumb computer."
        "Affirmative."
        "Fuck you."
        Destiny laughed. "Had your shower yet?"
        "No," I said, "Want to take one together?"
        "Sure," she said, with a twinkle in her eye. God, but I love that woman.
        We had a pretty long, really fun shower and ate our breakfast. By then it was almost eight. I kissed her and took a cup of coffee to the pilot room. We were going the right way and all the computers were agreeing with each other that everything was cool.
        After that I had inspection. The German woman was eating in the commons and the rest were asleep, except Lek who was in her quarters reading, still dressed. I complimented her on her clothing.
        "Thank you," she said. "I want Doctor Winters to cure me."
        "So do I," I said. "I want her to cure all of you."
        "I want that too," she said.
        I went down those five damned flights of stairs again to the bottom of the boat. The good generator was still good and the busted generator was still busted. So was engine seventeen, with the robot I'd plugged into it still working on it.
        It had been an easy inspection. I trudged up all those damned stairs. There were fifty or so women in the commons, pretty much behaving themselves.
        As I went in my quarters Destiny said "You're a little early. Done?"
        "Yeah, I hope so. Are you hungry?"
        She said yes, and laughed. "Computer, ham and beans."
        The computer replied, of course, "There are no pork products on the menu."
        I said "I think I'll have prime rib, baked potato and a glass of wine."
        "Sounds good to me," Destiny said.
        Right then a light lit up on the map. "Damn it," I said, and went to the pilot room to listen in. Thankfully it wasn't pirates, it was a boat from a different shipping company about five light minutes away.
        The robot was finished cooking lunch right after I got back, so we ate. Then we watched an old two dimensional movie called "The Blues Brothers", and I loved that movie! Funny as hell and it had some really great old classical music. Some of the musical greats from the time, like Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker were in it.
        The closing credits were rolling on the screen when an alarm went off in cargo nine. I hoped it was a drill. "Is cargo nine occupied?" I asked the computer.
        "Negative."
        That was Lek's room; she was in the commons. The light on her door was solid red, so I went in to investigate; there was no fire.
        I went to the commons to talk to Lek. "Here because of the fire drill?" I asked.
        "Drill? I thought my apartment really on fire! Scared me when the alarm go off."
        "Yeah, it was just a drill, you can go home if you want."
        "Thank you," she said.
        I went home myself and we had Polish sausage and sauerkraut with shikes for dinner. Destiny put on an old two dimensional western, True Grit.
        We'd each had a glass of wine with lunch and finished the bottle watching the western, since it would be sour by the next morning. No sense wasting it.
        We listened to a little Clapton when the movie was over and then we went to bed. It was still early but Destiny had gotten up earlier than normal and I'd gotten up way early and was just plumb wore out.

When I posted the last chapter, I'd started this one but it had been nowhere near finished. After posting the previous chapter I "finished" this one and the next, as well. So there will be a new chapter in a few days.

So tonight around 12:30 am, and I'm sitting downstairs watching TV. It's hot right now, so I had the windows closed and the central A/C on. Set to 76, so it hadn't run in a while.

My "living room" (it's an open concept downstairs in my townhome condo, so it's really just one big room) part is right by the front door, and I have my ceiling fan on at its highest speed during the hot months.

So the vertical blinds are flapping away in the window by the front door, and my TV is on this end, facing towards the front door, so at my doorstep you can hear that it's on.

And my recliner is 12-18 inches from the door handle. At about ear level where I'm sitting.

So I'm sitting there, and plain as day, someone tries the door handle. Now the setup here is that the door handle turns freely (although outside there's nothing to turn, you grab the handle and depress the latch with your thumb), but there's a deadbolt above it, keyed on the outside and with a switch on the inside, and that's what locks the door.

So whoever it was, clearly could tell that someone was home, up/awake, and most likely downstairs, given the blinds were flapping and the TV was semi-blaring (I play it a little loud, having lost some hearing or quality of from too much loud heavy metal with headphones, such that sometimes I have a little trouble making out what someone said).

And unless the person's watched me for a while and knew I was single and lived alone, would think potentially there was another person in the house, because I left the light on in my 2nd bedroom upstairs. (It's a CFL, and those I like to not cycle too much, and just leave on if I plan to come back into the room in a little while.)

And yet this person tried to come into my house. Now I've got 3 other doors around me, to my neighbors' places, but I can hear when they come and go from my recliner, because one door is right next to mine and the other two are in the next building just a skinny walkway's width away (we're packed in pretty good here).

Now I've heard reports of prowlers coming into peoples' homes when they're asleep at night, through an open or unlocked window. But this person had evidence to the contrary that the folk(s) who live here had gone to bed.

Which brings to mind the question, what if I hadn't had the top latched. What was this person prepared to say or do upon entry into my house, to the person(s) downstairs they would expect to encounter.

This person did not ring my doorbell nor knock on the door. I can't hear doorbells of my neighbors', but I can hear knocks on their doors, and their weren't any, so it wasn't some lost person in need of some kind of assistance.

The last neighbor who left their light on all the time for our walkway moved out recently, and my outside light on the light-sensitive controller broke a few years ago, so it's been completely dark out there, unfortunately. Apparently I should get that fixed and be the one who leaves that switch on all the time.

And maybe it's time to think about getting my first firearm. (And some lessons some where, having only ever shot a BB gun before.) I live in a nice neighborhood, but maybe that makes us a target.

And since I'm a heavy sleeper, maybe even getting an alarm system. Although I think those only detect a window opening, and not breaking.

Which leads to the other question that had come to mind about this person of the night. S/he was evidently prepared to confront this residence's awake occupants, so why not break a window to get in. The only thing I can think of is that the person wanted the element of surprise, and quietly slipping in through a mistakenly unlocked door would enable that, that a shattering window would not.

And yet occupants could come from other parts of the place, potentially with guns, so even if surprise was had on a downstairs occupant, it still potentially could've gone very badly for the presumably would-be intruder.

Oh, and no one tried the keyhole on the deadbolt, so it wasn't a neighbor who was just coming home drunk or something and walked down the wrong walkway, in this row of buildings.

And so I'll close with the ultimate question that came to mind: Why does really weird shit, happen to me. And no it wasn't a dream/I wasn't asleep, I'm a night owl kind of person, and had slept in until about noon-thirty today. I was watching stupid Friends reruns, after coming downstairs to catch Stossel's "Security and Liberty" special from 10-11. (Who's a whole topic unto himself.)

Smiles
        Destiny woke me up about seven thirty; I'd been the one up early the day before because of that engine. "Wake up, sleepyhead, or you won't have time for breakfast." She'd already made coffee had the robots make chicken cheese omelets. God but I love that woman, meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. Of course, were it not for the monsters I'd never have met her. You take the wonderful with the insanely horrible, I guess.
        We watched the news while we ate, but there was nothing new. A war had broken out in Africa, but there's always a war somewhere, it seems. People are stupid.
        Lankham Farms in Mexico closed down, citing Mexico's new environmental laws. The environmental regulations in almost all countries were strict to the point that raising pork just wasn't economical enough to earn any money. About the only place you could buy pork was from the fanciest farm restaurants, the kind you had to be a Dewey Green to afford eating at.
        Like I care about the price of pork. Sheesh.
        I finished breakfast, showered and got dressed, kissed Destiny and went to the pilot room for my normal morning routine.
        Everything in the pilot room checked out. There were no upstairs inspections today so I trudged down the five damned flights of stairs, which is better than trudging up them, and inspected the generators and engines. Yep, port generator and engine seventeen still broke. A robot was working on seventeen so I logged it.
        I got done quick today! Probably wasn't even noon yet. Destiny was in the commons drinking coffee with Tammy and Lek, who was still wearing clothes, although different ones. I wondered where she got them, probably traded drops to the naked animals for theirs. Or maybe Tammy gave her some, I don't know. I sat down with them and complimented Lek.
        "Thank you," she said.
        "You've come a long way, Lek. You should be proud." She smiled widely. Thailand is known as "the land of smiles" and unless they were short of drops the three on board were smiling almost all every time I saw them. Lots different than that German woman, who was always frowning and never seemed to smile.
        "Doctor Winters help me," she said. I was startled. "Tammy?" I said, really confused.
        "She's smart, John. She figured me out after a couple of weeks and confronted me. She noticed that I was the only one wearing clothes and had plenty of drops and she guessed correctly that I was pretending to be an addicted prostitute, so I told her I was a really a scientist studying them and trying to find a cure."
        "I no tell anybody," Lek said. "I only call her doctor when we alone. She say I not animal because I have respect, and animals no have respect."
        I asked "What was up with that one woman yesterday?"
        "She knocked her drops off of the sink and thought they went down the drain. She went through withdrawal for nothing, if she'd been in her right mind she would have realized that there's no way that bottle would fit down that drain."
        Then she started talking Thai with Lek. Lek said "We need speak English, they no understand." I gathered that Tammy spoke very good Thai and communication was easier between them in that language.
        "Uh," I said, "Are you working right now, Tammy?"
        "Well, kind of," she said.
        "I'm sorry, we're in the way" I responded.
        Destiny blushed. "Oh, God, Tammy, I'm sorry! You're making great progress, though. Both of you. Come on, John."
        We went home, ate lunch, and Destiny put on a two dimensional science fiction movie from the twentieth century, and it was funny as hell. I think it was called "Star Wars" or something. Huh? I don't know, it was Italian food, Destiny ordered it. Some kind of cheesy noodles with meat and tomato sauce. Huh? Oh, there's quite a few of those Star Wars movies. After the first one was so successful they made it into a trilogy. Back then computers were still way too primitive to make movies in so it was all models and puppets and probably drawings by hand. Oddly they shot episodes four through six first, and didn't shoot one through three for another twenty years, probably because the technology to do it wasn't there. It was another fifteen years before another was made.
        Then we had beef and beans for supper and watched Forever Old, a new holo.
        We listened to the Vaughn brothers for a while and went to bed.

The last nine chapters are ready to post, but the next 3 or 4 haven't yet been written so I don't know when the next chapter will be available.

What I've been doing is I'll read the whole thing, usually adding stuff and sometimes taking stuff out; I removed about a thousand words from one chapter. when I get to the next chapter to be posted is when they get posted, so I'll post the next few as I write them, then the rest as I edit.

I doubt I'll hit my 100,000 word goal, with so few chapters left to write and only 54,515 words in the manuscript as of now.