Space-X Dragon

I found this article fascinating. This new space craft is way farther advanced than anything now in operation. It will hold seven astronauts, dock with the ISS without the need for the Canadian robot arm, will land on land with the accuracy of a helicopter, and has emergency parachutes that deploy automatically if the landing rockets fail to deploy. And unlike the shuttle, which had to be rebuilt after every flight, this one can be refueled and take off again immediately!

Scheduled for use in three years, Musk unveiled it yesterday in response to Russia's threat that the US would need trampolines to get to space. "Sounds like this might be a good time to unveil the new Dragon Mk 2 spaceship that @SpaceX has been working on w @NASA. No trampoline needed."

Random Scribblings
As mentioned, I hit a brick wall with Mars, Ho! Nonetheless, I did write another chapter. However, it takes place two weeks before they reach Mars (and involves pirates again). I need a few chapters before it, however, unless the end of the story really stretches out.

The reason is, I enjoy the hell out of writing but publishing is a pain in the ass. So I'm going to submit it to Baen when it's finished, and a few more when they reject it; self-publishing this one will be a last resort. Baen needs a minimum of 100,000 words, and I'm only 20% of the way there.

I hope to finish it this year, but if not I may assemble and self-publish a book called Random Scribblings, a collection of articles I've posted on the internet over the years; I think long-time fans will enjoy it. There may be more than one volume of that one.

Android music
I wrote and was going to post a rant about Winamp on Android, but wisely googled first and found that what was missing was indeed there.

Maybe I should rant about Google. They've spent the last week automatically updating Google's apps for the last week, each one taking days, and it messes my phone up, especially at Felbers.

My computer has no problem with the wi-fi (what a stupid name for a transmission/reception technology/protocol) there, but it drives my phone crazy. If bluetooth or wifi is on and in use and you shut the other on or off, the phone crashes and reboots itself, especially when some app is updating itself. Like the Google apps that take days to finish.

I suspect that their wifi somehow is interfering with bluetooth, or the other way around. But the phone still acts up there even when I shut wi-fi off (and the damned phone turnes it back on by itself and then crashes, who programs this garbage, anyway?).

I have a suggestion for Google's Android programmers: don't update any damned apps on my phone unless it's charging, because it charges when I'm not using it.

On the U of C Tragedy
People, including one especially pissed-off parent is blaming the tragedy on idiots in the government, and I kind of agree; crazy people should not have access to firearms. However, it must be remembered that half of the dead were killed by blades, not bullets.

Rather than blame guns and stupid legislators, I blame America's foremost religion.

No, not Christianity. America doesn't worship God, it worships money. The bible rightly says that "the love of money is the root of all evil," and money is what most Americans worship (i.e., love above all else).

Have you seen any of the weirdness he wrote? This disturbed and disturbing young man was brought up to love money, to believe that money solves all problems. His divorced parents had rich friends, and he hated his parents because they weren't rich.

He was also obsessed with the sex he could never get. Of course he couldn't get laid; girls don't get turned on by needy, crazy guys. Being needy alone will turn them off, let alone needy and crazy, even if you had Bill Gate's money. Yet, he thought that money would buy love and happiness.

Some might say that a Christian upbringing might have kept this horrible tragedy from happening, but I'm not so sure. I know an athiest (IRL, fellow Felbers patron who once punched me out of my barstool for accusing him of homosexuality) who was brought up in a very strict evangelical Kentucky family, who had spent ten years in prison for murder. Not exactly a good reference for Christian upbringing.

But it wouldn't have hurt.

If you consider yourself a Christian, you should talk to yourself about money. Don't worship the shit! It's merely a tool, and only a fool worships his tools. "He who lives by the weapon, dies by the weapon." And make no mistake about it, money is a terrible weapon, far more dangerous than firearms.

He who lives for the dollar dies for the dollar. Fools, all.

I saw something, again, about a book called Freakonomics on TV and decided to check it out. So I tried to log into the card catalog and... my library card had expired. So I went down there; I wanted to talk to someone about donating books, too.

No such luck at the second task, as I would need to speak with someone on the third floor, and because of construction on the second floor the second floor was only open to construction workers and the third floor was only open to library staff. I got my card updated and looked at the new science fiction, and chose Annihilation, which I discovered after getting it home is the first volume of a trilogy and the other two haven't been released.

I almost passed over Mentats of Dune. I have all of Frank Herbert's Dune novels on my shelf, and for me, when Herbert died, so did Dune. But I was curious; its co-author was Herbert's son, so I checked it out.

After a few chapters I determined that Brian Herbert is an even better writer than his dad, and Anderson is an incredibly talented hack who can perfectly imitate other writer's styles, a rare gift. Or perhaps it's education, I'm uneducated at writing myself so can't tell.

This was a good story well told, and contains a lot of wisdom. It is a prequel to Frank Herbert's series.

Its title is misleading; Although Arrakis is part of the story, there are no mentats there. The mentats are on Lampadas. The jihad is over and the terminators (I kept thinking of those movies while I read the book) have all but one been destroyed, and it is a disembodied electronic brain.

It concerns Harkonans and Atreides and there's even an Idaho. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Until I reached the "end". It had no end; it was part of not a series, but a serial. And I hate serials, which is why I only saw one episode of Babylon Five. As soon as I see a work is a serial, my interest stops right there.

Sorry, Brian. I hate soap operas, always have.

Reverse
                I went into the pilot room still haunted by the horrible, awful, terrible sight of a faceless woman, and strapped in. As normal, I warned the cargo and crew that we were going to zero gravity for a couple of minutes in a while. The computers can give you a better idea of the maneuvers so I won't go into detail about that.
                However, there was one thing that wasn't right: One of the computers disagreed with the other three about a reading. I dropped to point one gravity and trudged (bounded might be a better word at .1 G) to the remaining generator, which is what the computers disagreed about.
                In all my years of driving these boats I've never seen the computers disagree about anything, so I was pretty worried. Especially since we only had one generator left; we could make it to Mars on batteries, but if we had to we'd be like Wild Bill and in danger from the pirates when we got close to Mars. That's where the pirates usually are, because that's when shipping is most vulnerable to them.
                The disagreeing computer was right, there was a tenth of a volt overvoltage going to engine seventeen, but a tenth of a volt wouldn't hurt anything. I shut number seventeen down anyway, and then went back to the pilot room, strapped in, got ready to maneuver and dropped the thrust to zero G.
                The maser beeped. "John, Bill here. I got some bad news for you, buddy. I picked up some radio traffic from pirates, and one of the boats you destroyed had survivors. They're really, really pissed off at you, John. Be careful when you get close to Mars. Have all your weapons armed, not just as many as the book says but all of 'em. And if I was you I'd even have atomics ready. You should have heard them talking about you... there's a price on your head, John. Sorry to bring bad news, hope I see you on Mars, I'll buy you a beer. Kelly out."
                Shit. God damned pirates, I wish the company would build a few warships to rid the solar system of those God damned mother fucking sons of bitches. God damned bastards!
                I got the boat turned around and went back to my apartment... sorry, "quarters".
                Destiny looked up from her tablet as I came in. "What's wrong, Johnnie?"
                "Bill called," I said. "One of those damned pirate boats had survivors and now the pirates want my head. We're sure to be attacked when we get close to Mars."
                Her eyes got wide. "Oh, my,"she said, "Are we going to be okay?"
                "Don't worry," I reassured her, worried myself. "I called the company. They'll sent a huge armed convoy to escort us on the last leg. Meanwhile we can still outmaneuver them with one generator. And we have arms ourselves. In fact, I'm getting a cup of coffee and then checking out our weapons.
                "That generator itself is a weapon, even. I can make it spew gamma rays behind the boat, they'll be too sick to fight in minutes and dead in days. Honey, we're armed to the teeth. We have rail guns, lasers, EMP mines and rockets, other atomics..."
                I got a cup of coffee. "Ugh," I said after taking a drink.
                "Sorry," she said, "the robot made it."
                "Nasty damned robots," I replied. "Ill make a fresh pot."
                "What do you mean by 'other atomics'?"
                "We have hydrogen bombs. Lots of 'em. You don't think the company would leave their property defenseless, do you?" Damn, I didn't want to wait for a cup. Oh well.
                As the coffeepot gurgled I said "Don't say anything about pirates to anybody, especially the whores. They're the last ones I want to upset. I'm a lot more worried about them than pirates."
                She laughed. "you finished Tammy's book."
                "Yeah," I said, "I did. Scariest book I ever read."
                "You've read a lot of scary books?" she asked, grinning.
                "No," I admitted, "I don't really like reading."
                "That's too bad," she said. "Look how much help Tammy's book is to you."
                "That book gives me nightmares!" I exclaimed, finally pouring my coffee.
                "It might save your life," she said sternly.
                "Yeah, I agreed. "I wish I'd read it before that first rock rain. I'd have known the effect of lowered gravity on dropheads."
                "You've been calling them that lately."
                "Got it from the dropheads themselves. Seems that a 'drophead' is an angel tear addict and a 'dropper' is someone who uses them but isn't addicted. One of them said 'I ain't no drophead, bitch.' But they're all dropheads, some get addicted the first time they try it, according to Tammy's book."
                "I know," she said, "I read it."
                "Why didn't you tell me?"
                "I thought you read the book."
                "I should have. I should read more."
                "Yeah, you should."
                I finished my coffee. "I gotta get back to work."
                She asked "want to watch a movie when we get back?"
                "Sure," I said, "make it a funny one. One without any damned droppers."
                "Old one then," she said. "Today's comedies all have droppers."
                "Nothing funny about dropheads," I growled. Damned whores...

It may be a while before I post another chapter, as I'm at a loss as to what sort of trouble Knolls finds himself in next, except a vague idea about droppers not liking having lowered gravity as they approach Mars. So I'm going to work on the ending for a while, but won't post it until whatever chapters will come next.

I'm 18.3% towards the goal of 100,000 words. If I get there I'll see if Baen will publish it, self-publishing is a pain in the ass, a lot of work. OTOH you have almost complete control over the finished book, so if Baen rejects it I'll publish it myself.

I've gone through and edited a few times, but not what is posted here. So far I was pointed to a typo that I might never have seen, and another informed me of the best way to present the German sentence, and I thank them both. Editing seems to make the chapters longer, which is fine because I want to hack out a lot of verbiage that hopefully isn't garbiage.

(this chapter's title is unprintable without unicode)
                I heard cats fighting again: the Thai girls. They always sounded like house cats fighting when they argued. I looked in the commons area and they were nose to nose and looked like they would be coming to blows.
                Damned whores. The pay raise wasn't enough for me to put up with this shit. "Knock it off, you two. Now, what's going on?"
                "My tenee drops!" one babbled.
                "What?"
                "She says she doesn't have any drops but she's lying."
                "And?"
                She frowned, crossed her arms and turned her back on me. "Well?" I said.
                She whirled around and kicked me in the head. I went out like a light.

                I came to in the infirmary laying on a gurney with an IV needle stuck in my arm and wearing an oxygen mask. Destiny and Tammy were there. I took off the mask and started to get up, but they pushed me back down. "Hold off, John, you should rest."
                "No I shouldn't," I said. "I should kick that cunt's ass and lock her up."
                "The robots already did. They tased her." I thought, really? I didn't know they could do that. Why the hell can't they make decent coffee?
                "You two tased her," I said.
                They looked at each other. "I did," Destiny said.
                "Thank you," I replied.
                "I'm sorry," Tammy said. "She should have had drops. I missed her. It's my fault."
                "What's going to happen to them on Mars?" I asked.
                "They think they're going to be prostituting, but they're going to be rehabilitated. The study of the brain and mind has really advanced in the last couple hundred years and these days we can undo much of the harm done to them in their lives.
                "When their five year contracts are up they won't be the same people. We hope they'll stay on Mars, Mars needs people badly. It has too many PhDs and too few less educated people; there are things that need to be done that don't require a higher education."
                It dawned on me that she didn't talk like a college professor around the whores like she did when none of the hookers were around.
                "So you conned them?"
                "No, we said up front that addiction treatment was not only part of the deal the primary purpose. These girls don't want to be addicts or whores, that's just where life put them. But they worried about income; most of these girls know of no other way of making money. We're going to teach them."
                "Who's paying for all of this?" I asked. It sounded like I was Captain of a charity boat.
                "The CEO of your company's daughter is a philanthropist. She's paying for it." She looked at Destiny. "Destiny works for them, too."
                Destiny looked sheepish. My brain actually started working. "You two don't work for the corporation, you work for that charity."
                "Look, John," Destiny said, "you're not supposed to know any of this. So you don't know any of this, okay?"
                "Okay," I said. Hell, I didn't care about Tammy but I didn't want to get Destiny in trouble. "I'll play ignorant."
                I hate to get Destiny in trouble with her charity, I hope my including this doesn't cause trouble but I'd hate for something I didn't say to make somebody die later. Drops and dropheads are really dangerous.
                The computer beeped and the readout said I could leave. We started the walk home.
                "Ich nicht habe keine Augentropfen, bitch!" we heard while walking past the commons. God damned whores... We went in the commons. The fat blonde was there arguing with one of the Thai chicks; I have no idea what "Ich nicht habe keine Augentropfen" means except yeah, I do, since after she said it she said "bitch". The Thai chick was out of drops. Damn. I called the other Thai chick's room. "Lek, could you please come to the commons? I need an interprepter."
                "Okay, Joe, I be right there. Cost you some drops, though, okay?"
                "I'll try but I can't promise."
                "Try hard, Joe," she said threateningly.
                "My me drops!" The other one said. "Tenee drops!"
                Damn, I hoped Lek hurried. "You'll get drops," I said. "Just be patient."
                "Meow drops!"
                "I'll see what's taking Lek," I lied. I was seeing someone who knew what the hell they was doing, and that was Doctor Winters, my expert on dropper whores who had pretended, and still did in front of everyone except Destiny and me, that she was one, too. She was walking quickly toward me. "We have a prob..." I started.
                "I know. My fault, sorry. I'll fix it. And John, finish reading that damned book!"
                "I will..." hell, she was in the commons already. I shrugged and went back to the cabin to read some more. Oh, you guys should put chapter three from her book in this report, the whole thing will make a lot more sense that way. Chapter three is a video of a drophead going through withdrawal. It's a hard video to watch. I'd rather I had just read about it, and I really don't like to read. I threw up watching it.
                The woman in the video tore her own face off with her fingernails! It was horrible, and I puked and shut it off. How does Tammy study this kind of thing? Glad we had the noisy damned maids, the vomit stank and made me want to puke more.
                Then they had one woman they called a "subject" in a straitjacket, locked in a padded room. Dead the next morning. Damn but that shit is nasty.
                Destiny came in. "Are you okay, John?" she said with a worried look on her face.
                "Yeah. Damn, how does Tammy do it?"
                "Do what?"
                "Study a Frankenstein monster. God," I said, "Worse than a Frankenstein monster. That book... Destiny, a women tore her own face off! My God but that was the worst thing I've ever seen in my life!"
                She said "I read it. Why do you think I'm working for them? These poor women... the withdrawal from this drug is horrendous torture and they all die if they stop taking it. We're trying to find a cure. The problem is, we just can't tell on Earth because the drug is so easy to make there, needing Earth's exact gravity. A chemist could do it with a centrifuge on Mars, but not a drophead. On Earth, we can get them clean but they go right back to using. So we're trying it where a drophead can't make drops, with the very best medical help there is."
                "If we succeed," she continued, "we can not only rid Earth of its dropper problem but populate Mars!"
                I was doubtful but didn't say anything. It would be nice if they could pull it off, but I didn't think they would.
                Uh, guys, I need to piss. Thanks.

                My fone and tablet went off at the same time. Fifteen minutes to decel.
                "Gotta work, huh?" Destiny said.
                "Yeah, you can cheer me up later. I gotta turn this tub around."
                "Do we get zero G?" She asked. "Only a little," I said. I know what the book says is acceptable. I hate books.
                Especially Tammy's.

I'd appreciate your help on this one. I don't speak German and used Google Translate to convert "I ain't got no drops" to that language. I'm sure quite a few of you are fluent in German, if so, did I get it right?

I also used Google Translate for the written version of the Thai word for "catfight". I was never fluent in Thai, haven't used it in 40 years and never was literate in that language.

Actually, there is no chapter nineteen, at least in this iteration. The book now starts with a third person narrative between the CEO and an underling about Captain Knolls' report, which the underling is delivering. Most of it is Knolls' report.

At any rate, what was originally chapter one is now chapter two. Chapter one is now a conversation between the company CEO and an underling, who brings Captain Knolls' report with him.

I'm following (and copying and pasting from) the manuscript, but every chapter has changed and expanded. What I'm posting today is a couple months old and has been added to.

Oh, did I mention? This is the new chapter one.

Meeting
                "Did you bring Knolls' report?"
                "Yes sir, here it is."
                "Did you read it?"
                "Yes, sir, I did. It's interesting. Knolls could be a writer if his grammar wasn't so atrocious, it was actually a good read. These reports are usually pretty dry."
                "Well, he's just a ship's captain. It's not like he's been to college or anything. How detailed is the report?"
                "Heh, too detailed in places. I didn't really need to hear about his bowel movements."
                "How much did he leave out?"
                "Nothing important. At least I think nothing important."
                "It says he saved her life?"
                "Yes, sir. He apparently kept a cool head, kept his wits about him and did everything right. It looks like he saved Kelly's ship and cargo as well."
                "Yes, I read the investigation report. Sabotage to Kelly's ship during the Mars overhaul so they could get his ship and ores. One of the workers was arrested, he'd been paid a huge sum of cash to do it. It wasn't hard to catch him, they just looked at spending patterns to find who was living beyond their means. He confessed, we need to figure out how to prevent that from happening again."
                "yes sir, we're on it already. If Mark Johnson can't solve it, it's insoluble.
                "It had better not be. What were damages to cargo?"
                "One specimen was severely injured but recovered before reaching the port on Mars.
                "Other damages?"
                "One of the ship's two fusion reactors was ruined, as well as three of its ion drives. The other was damaged but easily repaired. One battery incinerated. Minimal damage considering the dangerous cargo it was carrying and the problems Knolls encountered. May I ask, sir, why you allowed her on board with such a dangerous cargo?"
                "No, Bob, you may not, but I will say she's going to do whatever the hell she wants no matter what I think. I'm just glad it turned out the way it did."
                "Sorry, sir. Anyway, I hope you read that report. It answers a lot of questions the investigators didn't."
                "I will, thanks. Afternoon open? Want to shoot nine holes?"
                "Of course. But please, read the report first."
                "Don't worry, I've been looking forward to it, especially considering... get the hell out of here, Bob. Let me read this thing. I'll see you on the golf course."

Chapter 20 is finished and 21 nearly so. And yes, the incinerated battery and more is coming.

Pirates
        Nothing happened in the last week that I didn't log in the ship's log. At least not what you want to hear, I get it. You don't need to know every time I take a shit or what I had for breakfast, right? Anyway, the whores pretty much behaved themselves. Like the log says, robots were trying to fix the busted generator but I knew they couldn't. They do what they're programmed to do no matter how impossible.
        Anyway, after a week there were some more little rocks in our way, but these were mapped; we could just go around them. The computers would do the actual steering but I have to sit in the pilot seat in case the four of them disagree about something and I have to make a decision. I've never seen that happen, though.
        While we were driving around the rocks, Wild Bill called over the MASER link. "John, Bill here. I'm about a light minute ahead of you and I'm standing still again, but this time it's on purpose. There's pirates ahead, and I can't outrun them on batteries. If your systems are all in good shape, run like hell. If you're having problems you should stop."
        Shit. I could out run them on one generator but what if the other one went out? Hell, I could just detour around them. Too bad Bill didn't have that advantage, batteries just didn't hold enough energy.
        I answered him back. "Pirates? This far out? Are you sure they're pirates?"
        It would be a couple of minutes before I heard back. I put the course correction into the computers' input console while I waited, then addressed the folks on board. "Passengers and cargo, attention. Prepare for unexpected gravity changes. That is all."
        Bill answered. "It's a fleet and they're not listed in the computer. Hell if I know what they're doing out here."
        Damn. Bill was a damned good friend who had helped me out of jams more than once. And he was hauling tons of different metals, a valuable cargo inside a valuable ship. His short circuit could have been sabotage; pirates have been known to infiltrate the company before. The company wouldn't too much mind pirates killing Bill but they'd hate to lose the ship and cargo, so maybe I wouldn't get in too much trouble for what I planned. I picked up the phone and addressed the ship's P.A. System. You can probably get a lot more detail from the computers, but anyway I got on the P.A. "Attention, ladies, this is the captain," I said. "Strap down, we're going to have some crazy gravity in a few minutes. That is all."
        I strapped myself into the pilot's chair myself. I turned the boat around and decelerated, shut down half the engines, made one look like it was sputtering, and informed Bill to get ready. Then I went toward the pirates while the computers figured out the trajectory for what I'd planned. I'm glad I have those computers, I could never do the math myself.
        They saw me, and I pretended I'd just noticed them and changed course. I wasn't kidding when I told the women gravity was going to be weird.
        They took chase. I went just slow enough to keep them the right distance and get where I was headed when I was headed there. From the radar it looked like they were steering those things by hand. Good, that raised my chances. Actually there wasn't any danger to me since I could outrun 'em easy and they can't shoot at me or anything that might damage the boat and cargo, which is what their goal is. But it raised my chances of saving Bill's ship.
        You know how the pirate fleets work, with a lead ship carrying an EMP. They don't know we designed these ships with pirates in mind and their EMP wouldn't stop us. And I didn't want them to know so I sent them a nice little present, fired from the rail.
        I hear the pirates still use gunpowder.
        The bastard's ship exploded and we were almost there â"
        When I reached the right spot we took off like a bat out of hell. Ten seconds later the poor pirates got caught in the rain, as we say. They probably all died. I sure hope so, murderous bastards after my friend!
        I set the course back to Mars and addressed the ladies. "You can unstrap now."
        Time for inspection, since I'd pushed her hard on one generator.
        Like it says in the log, it was fine but a little warm. The engines were in good shape, too, but I shut down the one I made stutter for twenty four hours, just like the book says.
        This called for a beer. Hell, this called for champagne but I didn't have any. I started back to my quarters for a beer.

Alarm
        The alarm went off when we were watching a movie; a real one this time, a modern holo rather than the ancient two dimensional ones we'd been watching. So of course I thought "damned whores."
        "Sorry, hon, we have a fire in the commons. I'll be back when I can." Damned whores.
        When the yellow light flashes over most doors, they can only be opened from the outside. When it flashes red outside it won't let you in, when it flashes red on the inside you'd better get the hell out of there.
        There were a few exceptions, like my quarters. It would only keep me in if there was a vacuum or a fire outside the door. It only flashed yellow as a warning.
        I went to the commons and another alarm went off. What the hell? This one was in the passenger section, apartment 12. Nobody should be in there. Whores? More electric problems?
        The commons was closer and I had to make sure the cargo had evacuated.
        There were no whores and no fire. My tablet reported it was a scheduled drill. That explained number twelve, sometimes they simulated more than one fire.
        It went off again. "Cargo section, #6." I laughed, the computer was posing a conundrum for me. And the cargo. If your quarters caught fire you were supposed to go to the commons but what if it were on fire, too?
        Number six... that was the Thai girls, wasn't it?
        There was screaming from the other side of the door. "Computer, open the door" I ordered.
        "Unable to comply. Danger to ship, passengers, other cargo, and crew."
        "Report."
        "Fire in cargo hold six. Fire suppression technologies deployed."
        The damned thing talks like it's went to college.
        "Let those girls out, damn it!!"
        "Unable to com..."
        "GOD DAMN IT!!"
        And then another damned alarm went off. Son of a bitch! "Computer, source of new alarm."
        "Meteor shower ahead." The door opened and the girles stumbled out, along with the fat blonde, coughing. Smoke billowed from the door before it closed.
        "Meet me in the commons, I have an emergency." I ran to the pilot room on my sore legs.
        This time, like most times, meteors meant slow down. I reduced gravity to 10%. This time I wasn't going to face the whores until it was over, we were already behind schedule.
        After the rocks all passed in front of us I sped back up and adjusted course to make up for the damned rocks.
        I checked the passenger quarters and sure enough it was a drill. What morons program this shit, anyway? Having emergency drills when there's a real emergency? That's dangerous. Stupid dangerous. Those bozos might have went to college but they were morons. God damned idiots!
        What? Yeah, yeah, just shut up and let me talk, I want to get this over. Anyway, the three girls were still sitting on the medic outside their apartment sucking oxygen. The door light was red but no longer flashing.
        "So what happened?" I asked them.
        "Don't know," the blonde said. I can never remember her name. Anyway, she says "we were just talking when that damned noisy maid burst into flames and the room locked us in! We were scared shitless!"
        It happened sometimes, but they usually smoked for a while before they started burning, and then only when they were old and worn out. I hoped the ship had a robot that made robots.
        The light went out, the door opened, the Thai women went in and the blonde went home. So did I.
        Destiny had fallen asleep, so I got a beer and put the movie back to where I'd left off.

"Nobots" showed up at Amazon.com today. B&N is the cheapest I've seen at $23 and change. Their shipping is free for orders over $25, while Amazon only offers free shipping for orders over $35. Unless you've been chomping at the bit for years, I suggest waiting until "The Paxil Diaries" shows up at B&N before buying a copy.

I'm disappointed that Amazon has no cover art shown, too.

I'm referring to the fans who bought copies of Nobots. It's finally listed at Barnes & Noble here, and somehow it's cheaper there by three or four dollars. Again, my apologies. If you're thinking of getting a copy of The Paxil Diaries you may want to wait a couple of months until it's at Barnes as well.

Barnes is far superior to Amazon. Why? The bitches at Amazon still haven't listed it. However, Google's spiders haven't found it at B&N yet, either; I found it through B&N's search facility.

I was amused that B&N suggested that you nag me to make a nook version out of it, when you can read it or download it (actually, both books) free on my web site on your nook. I'm making e-pub versions, but haven't quite figured out all the nuances of the conversion software. It will be free as well.

The Paxil Diaries is finally available. I hesitated releasing it, because it's still not perfect. There is at least one grammar error ("whom" should be "who") and at least two formatting errors. But to tell the truth, I'm really tired of working on this thing and it seems no matter how many times I proofread, fixing one mistake seems to cause another.

You can read it, download it for free, or buy a hardcover copy here. I hope you enjoy it, some of you have been waiting ten years for it.

I've been working harder since I retired than I did working. Maybe it's because it's something I want. I've spent the last week proofreading. I found that typos and other errors are far easier for me to find in a printed book than on a screen.

I finished yesterday, updated and uploaded the file and ordered a new copy. Still having writer's block with Mars, Ho! (which is only 20% done) I checked Amazon and Barnes to see if they had Nobots available. Not yet.

Fifteen years ago when I had the Springfield Fragfest I had a terrible plagiarism problem. Folks weren't just infringing my copyright, they were posting my own work under their name. Not a week would go by that I didn't have to issue a DMCA takedown notice to someone, usually a university (a different one each time) where a student was plagiarizing my work. So I googled for pages using Nobots in an infringing way.

I publish under the noncommercial GPL license. All I demand is that it's non-commercial and I get credit.

I ran across this German site. I was taken aback at first... DMCA doesn't apply to Germans. Then I realized they were displaying mcgrewbooks.com in a frame!

I don't see how it could harm me and do see how it might actually sell a book or two so I'm not going to hassle them.

I wish I'd learned German rather than Spanish.

For the last several years my Easter routine has been a three day celebration. On Good Friday I find somewhere to have Walleye for lunch, which isn't hard. Most places have it every Friday. Friday nights I like to find a bunch of Christians (not hard, most bars are filled with Christians) and get drunk with them on the blood of the lamb.

Saturdays I watch the only R-rated religious film ever made, The Passion of the Christ. Easter Sunday I attend church, where the services are so good that if it were a secular thing people would pay fifty bucks a ticket.

But yesterday was different. I'd gotten some snail spam from Xfinity/Comcast offering internet for twenty five bucks a month. I've been on AT&T for years, with only one complaint: they keep jacking up the price. It's risen from 24 to 51.

There was a box on my porch: Nobots. It was OK so I released it to the bookstores, it's supposed to show up in stores in six to eight weeks. The cover is slightly different from the copies you guys bought, those books will be worth something in a decade or two.

The cable guy, who wasn't Larry, seeing as how he not only wasn't a redneck, he was black, showed up fifteen minutes early.

I felt sorry for the fellow, because the whole exercise was a corporate bureaucratic clusterfuck. He asked what equipment was giving me trouble. "It's a new installation," I said. So he had to call the office to clear that up.

"It says here you have some Comcast equipment," he said. "Yeah, I replied, digging through a pile of electronic junk. "I had cable a few years ago and they never came to get the cable box. Here."

"It says here you have another piece of equipment."

"No, unless it's cabling or something. On the phone again he couldn't find out what the equipment was supposed to be. Considering they sent him with a repair ticket rather than an installation ticket, my guess was a clerical error. I have to call them and clear it up, I am NOT looking forward to it.

So he gets out a modem/router, which he calls a "Dory" or "Dorie" or something that sounded like that and plugs it in to the cable and my router and fires it up. The Linux box is running, playing oggs and MP3s so I pull up Firefox. "Looks like it's working," I say.

"Huh? That's impossible! I haven't activated the modem yet!"

The DSL modem was still running. Duh!

His "Dory" didn't work. So he unplugged the cable and plugged it into a piece of test equipment. "No signal," he says. He goes out back behind the house to change the connectors and test the signal there. He comes back in. "There's no signal going into your house. I have to climb up the pole anyway, I'll be back in a few minutes."

When he got back he announced that it had been disconnected at the pole. He hooked his gizmo up and announced that he had a signal.

But the modem still wouldn't work. "Darn," I said. "I was going to have some fish at Suzy-Q'a." By then it was noon; what should have been a routine installation taking no more than half an hour had placed roadblock after roadblock in front of the poor technician.

He said to go ahead, it would take a while to get hold of his supervisor, who was at lunch. He'd sit in the truck and try to figure it out.

I'd placed my order over the phone, so when I got there it was not only done, but had cooled enough to eat without burning myself.

When I got back, the installer said he'd found the problem, that I'd gotten the wrong modem and he had to go back to the shop but would only be gone a little while. I told him I'd probably be sitting on the porch with a beer when he got back. "Man," he said, "I'm sure looking forward to that!"

"After the day you've had? I'll bet! I know what it's like, man." He left to get a different modem.

Two Comcast trucks showed up, he and his supervisor, a nerdy looking fat white guy who wanted to know where the "start" menu was. "Right where it's supposed to be," I said, taking the mouse and clicking. "Oh," he said. "The icon's different."

He putzed around in its internet settings and couldn't make heads or tails of it. I told him I'd never had to mess with it, it's not like Windows. In Linux, you just plug it in and it works. He plugged his laptop in and couldn't get on the internet with it, either. So he went for the different modem, which was exactly like the first one. This one worked, except for the button that's supposed to bypass the wifi password. No problem, the password is on the bottom of the modem.

They got done about three. I guess I have to go down to AT&T to cancel my DSL, it was impossible over the phone.

Too big to fail? Too big to operate with any efficiency whatever is more like it. I feel sorry for their employees.

Pressure
        When I woke up, all my muscles were on fire. We would have had to turn the ship around today, and in fact that's what was scheduled, except for the meteors and the drama that followed.
        Destiny was sleeping peacefully. I got up, thankful that we weren't at Earth gravity but wishing we had turned around for deceleration then, because they have it plotted so that you start the journey close to the planet you're leaving's gravity, and reach your destination close to that planet's gravity. We were at half Earth gravity now and it would gradually be lowering to Mars' gravity.
        The girls didn't like half Earth gravity, they were going to hate Mars. I guess these girls were being well paid or something, they sure were paying me good. Except that from what I'd learned about these women they probably just promised free drops. Drops were the addicts' only motivation, only goal, only thing that mattered to them.
        God but my muscles were all on fire. I sat down on the couch and had the robot make a cup of shitty coffee, my legs hurt. I had it bring me water and Naproxin and drank the lousy coffee. Yech. Why can't they program those damned things to make drinkable coffee? I should have went to college and learned programming.
        I only drank half of the nasty brew and hauled myself painfully to the shower. A hot shower would do wonders for my aching muscles.
        The hot water felt as good as the coffee had tasted bad. I took a really long one. It helped ease the pain, and the pill had started working some, too.
        I took one sip of the remaining cold, nasty coffee and started a pot. Damned stupid robots.
        I was just pouring a cup when Destiny came in. "John!" she said. "You look like hell!"
        "I feel like hell. All that damned climbing yesterday nearly killed me. And I still have to check the instruments and inspect the boat."
        "You did inspection yesterday. I thought inspections were weekly?"
        "Yeah, normally, but yesterday wasn't the least bit normal. I have to inspect that busted generator since it would have cooled enough by now, and the other one, too, since it's working harder now that there's only one."
        "Poor baby!"
        "Well, at least I don't have to inspect cargo today. Want to watch a movie later?"
        "Sure. Isn't it almost time to check your instrumentation?"
        "Yeah, it is." I kissed her. "See you in a while."
        I went towards the pilot room, which was really just outside my quarters. Yesterday I'd been wishing for a bicycle, today I was wishing for a cane.
        All the readouts were normal except one ï½ air pressure in the port generator was twenty kilopascal low. That wasn't a good sign at all, I was going to need a suit and tether in case a bulkhead blew while I was in there.
        I noted the log and stopped by our cabin... heh, "our cabin," how about that? Anyway I stopped to fill a bug mug and summon a medic.
        Medics are robots that look kind of like narrow tables with padded tops and appendages to measure bodily functions and administer medicine. Planetside they called them "gurneys" but everything is named different on a boat. Like port and starboard.
        I sat on the medic and ordered it to the port generator and got another robot on the fone to fetch the suit from the starboard hold where Destiny had gone out the airlock.
        After I'd suited up and tethered, the difference in pressure made it hard to get the hatch open. I tried a crowbar and couldn't even make it hiss. So I lowered the pressure where I was and the door popped open by itself. I took a floater with me to hunt for the leak.
        A floater is just a small balloon filled with helium with a small counterweight to make it gravity neutral. It goes where the air goes.
        I found where the air was escaping and patched it. Why can't they program robots to do that? Stupid robots, they could act as maids and medical doctors and all sorts of other functions but the damned things can't patch a hole or make a decent cup of coffee. At least they're cheap.
        The pressure was slowly rising so I sat on the medic and waited until it matched the rest of the ship so I could get out of the room. I hadn't needed the suit, but left it on just to keep my ears from popping.
        The gauge said pressure was normal so I tried the hatch. It opened easy, so I took off the suit and gave it to a robot and rode the medic back to my rooms.
        I was dying of thirst, even after downing that big glass of water when I took the naproxin. I said something to Destiny about it when I got back, taking another pill and drinking more water.
        She laughed. "You're dehydrated, dummy. You told me yesterday you thought you were going to drown in your suit from sweating. You probably need electrolytes, too."
        "And I'm hungry, I just didn't feel like eating when I got up. You hungry?"
        "I could eat. Robot eggs okay or do you want me to cook?"
        "No, robots cook okay as long as it doesn't involve coffee. How do you want your eggs?"
        "Ham and cheese omelette is okay, maybe with some hash browns."
        "Okay. Robot, a ham and cheese omelet, a Denver omelette, two hash browns and toast. No coffee!"
        Them damn robots suck at coffee, and they can't patch a hole at all. I'm glad they can cook.

Continues

Cargo
        I started the long walk back to the pilot room wishing again for a bicycle or something.
        A robot wheeled past. Hell, I should just flag down a robot. But, of course there was a reason for not having transportation; I remembered the climb up the boat when the whores locked me out and how tiring it was. A body needs exercise and the most I was going to get on a boat with two-thirds gravity was walking.
        Destiny and Tammy were in the commons with a few other women; I say "women" because these were acting halfway civilized, despite their lack of clothing.
        "Done already?" Destiny asked.
        "No," I sighed. "Trouble. One of the generators blew out and we're off course again. I just saw you and thought I'd say 'hi', I can't stay. Too much damned work."
        "what do you have to do? How long will it take?"
        "I don't know. When I get us back on course I have to see what the robots are doing with the generator."
        "How bad is it?" Tammy asked. "How many generators are there?"
        "Only two. I wish this was an old tub, they originally had just one fission generator and got retrofitted with fusions. If our other generator dies it's batteries.
        "What then?"
        "We're late. But there isn't much chance of losing both generators. We'll be okay. But speaking of generators, I gotta go." I kissed Destiny and headed to the generator.
        It had cooled enough for the robots to go in to work, but was a bulkhead removed from where a human could tolerate it. I had two more engines I hadn't checked off so I inspected them. Of course, if there was anything wrong I'd have been clueless.
        The repair robots said the generator was shot.
        Shit.
        I walked past the commons to my quarters, Destiny and Tammy weren't in there although there were a few unclothed whores. Damn, ladies, put some pants on!
        Destiny and Tammy were in my living room drinking coffee. As I walked in, Destiny said "John, you're damned lucky Tammy's here."
        As I'd suspected. "You're supplying the drops," I said, sitting down.
        "Yeah."
        "The whores would have killed us without them."
        "Yeah."
        "How much you got?"
        "Plenty."
        "Enough to get to Mars?"
        "Don't worry. I know my chemistry, I know how much they need."
        I said "don't give any to the bitches in confinement."
        "You don't know what you're talking about. With drops they're harmless. Take them away, and well, it isn't pretty."
        I was confused. "What can they do locked up?"
        "They're liable to suicide."
        Crap. Losing cargo is a pretty bad thing.
        "Crap! Damn but I'm glad you're here. I'm going to suggest to the company that they send someone like you on all these runs."
        She laughed. "The company wouldn't want to spend the money necessary. The bean counters know how much loss is acceptable."
        Destiny said "I made coffee."
        "Thanks, but after the day I've had I want a beer."
        "I'm still trying to wake up," she said.
        "Yeah, you napped for a couple of hours after you went for a stroll outside. I would have thought the oxygen would have woke you up."
        "Actually it put me to sleep."
        Where the hell was that robot with my beer? "Robot! Beer, damn it, are you deaf?" A robot rolled over with my beer. I'm glad this boat has the older robots. The newer ones talk, and it's annoying as hell. If I want output from the computer I'll use my fone or tablet.
        Tammy said she had whores to study and excused herself. The robots made dinner and we watched some really dumb old movie from a couple hundred years ago, laughing all the way through it although they say when it was made, it was meant to be serious.
        Then we went to bed. I hoped tomorrow would be less stressful. My muscles all ached from the walking and climbing, I was going to be in pain the next day.

To Be Continued...

I've hardly logged on to the internet at all this past week, too busy correcting a mistake software houses frequently do: Trying to rush a project out the door. The fact is, I'm tired of The Paxil Diaries, but I don't want to ship a flawed piece of crap.

The first copy had a messed up cover; my printer's "cover generation wizard" has an interface almost as bad as GIMP. I fixed it and ordered a corrected copy, and a day later as I was converting the .odt to .html I discovered that some of the chapter numbers were wrong and there were no page numbers. I fixed it, resubmitted it and thought "This time it'll be right."

Number three showed up bright and early Thursday morning. I started going over it with a fine toothed comb. Almost halfway through and I started to think I'd be able to release it. The weather got really nice so I decided to read it in Felber's beer garden.

I discovered I was far better at proofreading when I've had a few beers than sober. When I'm sober what the words are saying distracts me from the words themselves, and I read too fast and miss errors.

It was full of errors, many of them whoppers. I marked them drinking, and finished correcting this morning while sober and sent for copy #4. It may be available in a couple of weeks depending on if I find more errors when it comes. I'll upload the book's HTML and PDF versions as soon as I decide I can release it.

Meanwhile, I can get back to Mars, Ho! this week.

Fusion
As I was floating back to the pilot room, Tammy was waiting outside her quarters, hanging from the doorway with one hand. "Is Destiny OK?" she said with a worried tone.

"She will be," I said. "A little anoxia." They'd warned us about anoxia in Captain's training and I'd seen it before. "She's in the infirmary getting oxygen. You can see her if you want but she was still unconscious when the robot took her."

"Thanks. I would have thought you'd have stayed with her."

"God knows I'd like nothing better, but I have to make sure we get to Mars alive. We're off course and I have to inspect the ship to make sure it isn't about to blow up or anything. Look, I gotta go," I said as I continued to the pilot room.

We were even farther off course than I'd feared. Now it was a matter of juggling speed and fuel usage to the company's specifications.

Back in the old days, way before my time, these boats weren't so automated. Crews were human rather than robot, and the Captain had to calculate all this stuff by hand, with their primitive computers helping.

Captains had to go to college back then, and some of the crew, too. The Captain had to figure out all that shit almost by hand; he needed to know calculus. Hell, I ain't even took algebra even though I could have in high school.

I made the adjustments the computer read out, and we had gravity again and were going the right way. I didn't look at what gravity was, and it was hard to tell since we'd been so heavy before weightlessness.

The empty crew's quarters were first, then cargo pens. I wondered why they call them that.

"Who is it?" a voice said at my knock. Presumably Kathy, which was the name on the doorplate.

"Captain Knolls. Ship inspection, you girls should be used to this by now."

"Yeah? You should be used to us telling you to fuck off, too."

"Door, open. I can lock you up any time I want, you know. I don't even need no excuse."

"I ain't got no drops, bitch."

I suddenly realized why they called them "pens". They were designed to house any species of animal, and a word Destiny had teased me for using came to mind.

Feral. From what I'd read of Tammy's book, some of these whores were more animal than human, especially when they didn't get their drops. It had driven Billie wild enough that she'd wound up blowing her quarters up, with her in it.

I sighed. "I hope you're lying. From what I found out I'm better off when you have them."

"Well, cough 'em up, Joe!"

I laughed, and replied "I ain't got no drops, bitch!"

I did wonder why they hadn't run out. Where were they getting them? They shouldn't have been able to get them onto the boat in the first place.

Billie's quarters were next. She, along with some fifty odd fellow cargo were confined for the duration. Of course, I just opened the door and entered, taser in hand. This would have been a "brig" back when Captains had diplomas.

The robots had done a good job, but they always did. Except for making coffee. They suck at that. But you couldn't tell that she'd almost burned to death. Well, except that her hair was really short and frizzly.

"Inspection."

"I ain't got no drops, bitch."

"Whatever," I sighed, and inspected the quarters. It was obvious she was lying, her eyes gave her away. I wondered again where the drops were coming from.

After hearing "I ain't got no drops, bitch" so many times I didn't even hear it any more I went to inspect the infirmary, the one part of the inspection I looked forward to. I wanted to see how Destiny was.

Tammy was sitting there talking with her. "John!" Destiny said. "Tammy told me you saved my life."

I blushed, and grinned sheepishly. "It's my job."

Tammy laughed. "Bullshit, any other 'cargo' wouldn't have made it. Destiny almost died, and she would have if you weren't moving so frantically. God but you're fast!"

Destiny pulled me close and kissed me. "Thanks, Johnnie," she whispered, then said in a normal voice "go ahead and finish your inspection, I should be able to go home in half an hour. I'll meet you there."

I walked back to the starboard generator and wondered why in the hell I had to do this. I mean, I don't know anything about a fusion generator. There was a stairway to get there, as the generators and engines were on the "bottom" of the boat. It was the "bottom" because the ion engines pushing against the ship pushed everything else the other way. Something about "three laws of thermoses" or something but I think I was hung over that morning's training and don't really remember. Something about actions and opposite reactions or something.

I went over the checklist and checked the first engine. These things were huge and there were a lot of them. A hell of a lot of electricity went through those things.

I had two more engines to go when an alarm went off. "Damned whores, not now!" I thought.

But it wasn't the whores, it was the port generator and I couldn't get in; the computer said it was an inferno in there. Hell, that damned thing should have shut down automatically. I pulled the breaker and there was a sort of thump. Damn. Another trip to the pilot room, we were going to be off course again.

It would have to cool before the robots could start repairing it, if it was repairable at all. Damn, if the other generator went out...

I called Destiny. "Honey, I'm really sorry but this is going to take a while."