SAVANT WANT: THIS DOES

Xat enters the lab ferociously.

Ferm: ferocious phone call?

Xat (bloodshot eyes): what's going on here?

Ferm: what, it's nothing unusual.

Ferm and Tob are finishing up the flaccid corners of their bag of Reese's Pieces.

Xat: you're fraternizing with the enemy! this is not how science is done!

Ferm (echoing through the chamber): it's called love. and when did science get us anywhere?

Xat storms out of the room, hiding his furiously as he breaks apart the sliding door from the middle before Zhu has a chance to crack it open for him and before the Star Trek doorslide sound of compressed air releasing.

Tob: bad day?

Ferm: might be our last.

Tob: love never dies. it can spark up in a second and fade away, but the trail of it is committed to fleshy memory.

Ferm: i just don't want it to end.

Tob: our love or our life?

Ferm: it's all one.

Tob: yes, it's all One, never thought i'd be a Columbus in my waning years, but the discovery of something truly new has sparked my old circuits back to nature.

Ferm: bad example but i catch your drift. so you've discovered the ore?

Tob: no, something much more valuable.

Ferm's sigh brings a deadening hush to the quiet of the greenhouse.

Tob: i'm sensing something.

Ferm: i know, that's what i love about you. my poor brother, he is lost but so am i.

Tob: i'm not familiar with earth customs. do brothers and sisters have sex?

Ferm: it's earthy, earthen. this world is so streamlined it has come to this. we aren't individuals anymore, we pleasure at the pleasure of the hive mind. we orgasm with the image of the CL in our O faces.

Tob: scary though somehow also kinky.

Ferm: even now i don't know what love is save for a bit in my computer memory, i'm trying to feel it a bit more with you more than know it. knowledge can create only so big a tremor, the wave crests over only through touch.

Tob: we all knew we were everything that is. but that was not enough, we wanted to feel everything that is.

the screens' glow provides the only light in the room.

Tob: was he good? if i may be so bold.

Ferm: you are the boldest man i know, you are everything, without you we are nothing, i am nothing. he's a good brother, he needs to hide it to project business strength. bad lay, though. it's cold, sterile, and like a laboratory. no feeling because we have lost feeling. all computerized and cyber, no swell of free-will release, of breaking the rules in open air, of shouting at the top of our lungs, the fleshy flap that does that is a bit. it's not his fault or mine, it's none of our faults and all of our faults, we caused this to happen, we are unnatural now, this isn't the way it was supposed to be. the future is a funny thing. we don't know how to love.

Tob: you forgot. i know, the time drags on, i know first-hand, the hand of time is slow and deliberate, allergic to change, nothing seems to change, ice ages cover over progress, well-worn ideas aren't the superior ideas, just the ideas that survived the evolutions, so they're the shiny hills we build our cities upon. they are the ideas of the superiors. history is written and backlogged by the victors. but i tell you this with my last alien breath, i do feel that things are about to change. you feel it, too, and that's much better than thinking it or knowing it.

Ferm (tears up): you're dying?

Tob: in a way.

Ferm tears up a page from her green notebook of digital paper and invisible ink and continues scanning with her green scanner the panel of Tob's buttons, pushing in the various combinations, sticking her fingers into Tob's mouth gob opening and listening to her heartbeat, then trying more buttons. she subtly pushes the newayz sticks in and out of Tob, ever so gently, to get a better reading, better transmission, better reception.

Zhu is frying an egg but she forgot whether she saw two pieces of eggshell in the batter or not and whether she should scrape those off before the egg starts cooking. she lunges for the refrigerator but thinks about it, takes a deep breath into her lungs, and returns to the pan but thinks twice and maybe those two pieces of eggshell weren't ever there so she twists her cyberfeet back to the fridge.

the populace go round and round in circles outside, too, until the screens come on. that running scroll has such a calming influence. it's in the center of all towns and centers everyone.

on the screens:

* come to Golden Corral for yeast rolls! that's how we roll! same recipe we've used for 1000 years. they're hard as a rock by now!

* right-wing nutjobs were correct! they knew the truth all along! but everyone thought they were crazy. they were trying to prevent an environmental disaster. not a natural disaster. you can't stop natural disasters like wings of birds flying around to spread the seed to produce the best-tasting nuts. She is in Her Heaven. take a look at this focus group trying the nuts: we have a senator in plaid, a real female nerd, a poolcleaner from the 'burbs who cleans his own mansion, and an asexual fiend. they are all giving each other nutjobs. the people on the left side of the table have weak, limp wrists, can't pick up for themselves, have to have others stuff those nuts down their throats. those left-siders will swallow anything!

* good news, everyone! James Flacco and Seth Rogen have woken from their sybernetic slumber! James and Joe Flacco have done a joint commercial for the Superbaltimore Ravens With Wings. now he's free. here's a snippet from the interview, cyberwink cyberwink:

Flacco: the one thing i will say is that it's weird.
Rogen: i know, just, like, weird.
Flacco: yeah, this whole thing has been weird.
Rogen: everything, when you think about it, everything, like everything that there is is weird.

* and now, the Chips Ahoy! Dancers in their sailor hats and baggy jeans have something to say to you as they dance the Elaine Dry Heave:

"Chips Ahoy! motherfuckers, Chips Ahoy! Chips Ahoy! motherfuckers, we eat them, we're out of gumballs, fuck yeah!"

the crowd can't conversate with each other cos they're too busy with crumbs on their lips.

* the Queen's Christmas message: reconciliation, it's a Grand thing. that's all we need. it's too late of course now. stiff upper lip made of metal all. accept the end with grace, Daily Mirroring our Savior Lord Jesus Christ's Grace. good bye, i have loved being your eternal queen. Mary, i'm comin' home!!!

suddenly there's a hush. the CL comes onscreen, but before he talks, he takes a moment of silence. then he resumes. but before,

THIS, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

this immediately softens the people with reflection and everyone in the world cries. cyber eyes or not, milky liquid more clear than milk streams down everyone's cheeks. they think back to how Korra was the last great series of rich, layered, evocative storytelling for kids. and for adults. Korra the last heroine for love. creativity became focus-grouped and financed after that.

CL: i feel your pain. i am here with you. we haven't found the ore. we have but not enough of it. all the ore is in my private vault under my private desk in my private office for the safekeepers, don't you worry your pretty little cyberbrains about it. we tried, my darlings, we tried, but it was doomed from the start. it was doomed from Adam. get into your escape ipods and your rockets to take you to Mars and beyond. that is if you still want to live. i love you all! i live you all! to infinity and beyond! well it looks like infinity has come sooner than not. it's so funny what is important at a certain time is thoroughly unimportant as time rolls along. except dinner rolls, they are eternal, they last forever. one last day before the new year. one last pie of pizza. one last beer with all the common folk. oh what could have been! Jodorowsky's Dune was a pleasure to watch, a feast for the cybersenses. imagination is all. alas alas alas. a lass saved me. remember, my dear people, it has been so dear for me to be your leader. remember, happy new tear! majority report. remember,

FOLLOW NOT FALSE PROPHETS, THEY ARE LOST, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

the screens go out, jam, old-skool jams, someone is trying to hack in and collect valuable data, the only valuable data is the CL, what's going on?, have to fucking reboot, push that slender button on the tippity top, wait, wait, is the apple-with-the-worm sign on there yet? looking for a sign. wait, wait, slide to unlock, blue screen, blue screen of death, HE'S BACK ON!!!

* hi, it's me again, remember me? remember anything? yeah, so, have you become a follower at my blog? just wondering, lost a couple more today, but i'm thinking that was a glitch. or follow me on my superinstagram, whatever.

the CL is back on the screens!

CL: hi, it's me again!

and which point the CL begins to do the Lambada! the Forbidden Dance! the world erupts, erupts in howls of laughter like a tsunami, their tears of cry turn into tears of laugh. they don't know if they're reacting to the fact that this is ridiculous, inappropriate at a somber time like this, or forbidden, but everyone in the world as a single unified entity laughs in their own unique way, vocaloid and vocal, and lets out their last gasp of humanity. thank you, CL, for this moment of global bonding! to utter, to squirm, to notice, shrug, celebrate, see, enjoin, shiver, flood, condemn, see something new, it's a reaction, that's the importance, group-laugh from '80s cartoons, group-cry, groupthink, group-hug in the end.

Xat is speeding down his way, ignoring everything on his ballleaper. he's on the ear.

Xat: what? i'm so confused. my mind is confuzzled, jumbled, streamlined, streaming. the ore? do we have it? yes, the ore exists in the universe. and isn't the entire universe ours to explore? is it enough? what is it called? muchwow or bae or throwing shade or something. the name of the rock it's on? Rock. Marble. Dot. it's pale. it pales in comparison. the meteor? the asteroid? who cares? we landered a lander on the Comet. we can place an entire civilization on an atom. our nanos have become nanas, we've grandfathered everything in, we are Fry, we are our own grandfathers, the second we could time-travel was the second the afterlife ceased to be. it only takes a second. yes, we are saved. but i am not saved. i don't care anymore for my acres, never did, i care about something else now, oh how blessed it is to care, to not be you anymore cos you're thinking about something that's not you. yes, i need my money, my roof's leaking. where's my money, bitch!? you government types are all alike. put it in my account. accounting is boring. an accounting of oneself...

Xat looks with his advanced cybereye but it's not fast enough, despite all the advancements he's not advanced enough to advance his ballleaper away from the black gravestone in front of him in the middle of the road. roadblock? or was he drifting into a grassy cemetery this whole time? he swerves and makes a noise, his ballleaper swerves and makes an electronic noise of bustle and sparks and hover-skidmarks all over the road. there's flipflopping to no end. car crash. Xat crashes into the screens.

TO BE CONCLUDED...

TMIT: WHERE ARE THE FLYING SKATEBOARDS? I WAS PROMISED FLYING SKATEBOARDS

1. 2014 is dunzo. excited for 2015? CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

2. 1 is completely disappointed and 10 is terribly excited. how was 2014 for you? how was your 2014 sex life? i don't make a distinction between life and sex life, it's all the same thing. it was good but it can always be better. always be better like the Dallas Cowboys. let's just say i was doing more than swallowing hamburgers at Burger King this year.

3. what were your big accomplishments this year? finally accepting that not all dreams come true.

4. did you keep any of your 2014 resolutions? i don't do any of that black-magic Illuminati shit.

5. biggest lesson learned in 2014?:

learned:

* my learned tv-show reviews get -1 views and no comments. but i do it for the love of writing. i suppose. seriously, though, the more you write a blog that only you know about, the more you get into trouble. the silence is fodder for the voices in your head to come out and introduce themselves to you...

6. what are you most proud of in 2014? FINALLY LEARNING THAT DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE!!!, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

7. how did you spend the majority of your free time in 2014? time doesn't exist, one must learn this to achieve true freedom, only then will one have free time. the free time to meditate on the nonexistence of time which has already been freed.

8. tell us something new you'd like to do or learn in 2015: how to live. Tony Robbins didn't take. i did the whole fire-walk thing, soles over hot coals, i was numb the entire experience, i didn't feel anything...

HAPPY NEW YEAR, MY BABIES!!!

bonus: how was your 2014 sex life? a) great b) good c) not bad d) it'll do e) what's sex? "that'll do, pig, that'll do," she said to me. "Babe," i said. we unismiled and group-hugged, bumming an e-smoke. rays of sun were starting to trickle past the motel blinds...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

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BODILY FLUIDITIES

learned:

* playoffs? playoffs?! playoff, playa, play on to play off. gotta play on to make the playoffs so you can play in the playoffs to play on. gotta play off in life, dust yourself off and play on.

* why is sporting good but sporty bad?

* old-timey is offensive. without old-timey there would be no new-timey. respect your elders.

* golf is a metaphor for life: keep your line steady as you navigate through the winds of change, blow and get blown, dig your way out of quicksand only to realize it's the same sand they use in hourglasses, always strive for that hole, get in the hole, GET IN THE HOLE, because the hole is all there is, the perfect circle, OM, become the hole. but become the hole without becoming an asshole.

* gymnastics: you have to be light as air, as invisible as physics, only then do you get to bite on that heavy medal metal that weighs you down like a gold-plated lead balloon.

* cranberry juice: that's why it tastes so cool, it's made by surfing on a cranberry swamp.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK. HAPPY WEEKEND.

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SAVANT WANT: PAST IS NO BLOG

even 1000 years later, vending machines are subject to the nuances of human touch.

Xat (banging on the glass): come on, don't eat up my mack again, it's not like i have more! so close, the ring was so close, it almost dropped the good. *banging* i'm not leaving until i get my Reese's Pieces.

Zhu: use what he gave you, sir. take the shame.

Xat: where the hell is everyone? the halls are deserted, it's overcast outside in the gloomy way, not the cool atmospheric way. silence everywhere, sends a silent shiver up my spine that involuntarily shrugs my shoulders.

Zhu: most people don't work on Christmas Day, sir.

Xat reads his cyber eyes for the tidbit Tob slid in during testing. bang on the bottom. Tob knew this cos Tob knows his box body well.

Xat opens the door to the lab. it jams so Zhu pushes with all her might to leave enough space for Xat to get through.

Xat slides the candy over to Tob.

Tob: thank you, you are a kind taskmasker. i have to reiterate that i cannot go on like this. torture doesn't work. there is no answer, sometimes that's the answer.

Xat goes from dark to darker.

Xat: now you listen to me good! stare right into my cyber eyes. we are NEVER giving up. i didn't take out a second mortgage for nothing. any pain you experience here is monitored and uploaded, you think it would be over there? we're close, i feel it.

Tob: does anyone in this godforsaken metal planet feel anymore?

Xat: i'm switching to good cop now, couldn't afford two people. come on, buddy, i'm just like you, except i'm not the alien that will save me. it's strenous for all of us...

Tob: for me alone, and maybe Zhu.

Xat: but we've almost climbed the mountain. if i've learned one thing in life, one thing that the government couldn't erase, it's that you can never give up no matter how bad things get. there is no escape from this life, there really is no escape. as in, if you try to escape this life, you're not really escaping. take it for what it is, there is no other side filled with natural rainbows and other pleasantries, you won't find what you're looking for that you couldn't find here cos there's nothing over there, this is all there is.

Tob: and it's all been cyberized to hell. being locked up in here gives me time to appreciate the little things, like the blood that pumps through my circulatory system, it's so beautifully natural.

Xat: where is your blood, anyway? our high-powered microscopes still haven't located it. all of our torture techniques haven't gotten you to spill any of your blood yet.

Tob (sweating): it's a mystery to me, and y'know what, i like it that way. there has to be mystery, a universe without mystery ceases to rotate spirally.

Xat: it's simple like the universe. the processes which created the universe are complicated, but the shape and purpose of the universe itself is simple and knowable.

Tob: oh yeah? would you mind filling me in? the universe is too vast and complicated to elicit a monolithic answer. the second you delineate it, it moves, i'm noticing this in my, ahem, "work" for you guys.

Xat: something about the circulatory system of the human body mirroring the circulatory system of the universe, my memory banks are erasing as i speak.

Tob: damn government. please, it's as we speak. despite everything, i know you're just following orders, your orders. this is for some bigger plan or ideal or maybe it's just for money. it's all about money in the end, right? i still think of you as a friend. that's the thing with friends, that's something you can't control. if i say you're my friend, you can never torture me out of that, it's mine and mine alone, it's proof of my free-will existence.

Xat: you had one job. you have one job. i am to stick large black rods into your white flesh until we can  figure out how to push your buttons, literally, so you can show us where in the entire Sagan-huge mindnumbingly gigantic outer-space universe to find that precious ore we need to save the human race from our own stupidly ill-conceived self-aggrandizing self-harming self-destructive environmental policies.

Tob: ah, it's a little Miyazaki, a little Spielberg, and the black rectangles you stick in me are clearly Kubrick. that's a monolith i can muster. the past is so far away, but we must always draw from the past, only the past, it's our only guide, the future is folly.

Tob: AWWWWWWWWWWOWWWWWWWWTHATFUCKINGHURTS!!!

outside, the screens are filled with news scrolls at the bottom for Christmas. the passersby are busy hustling and bustling on the cyber streets ordering their last-minute Christmas presents online in their cyber brains, you'd think they'd be too distracted, but for some reason, everyone has time to put down their things and pay attention to the screens:

* but first, an ad: nexium is the only drug...

* and now a holiday message from Melissa Joan Hart and Anthony Anderson: walmart has the latest in cybereye eye scrubs, never miss what you were watching again because of dirt in your cybereye, get back to watching dirty things

* Pope destroys Curia in Rome as her Christmas Message

* theaters stream The Interview in the United States of Korea to rave reviews and critical acclaim. the film breaks the back of the studio and the bank of the box-office alike, new record, quadrillions in mack. time-machine advocates go back in time to interview the two goofy stars who changed the world, they weren't allowed the first time. the wacky duo's cyber brains remain but are permanently offline, only showing a red line and reddened cybereyes with the words MELLOW MODE in their pupils, a mode in between sleep mode and shut down mode.

* gamer culture only subculture keeping the economy afloat, Princess Zelda hologram says in newspaper interview: "they're the only ones popping out babies left and right and up and down and select button and start button!"

* MMORPGs banned, but is this just part of the MMORPG game?

* politics have been put aside in favor of the greater good! all of our isms and ideologies must unite to try to find this damn ore that will patch up the ozone layer. damn our enemies! we looked at the enemy, and it is us. my cyber brain made me do it. all hail our CL! remember, he was the one who did this, do NOT vote for the party currently not in power come November, vote ONLY for the Current Leader, otherwise you'll have constant gridlock in SuperWashington, you'll have one branch butting heads against the other two branches and nothing gets passed. streamline it, make it all the same, one monolith, one direction, One Direction, stream it online to get things done.

* my fellow world citizens, Forever Alone is over! cos we only have a few days to live on this planet if we don't find the ore! also, everyone in the world is now Forever Alone, so are we all Alone anymore? really? All Alone in the universe. hahaha. *emoticon smiley face!*

* and now, the Christmas Message from our CL: my fellow votes, we must rise above this malaise. gas prices are high but we are higher. do you even remember why you became a human in the first place? enough of this gossip, the terrorism of gossip is tearing us apart. fuck these cliques, they just don't fucking go away, do they?! even after high school! fuck! as a people, a holy body, we have sclerotic systems, ingrained ideals committed to memory banks, we must break free, we must escape, always be looking to escape your situation. ABC, always be closing, ABE, always be escaping, ABE, ABE, be Honest with a capital H, be honest with yourself and others, but mostly yourself. to a fault, see your faults with your eyes. who are you? you are not a number, a vote tally, you are but you're not. we have as a race spiritual Alzheimer's, and just Alzheimer's, we're not warm and autistic anymore, we're cold blank stares. we're entering a dangerous new phase: existential schizophrenia...merry christmas...

* hey guys, follow me at my blog to get all the latest from our CL. or superinstagram, whatever. look! look! the CL is approaching a group of preselected people, issue voters, lining the parade route! see this on video, on the screens? pick up your ear if you can't hear. haha, the CL is kissing everyone's cyber cat! one woman tells him she has the largest cat in the world. "me, too," smiles the CL. now he's on the catwalk and making the Mick Jagger face with his lips as he dances up and down the catwalk, it's some chicken dance, funky, he's shaking his ass, you go, boy. that was tiring, so the CL is now at a bar knocking back a cold one with a plumber. "i show my ass for a living," says the plumber. "me, too," responds the CL and the bar goes up in flames of roaring laughter. group laugh. damn. wish i could be there, i mean i'm there in cyberspace but not really there. there are cameras everywhere. cameras are everywhere. cameras everywhere. downloading to my cyberbrain. man, i really need to download that dance the CL was doing, i need to learn those moves the next time i'm at a bar. download dance instructions. downloading bar directions. download bar, downloading...

Tob: please, turn it up, i'd rather watch the screens than the greenhouse plants in here. i need a distraction from the pain.

Xat: again, again, again till we do it right. till we get it right. till we make things right. the human race will rise again.

Tob: yes, i believe this, too, rise up into the atmosphere.

Xat: what is that wetness coming out of your eyes?

Tob: tangential sweat.

Xat: it's not clear, it's white.

Xat pushes a button.

THIS COMES ON AND FILLS THE ROOM, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

Xat: i'll stick whatever i have to inside you to get the info.

Tob: please, i like you, but not in that way.

Xat: i'm sick of the suicidal malaise, sick of people who gave up, who never thought of the next day and forced us to think of the next day which really wasn't the next day cos there could never be another next day like it would have been with them in it. the finality of loss colors the future, makes it useless, obsolete, folly. there is no escape.

Tob (panting and grimacing and wincing) : there is escape, but the way out is through.

Xat: are you smiling at me?

Tob: more like a smiley emoticon. i've noticed something that's new. as i'm investigating my finds, something is moving, it's organic, it's changing my readings in real time.

Xat: i only care about the ore. have you found a lode?

Tob: i've found a load alright. analyzing. it is in my memory banks, something called muchwow.

Xat: heard of it, new but i've heard of it. no, actually it's old but nobody heard of it. could be useful, could be useful after all. i'll make a few calls.

Tob: okay, the dirty work is over, i need to wash my eyes out. please get Ferm, i need to talk with her.

Xat: anything you can tell my sister you can tell me.

Tob: please please please...please...

Xat: fine. i do have to make those important calls.

Ferm enters the scene and immediately hugs her labcoat arms around Tob. white on white. she tenderly caresses the puncture points of the newayz sticks that have forever singed and stained Tob's skin and then rubs them, healing them in her mind and Tob's mind. she wipes the sweat from Tob's mouth and the white liquid from his eyes.

Tob: come.

Ferm pushes a three-button combination on Tob's panel and closes her eyes. Tob closes his and monitors his breathing pattern and hers.

Tob: analyzing...i knew it!

the duo spend the rest of their time together feeding each other Reese's Pieces.

TO BE CONTINUED...

TMIT: I'M ON MY THIRD MUG OF EGG NOG IN CELEBRATION

YES!!! WE DID IT, MY BABIES!!! KORRASAMI IS CANON!!! Love wins out in the end. it's not open for interpretation, blame Nickelodeon for everything, i blame Nick for hitting my car last night at the party, Nick Johnson. he had to use his Christmas bonus but i let him keep it in keeping with the Christmas season even though i was the only one at the office who didn't get a Christmas bonus. the kiss that would have cemented it is up to Nickelodeon's S&P department. should be the Sex & PLUR Department. here's to the colors of those hills in that scene, the bisexual flag, and no more bisexual nullification in media. how 'bout here's to no more nullification of the human spirit of any kind in media and in life. Art has to live, has to move, has to look at its surroundings and breathe. Love is hard enough, why not have the freedom to choose whomever? merry merry. i don't drink, but i'll drink to that. *cheers*

1. my best friend is_________. Harvey, he's a rabbit...

2. a ______ lover is all i _____. real, need/want/write about indirectly in my stories

3. if you know only one thing about me it should be ________. that it's all in fun, i'd never hurt you, i love you more than the undiscovered stars. hey, that's a pretty good opening line for a story...

4. _____ is the best ______ in the world. hot, rough, hard, steamy, explicit, messy, cummy, dangerous, lurid, naughty, secret sex in the Burger King bathroom is the best sex that's not masturbation in the world.

5. a man and _____ walk into a bar and _______. a man and his priest walk into a bar and yell "Ow!" "are you okay?" the bartender asks. "no, that hurt" the priest exclaims, "get me a vodka to numb the pain." "all we have is wine coolers," the bartender replies. "fuck that," says the priest. just then a beautiful woman with huge breasts and a tight black Catwoman dress struts into the bar, bats her eyelashes, flips her hair, and twirls around in her red high heels. "well hello there," the priest flirts and takes off his collar, "ladies and gentlemen, i'm no longer a priest." the woman gives the priest a big smack on the lips and declares, "God is a woman." says the priest: "folks, i'm back to being a priest."

6. i like to eat _______ in Fall. pumpkin spice latte powder

bonus: i can't _______ if it rains but i can _______. i can't get as high as a kite if it rains for fear of getting electrocuted by lightning but i can still discover electricity with said kite. after i post my results on my blog, even if it's still raining i can get as high as a kite.

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

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DON'T DO (THE WRONG AMOUNT OF) DRUGS

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.


please, don't let this happen to you. read labels carefully, you don't want your hacking cough to turn into you hacking yourself. life hacks, like cleaning tips and stuff, are good, life hacked is bad. dosed is good, dosed is bad. side effects may not vary, side effects can't be swept to the side. look, we all get old, we start to need things, even our heroes age. Han, Luke, and Leia count pills into their MTWTFSS pill organizers, and you have to. it's okay. that's okay. pull your family in tight, squeeze them, hold them, kiss them, hug them, Love tis the reason for the season. don't give into the paranoia, go out and see a movie. 7 shopping days til Crimbus, 7 if you count Crimbus Day itself, which is when i shop for my gifts and make plans for the year. only one place open that day, so the holiday feast always turns into gas-station sushi. i need a MTWTFSS organizer. i need to buy myself a free gas-station calendar for next year. peace be with you. happy weekend.

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SAVANT WANT: DESIGN FLAW

Xat: can you see me?

Ind: i see you, boss.

Xat: i will be in charge today. the screens are unusually crisp.

Ind: the screens make our senses dull. what that my mind was crisp again.

Xat: before we start, legalities. huh, i thought the need for this was obsolete. anyway, the government's paying for this, right?

Ind: fuck you. and by you, i mean the system.

Xat: this is my first time.

Ind: don't say the virgin joke. can i ask you something before we start and i sigh? why are you really here? are you really interested in helping me? who is forcing you to be here? okay i lied, that was somethings.

Xat: i can tell by your worn eyes you've done this before, and for that i am truly sorry. it's not a who, it's a what.

Ind: that's the problem. fuck you. fuck the system.

Xat: my father told me that to be a well-rounded inheritor i would have to get out in the community away from my tower and live amongst the less-fortunate, see what they were all about. it was either this or a game of hoverbasketball with prison inmates.

Ind: you're that baron's son, right? believe it or not, i don't hate you for coming from money, i hate more the system. i never had money problems, i've always been poor. i suppose that contributes along with everything. there's always money problems because you always run out, you never make enough, you never get paid for what you're worth, the hard work you do and don't do is never monetized, there's always the next thing to buy, the next unexpected expense that leaves you tight for three years, the roof that suddenly starts leaking.

Xat: it's what everyone does, that's what my mother used to say, everyone's in the same boat.

Ind: drowning. everything in life is the same, that's the problem, the differences just highlight the sameness. homogenized, listed, spat out and put before the CL who regurgitates it. the more angles, counters, differing opinions the artists, who try to be angels, come up with, rather than make the wave split the ticket and split off to form sand rocks, it somehow just makes the mono-wave bigger until: tsunami.

Xat: what specifically are you grappling with at this moment? what sucks now.

Ind: everything. i dunno, maybe it's just me. all there can be is just me for me. i don't know how to live inside someone else, i can't see life from their perspective, i am only informed of what i see, hear, taste, touch, smell, and jize from my own cyber parts.

Xat: that technology is a few years away still. funny, you'd think by now we'd have the spirit in our power gloves.

Ind: i will like the ghost in the shell anime better when it comes out. i can't wait, it's the end for me, the end because it never really started. what spirit? God left when the Garden's last ancestor seed failed to sprout in the sandy rocks. Jesus Christ is the Screen.

Xat: where are you from? i'm not smarter than you, you can see what i'm doing here. i'm stalling for time, but stalling means more life and more spacetime so i'm doing my job. i thought i would do what Laurence Fishburne used to do, he'd sit down and listen to his mind and before long, two voices would pop into his head, one voice talking about something and the other voice responding with a counterargument and voila, a play scene is born.

Ind: i'm from what used to be ATLANTA, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK. The Matrix was one of those movies i didn't see. that's not how the future turned out, unfortunately. it did but it's never the clean way it's depicted in the movies.

Xat: that's why lightsabers were banned, the coolness of the alluring hypnotic lights gave way to real death, real slicing in half of folk, blood and guts. though i can get you one on the black market if you'd like, i have connections.

Ind: i have my plan planned out, took my whole life, would be a shame to second-guess it now.

Xat: that was one of my first movies. that explains a lot...to some server...somewhere...getting ready to spam my email with products they think i'd want to buy for Christmas.

Ind: never forget the classics. i remember the poster for that film more than anything else. Keanu and the boys and girl, lookin' all bad-ass with their shades on. i imagine what that photoshoot was like and how the actors felt inside their skin posing for those shots. Laurence inhabiting his character, thinking he is truly a god. Keanu more stern than Sad, with the responsibility of representing the audience, the Everyman who goes along the journey with the crowd. there's a girl in India who sees that poster, she is unfamiliar with the English content, the plot, but it's the visual itself, with that striking pose Human Keanu becomes a superhero, and the girl desperately needs a hero to scoop her out of her hopeless life of abuse. that's the power of movies. the girl dare not look at the woman in the poster...

Xat: used to be. the girl won't look at the bad-ass girl in the poster for fear of religious rebuke from her family, but she does so in her scientific mind and gleefully smiles internally. you can't escape to the mind anymore, the government builds your mind. unfortunately, since the hacker threats, the theater-going experience is all but dead, except virtually. shame how a couple of hackers can so fundamentally change the world forever. limp keystrokes creating such strong fear grips.

Ind: the government solved it easily enough, as they always do, well when the right administration was ushered in by that 1-vote margin, the smallest in recorded politics. computers were changed after that. now all the hackers work for the government, so there's no more infighting, no more nerd-on-nerd crime.

Xat: i understand it's a monolith, but y'know, if the monolith includes everyone, is it really that bad? we all are One after all. why be lonely?

Ind: this technology makes me lonely, it's so cold and lying, it lies down like dead weight, wires, code, numbers, heated by programs rather than human rhythms. i wake up these days and my nose is filled with depression, all of my friends are online, they hold their power over me, when they're too busy to respond cos they're leading other lives and reliving past lives, i have no one to turn to. the silence goes past golden into rust. i am in so much pain, the air is shatteringly quiet, so much so i have to cover my ears, but my ear fluid still rattles on...

Xat: fluid, the last vestige of humanity. thank god for that bill or that would have been digitized, too.

Ind:...i'm as cold as the tech. i don't have the luxury of real friends. i'm socially awkward, or maybe just awkward. i was born to lose. i don't think people realize when they call you a loser casually at a cafe what that entails. think about that concept, the concept of loser. you are being called a name that encompasses your entire life frame, not just a stupid sexual college indiscretion. i am a loser, i lose at life, i fail at life, everything i do is of no value, i cannot rise above my anonymous number.

Xat: few can. it's like drowning. you realize that you are just a number in a sea of billions of billions of numbers, more than our stars, and you get swallowed up. your opinion has already been said, you are not original, you are just another, and you start to disappear into the crowd. but as you lose your limbs and close your eyes and melt into the fabric of human history, you also melt into the fabric of time and space, the universe quilt, and you say to yourself, "it's okay. what can i do anyways? i can't resist this, i was always part of this, individuality is an illusion, the One is the backdrop, the bones, the pilot light."

Ind: my pilot light is extinguished, that's how it's described in the depression pamphlets, right? we need to explore the stars, it's on the backs of the taxpayers but i don't care, the stars are the new, the frontier, the non-human, the breaking out of the mold, it can be the next paradigm shift the way the fucking internet was a thousand years ago. we need a return to dirt, leaves, grass, water, nature of another planet, another realm. we need to drink and swim in the water naked without drowning.

Xat: that is the birth canal. hey, as a post-Southerner, i think you'll enjoy this clip dug out from ancient time capsules:

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK.

Ind: i remember this as if it were today. always turn to the ancients, they have so much to teach us. 1000 years is no years. blessed southern mama, shooting straight and getting to the heart of the matter, a heart pumping with rich-based blood and gooey veins and not a cyber fitting in sight, imploring silly political factions to fight fight always fight for what's right, which is the care of a loved one. there are factions and then there are facts. politics divide and are an illusion. how can an illusion hurt us? nothing matters but a quiet holiday meal with the family. there are factions and then there are fractures. little did we know back then how autism would help us and hurt us. we were able to communicate with autistics finally with tech and saw their intelligence and strength of character, how they saw things in their tower, it prepared us for life now where everyone is a loner hooked up to tech and seeing the world from their tower, not able to communicate with others, all of us locked in our own worlds.

Xat: the government showed the globe we humans were all a little bit autistic, all a little bit crazy, all a little bit mentally ill. savants fascinate me, and the prospect of alien savants...

Ind: Oh God, it's Mom. Mom Is God. that's how i regarded my mother, she was my everything. i was unable to form a separate female relationship that could ever compete.

Xat: how's the weather?

Ind: weather doesn't exist. anymore. controlled. no more hurricanes. nuclear bombs.

Xat: scratch that, how do you like the five new superinstagram filters? my favorite is supercrema.

Ind: i went on there once, liked a picture of a beautiful woman with big breasts who was holding up a phone case in the shape of the Batman symbol, pointy wings and all. i commented how this was the greatest phone case of all time, to which a fellow commenter rejoindered with "until you put it in your pocket." all i could mutter was "touche", i hadn't thought of that, i wasn't clever enough. when you're not the cleverest, when you don't come up with the best comment, your penis shrinks two sizes too small, you feel worthless, not worthy of love, and you turn off superinstagram. i tried again with this woman, i DM'd her and she replied, "i know you're brilliant, but guys and girls can't be just friends, and i already have a boyfriend."

Xat: the crema kinda makes the picture white in a good way.

Ind: white is never good. white denotes a seeing-through, a sham, a ghost, the world was so white for so long, now it is white because all the tech shines white with the sun, it's the gentry, oppression, monotone, one way, everything, every color, the tower, cum. and this is coming from someone who's white, or used to be.

Xat: we are all cyber now. post-racial. the only way to achieve post-racial was to make us post-human.

Ind: i am post post post. my feelings come from another place, another time, another space that is not here. i was born in the wrong era, isn't that also in the pamphlet? i can put this in a post but no one will read it. i can do something drastic but it will be covered up before i do it. i can drape the flag of my cause in the window of my ballleaper but it will be misinterpreted by the hovermedia. did you hear about the recent terrorist attack?

Xat: i have a couple more hours before my cyberbrain resets on that. horrible. shame.

Ind: his ballleaper was emblazoned with the letters CL, for Current Leader. some statement was trying to be made pro or against. it was graffitied wonkily, the letters were singed after the blast and many saw them as GB. seconds after the attack, the trending hashtag on supertwitter was #gumball

Xat: gumball? why?

Ind: why not. it didn't make any sense, much like the terrorist attack. celebrities starting sending gumballs to strangers in the mail, telling them they were in unison with them, we are all One, and that we needed to do better, humanity! Grand Britain was aghast that the terrorist would attack in their name and vowed to clean up the streets with higher brain chips. the creators of the cartoon Gumball made a pro-humanity, anti-terrorist short that went well with the kids.

Xat: love that show. i'm a kid myself, don't know if i can have kids.

Ind: it all gets forgotten, whether willingly or with the reboot. nothing matters, nothing lasts, statements crash down when the next pop star talks about gumballs. this is the only way i can be a global citizen, the big world is made small with technology, it makes you want to learn about every single beautiful person in the world, everyone, don't miss a one, but you end up learning through clever comments and the touch of a screen, not a chest. the pump of a motor, not a heart. a wire not a vein. the world becomes bigger than before. i was so used to seeing humans paraded doing their thing on screen i became comfortable in that space alone. after awhile i didn't like being touched by my mom on the head or face or hair. i have wild hair. i loved seeing Monty Python on screen, but i could never meet Monty Python in real life, that's not on my screen, they're talking to me in open air, this is real, real life, this is foreign, i can't handle it, get back to the small rectangle and the coconut-clapping.

Xat: don't do it. live. live. live. money isn't everything. more money, more problems. different problems, same outcome. yes it's hopeless, i'm reading off the card now, no more pamphlets, i'm starting to realize this, but you live to feel the hopelessness one more day. see, it's not the hopeless part, it's the alive-to-feel-it part.

Ind: world citizen, joining the world by leaving the world, rejecting that which cannot be rejected, a humanity latent in the cold robots we have all become, acting coldly by our cyber parts, in a cold world, needing another programmer, a foreign one to match the foreign of real life, one alien to us, to light the light, a different pilot. only through escape. but there is no escape. is there? we all return to the one reality, all return to what was there all along, what was there before the beginning, and we go "oh yeah, forgot." perhaps that is the thing, we need this painful separation to make the joining again more exhilarating, to make the "oh yeah, i forgot" more acute and shattering, the celestial backbone, the myth of individuality. coming. cumming together. white streak of light, beautiful white, the seed that is planted, the comet we all rode upon to start things. see? i am clever after all. OH WOW, OH WOW

Xat: OH WOW

Ind: did you have fun? are you glad you did this?

Xat: noyes yesno

Ind: you learned a lot today. you were helped. that is good. i am sorry about that, it means you can't take the easy way out, you know too much, they know where you live, you can't escape. can't escape. can't escape. can't escape.

Xat felt a deep urge at that moment to take it upon himself to cut through this bullshit conversation before it got too rambly and get to the heart of the matter.

Xat: i am your friend. i mean, i like you, in that way. for what it's worth, i feel ya, we communicated for the better, i understand, connection, point/counterpoint, melting together rather than screaming our heads off on tv. i know.

Ind: i wish you hadn't said that. i won't talk to you again, talk to anyone again. i am glad you were helped. i am the next hot misinterpreted number, wanting so desperately to be the right letter. whatever i do, you won't hear about it. monologue to dialogue to monologue, you will never hear from me again.

TO BE CONTINUED...

TMIT: BURL IVES=BUR LIVES. SEE? ILLUMINATI.

1. catharsis: what behavior/activity do you do to achieve catharsis? enema

2. self-affirmation was made popular by that golden SNL character Stuart Smalley (Senator Al Franken): "i'm good enough, i'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." how do you self-affirm? y'know, it's a comedy bit, but many people chant Stuart's words daily seriously to help them through their day, it's their yoga. for me, it's Stefon, i use whatever Stefon says in his skits as both comedy and methods to live. when Stefon talks about what the latest hot new club is, i go to that location but the club is never there. it's a shame cos i wanted to watch that tv channel in the hotel that's about the hotel. i tried to high-five a child of divorce, dude asked if this was for a prank show or something, i said no, dude took back his down-low high-five and said "too slow."

3. "i knew it all along". what did you know all along? that it was long all along, i just needed to think of you to get it rolled out, thick, hard, hardened, and springy to the touch, get it boingy boingy boing boing boing.

4. daydreaming: what did you last daydream about? i had this dream during the day, i was on a boat going down a stream merrily with not a lot of force. i turned my head to see a fox turn his head and tell me, "chaos reigns." i asked the fox if it's really true that if you die in a dream you die in real life. "no," the fox saged, "but if you die in real life, you live in a dream..."

5. we all have fears. what fear (real or improbable) have you taken steps against to protect yourself? i have a fear of fear. thus, i'm afraid of every single human phobia that exists, and even some fox ones. my most prevalent one is a fear of ketchup. i went on Maury the day that doctor guy was on, y'know the guy who claims he can cure phobias in one minute? he has that unique technique? it was my turn, i went up on stage, and the doctor slapped my mouth and berated me, calling me fucking stupid for having a fear of ketchup. that video now has more youtube views than Justin Bieber's "Baby."

6. relationship-churning: are you in a constant state of an on-again/off-again relationship? why do you think you continue to be in such a topsy-turvy roller-coaster relationship? no. i'm in an on-again/on-again relationship with the fox. see, the fox nodded just now. when i try to tell the fox we might need a break, i need some space to assess and stuff, no, no, see, the fox right now is shaking his head no at me.

bonus: self-monitoring is the ability to both observe (measure) and evaluate one's behavior. it is an important component in human behavior that aids one to measure their behavioral outcomes against a set of standards. what sort of self-monitoring do you do on a regular basis? i had no idea this existed, much less that it was a human thing. i mean where i am right now currently, i'm able to do whatever the hell i want with no consequences whatsoever. if i want to scratch my balls, i do it. if i want to lick my balls, i do it. if i want to play fetch with my balls, i do it. i get on all fours to survey the land better, the marshes by the streambank. what does the fox say? the fox is nodding his head yes at me...

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

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I SERIOUSLY, NOT SRSLY, NEED A VACATION

...but it's still a year away. a whole year. do you know how many things can happen in a year? what if the buzz has worn off by then? that won't happen. all you internet bloggers, do me a solid: if you attend an early screening, don't post that it sucks and was a huge disappointment until after the first weekend. after all, don't you want to see the numbers that first weekend? see how much the record is broken? a year is more than enough time to refashion my lightsaber with a crossguard and get medieval on all the freaking busywork that swamped my poor weak Dark-Side-susceptible soul into a Sarlacc Pit this year. this is a year of reflection on why this is the only thing worth living for. next year, i will take in the film and leave the theater with that empty feeling you get after a big meal. what is that horrible feeling? it's that moment humans dread, the what am i going to do immediately next? jedis don't have that problem, their path is always clear. in the meantime,

THIS WILL HAVE TO DO, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK. HAPPY WEEKEND.

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SAVANT WANT: GREAT WHITE HOPE

Xat is standing beside a candy dispenser. though it's not required, the glass is still on it so everyone can see the inner machinations like in olden times. very retro, very very retro. Xat even knocks on the glass when the candy starts to slide off but is stuck on the ring. that always seemed to work in the past. learn from your ancients.

Xat: damn thing stole my mack! some things never change.

a kid conveniently enters the scene to add warmth to the lab manager getting colder and colder by the day.

Xat: see that, kid? work your whole life to earn enough for a candybar, and the government takes your hard-earned paycheck. you can't win. not in the end. they getcha. eventually they getcha. best to learn that now before your moldable mind gets hardened with the wetness of ecstasy.

the kid starts to cry, dribbling his tears onto his paper mack. Xat breathes a sigh of relief.

Xat: good sign, all is not lost. i'll punch this thing more on my lunch break, i'm sure by then someone will have made me lazily angry. i promise to get you your candybar.

Xat internally scans the itinerary for the day with his cyber eyes. he was a beautiful baby, one of the first to be born naturally with the cyber eyes already fitted. the government took great pride in this and paraded Xat around like the fucking Gerber baby. his poor parents couldn't refuse, they were poor. authority quickly equalled force to Xat's young mind and has engendered ever since.

Xat (speaking to himself): and now i have the money, prestige, and force of my own to take down my precious government. and most importantly, i have their next Gerber baby.

Ferm: hello? HELLO!!! Earth to Xat!

Xat: oh, i guess i wasn't speaking to myself.

Ferm: you were speaking to yourself, it's just i was here so i heard you speaking to me. we've prepped Tob for today's tests: soothing music, chamomile tea, cheese. he's in the greenhouse.

Xat: progress?

Ferm: our computers are running a simulation on all possible combinations of six different-colored buttons. still haven't come up with the right one. could take all year. or it could happen tomorrow. time is fast or slow but it marches on either way. mind you ours aren't the government computers.

Xat: they're cheaper but that doesn't mean they're worse. had to cut costs somewhere or i would have had to fire my entire staff. i'm willing to do a filler recap episode if it means having another season.

Ferm: and you must maintain your extravagant lifestyle. i don't mind, you spill some of that over into my mouth. quickie tonight? i enjoy being with you rather than having the exercise bot stretch my legs. i swear that bot's jealous of me, she intentionally hits my kneecap.

Xat: it was awesome enough when they fitted machines with human emotions but even awesomer when they gave them sexes.

Ferm: and sex.

a ballleaper crashes into a nearby government building, killing everyone on board and in the building. the fire bots quickly put out the flames but the smoke remains.

Xat: my schedule's pretty open, nohting important going on. how about a longie?

Ferm smiles, pushes her finger on Xat's forehead and walks away.

Xat: yes, enlightened as always. enlightenment always. my third eye is not present yet, not like our friend's.

Xat enters the facility room to the soundrops of

THIS, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

raining down on Tob's head. Tob would put his hands over his ears if he could find them.

Tob: make it stop! change the soundcloud!

Xat: why?

Tob: i appreciate the light mist the atmosphere in here maintains for me, but the music is way off! soothing my alien ass.

Xat: it has a beat.

Tob: it sounds too futuristic. i hate the future. i prefer the classics, i learn more from them, learn where we all came from.

Xat: you hate your future. i hear ya, you want something else to hear. easily solved. i'll pipe some Corgan into the ear if you promise to do something for me.

Tob: a preemptive fuck you to start things off, sir, i've heard about you. you're sadistic the other way. no thank you. i don't know which moneyed boredom is worse, you or the gubmint.

Xat: it's true where's basically doing the same things to do, uh, through you.

Tob: that's not a better correction.

Xat: truth is, i just happen to have more money than the government so i won and won you. it's a golden pissing contest. for the first time in Earth history one person has more money than the government.

Tob: scary.

Xat: necessary. there has to be some counter, some otherness to the government's benevolent rule. thank god for independent thinkers, thinkers independently wealthy who filled my dad's coffers and built me as the ultimate weapon against. i love that word "independent."

Tob: when i supergoogle that word there's a list of only one entry: O'Reilly. i clicked but then i deleted the horror.

Xat: love that word "against." it must be an adversarial competition, not a decaying monolith, otherwise where's the identity, you're only real against the backdrop of your enemy's faulty assumptions about you.

Tob: for now you're more my opponent than my enemy, until you start torturing me.

Xat: i think of it as an enhanced way to get to the truth faster, and i paid to have my thoughts worth more. let's get this over with, i have a hot date.

Tob: you've read my mind, in the colloquial sense, not the actual sci-fi-reality sense.

Xat sticks a hard black stick with an exposed face of silver cyberchips into the top side of Tob's wet white square which is more and more stretched to a rectangle. Xat touches all around Tob's shape, tracing Tob's outline with his fingers, pointing his points with his points.

Xat: don't take this the wrong way, but my friend, you are one exquisite blockhead.

Tob: not your friend, but i am the savant without the idiot. i've lived too long.

Xat: you've seen things. you know things. that's what we're counting on. i never noticed your face before now that i'm upclose. only saw you on the screens. i love that long stringy graying hair you have, touching it you'd think it was strangely human, the hair of a strange human, very rock-star sage, very wizened wise hippie finally feeling the effects of all that pot.

Tob: again i say there are worse of your human tropes to emulate than hippie. i'm proud of that.

Xat: and do you have a third eye on your forehead? am i that blind to what's happening around me?

Tob: could be. either it's influenza or affluenza. either way, it's hard to not only care about yourself when you live only in your one human body. my third comes and goes, it grows when it wants to, when i start seeing things differently.

Xat: may it always stay open. stay open.

Xat sticks another stick into Tob's mouth.

Tob (mumbling): this one hurts.

Xat: it hurts you more than it hurts me. this is for progress, we all must bear the brunt, we all must share the pain and sacrifice. unlike my colleague Ferm's soft motherly methods, this won't be a benign computer simulation hooked up to wires. now that the implants are firmly into you, i can connect with my cyber brain directly into your mainframe and see which patterns of your buttons are more likely than not to find something. it's not a naked this one didn't work, try the next number, i'm processing large groups of numbers at a time.

Tob: yeah, and when that group is not producing results, i get a shock in my mouth.

Xat: it's a vibrant way to let us both know that's not the path we should be on, to quickly veer to this path of color combos, all in the name of efficiency.

Tob: an electric way. waste not, want not. this is such a waste. you humans wasted so much irrecoverable potential. i do not want this.

Xat: a classic. come on, buddy, you can do this. are you sensing anything?

Tob: oh, aw, AHHHHHHHHH, THIS FUCKING PAIN PAINS MY HURT!!! i wish my Spidey sense was real so i could end this.

Xat: you can't end this, only i can. where is the ore? where is the ore?

Tob: somewhere out there in the galaxy. processing. i have something, i think, in the Unknown Galaxy, a star system with three rocks, one of them is yielding results even after three rounds of false-positive tests.

Xat: good, good, what is it?

Tob: kdot.

Xat laughs internally but only outwardly shows his tired smile to the misting greenhouse room. he makes a call completely inside his cyber brain without having to move a digit or a muscle.

Xat: this is gonna take awhile, have to gather certain people who are on vacation golfing on the moon and whatnot, coordinate schedules, it's a pain, you know how it is.

Tob: no i do not. i know pain. what are these hellish sticks in me called?

Xat: listen, i'm tired of this bullshit. it's time for all of us to work. we have to protect our home and all this glorious technology. time to stand up and not just coast. this is a glorious time to be alive, the future is now, and we all will have a future as long as we see what's in front of us.

Tob: no idea what you're babbling on about. please regale me with a work story, anything to distract me from being stuck immovably in this all-encompassing cast of torturous terror.

Xat: i'll take the newayz sticks slightly out of you for the moment, not all the way out but some so your mind is clear for my story. this experience made me who i am today.

Tob: then it wasn't a good thing. all experiences shape an individual, good ones, bad ones, big ones, little ones, especially the ones which don't happen.

Xat: no, it wasn't good, it wasn't good for him. i was one of the only humans left who still manned a suicide-prevention hotline...

TO BE CONTINUED...

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TMIT: I TRAVEL WITH MY HEAD

see this Walt Disney World pic right above here? i got it from Fox News. as you can see, Goofy's thinkin' bout it...

1. your favorite travel companion is: *drumroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll* you

2. i pass time on a plane by: masticating.

3. my favorite part of my travel routine is: masticating with my fellow passengers. we compare notes mid-flight. we gather round at the Circle J. Circle K, excuse me, they are the food-and-drink sponsor of this particular carrier. surprisingly good airplane food. lots of nuts eaten.

4. are you or your travel companion the primary planner for the trip itinerary? and during the days of the trip/holiday? we're an equal household so i let her plan the trip beforehand and then i micromanage each day of her plan. that works out fine. except one time she beautifully planned out our entire week for Bangkok and i thought she said Band Camp...

5. in 2014, how many times did you travel for leisure? for business? i'm in the business of leisure, so i combine the two, it's the same thing for me. i'm still working on that novel so i don't have time to travel. i travel in my imagination but i consider that a business expense cos it's for the book.

6. in 2014, how many times did you travel more than 100 miles from home? out of your county/state/region but remained in your country? i live on an island not associated with any country. no man is an island so i started walking to find another soul. i would walk 500 miles...i would if i could but there's water everywhere...

7. in 2014, did you ever say fuck it and leave the country? where did you go? my lawyer says i can't talk about that.

8. do you use a travel agent? why or why not? no, but a travel agent used me. for my body. right there in the middle of the mall. we rolled around past her kiosk and ended up in the food court. those white floors are deceptively dirty. shared a Sbarro. Panda Express mascot guy kept staring at us. i think he was staring at us, it's hard to tell when he's wearing that big panda head. had to cool off in the penny fountain.

9. what's your perfect holiday season? gettin' the fuck out and traveling or staying home with friends and family? the Simpsons just taught us that your family may be hard but it's harder being without a family during the holidays. don't listen to "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas," studies show that's the number one song people have in the background during the holiday season when they...nevermind...go ahead, listen to the song, it's a classic. merry festivus everyone.

bonus: which all-expenses-paid travel destination listed below works best with your interests and why?

HERE, HERE, or HERE

those that know me know Walt Disney is my hero, it's carried over from childhood, he made me a magical child and that feeling will never leave me. if i were a betting man, i'd say............the second one, the name is exotic and i love grotto spas. love anything grotto really. went to the Playboy Grotto with Sad Keanu as you can see up top. that pic proves it happened. long story short, he was still Sad even after that. but on the car ride back, he started to perk up again. he claims it was the coffee but i know better, it was when i started singing that Frozen song. see? Disney is still with us, frozen somewhere.

CLICK HERE FOR TMI TUESDAY

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BOYS AND THEIR TOYS

yes, you are the focus of an intervention. but remember, the ones doing the intervening are just as scared as you are right now.

CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK. HAPPY WEEKEND.

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SAVANT WANT

the future is one of those things. when you witness a vision of the future onscreen in the present, you gawk and awe and imagine yourself there, imagine you are anywhere else, because where you are is horrible, things are the worst, they've never been this bad, and technology just highlights the deep problems more clearly. there is no solution, that's what the leaders don't realize, or rather they do realize this. there is a solution: escape. now when you are in that future, or rather when you are in a future, it's not quite like the movies. if only life could be like the movies. when you are in the future, say 1000 or so years from the time you saw that sci-fi epic for the first time in your one hometown dungy dark filmhouse on a cracked screen at noon on the day when there is no sunlight, the awe isn't there. it's just your normal present. the flickering of the bad film and the flickering of your imagination have given way to rote. that is to say bad film quality, not bad film. humans are capable of many things, but their most damning is the ability to forget the wondrous, to categorize miracles, the rush to make everything in the universe known and criticized. the four-leaf clover goes from the open fields to a a lab beaker to a studio for all to enjoy, digitally, on the internet. humans are tiring like that. there is a need in this time of the future, 1000 years hence, for more than human. not superhuman, we tried that once and it was all too human. we humans are all dried up, we need an alien perspective, a wet alien perspective, the perspective from a wet alien.

Ferm (glistening sparkles coming off her cyber eyes): that's it, that's it, gentle as a baby engineer's bottom, lower the winch onto the platform.

the nameless workers with dark eyes, which is to say they didn't have enough mack for cyber eyes so that area was left dark, manipulated the invisible white lasers, or rather pushed the necessary buttons to have the computer gently lay the boxed white specimen down on the pod. the thing was boxed but for a moment, the invisible forcefield became visible and freed it, and it could move around again. it squirmed and tossled and protruded its T-rex arms and protruded them back and generally went back into its square shape. it was soaking wet from being dunked in water tests and was shivering.

Ferm: Tob, it's me, Ferm. all requisite language barriers are broken, the translators are in place overhead, all the sci-fi junk is taken care of by the usual computers as usual, we can really talk now. you won't be hurt. i know you've heard that before. the CL is a bastard, i didn't vote for him not that that matters, they poked and proded you because that's what they see in ancient bad sci-fi, they wanted to make sure you weren't a bomb. i live in the real world, this world of sci-fi, i bleed like you, i think. i'm a woman of science, i am all science, reason, and rationale, not a hint of messy human emotion. i want to study you in another way, as equals, you tell me about you and i'll tell you about me, me and my boring life. i'm here to help. i care about keeping you alive and well.

Tob's real shape was unknown, even to him. all Tob had known since he last regained consciousness was life in a cage, having eyes on him constantly, dirty filthy human eyes. the bad scientists, the ones who worked for the CL, didn't regard him as human. he wasn't human, but he wasn't an animal. they lab-tested him to death, figuring out his breaking point, carrying him to the edge of rage and anger and explosiveness and then dialing it back just enough so he would be bendy again. it's no wonder Tob assumed this square shape, it was some sort of alien fetal position. he didn't trust anyone, he didn't trust the humans who had fished him from space, he didn't trust the government but that was a given, he didn't want to do anything for his captors, he wanted to go home, but he didn't know where home was.

Tob: let me stop you right there. i don't care about your mission. i want to be returned to my kind. please tell me i have a home planet. please tell me i'm not another statistic, not another cliche, not another one of those who is the last of his kind. i want to settle down with a nice female of my kind, get off the internet, delete all blogs, stop lifecasting my usless life, and live in peace and quiet.

Ferm: i know it doesn't feel like it, but you are lucky. you've been through it and survived. it's easy street from now on. yes, the government wanted to keep you under permanent lock and key until you died serving them for their nefarious money-making schemes. we here at this lab also believe you are the key to our survival, but we recognize your worth, we praise it, we worship you as a god because that's what you are, our savior.

Tob: oh god, i'd barf if i was biologically able to, that's even worse! see to the right of my face, where my face melts into the block? there's a panel of six buttons there: red, green, yellow, turquoise, black, and white. go ahead and push any one of those, or push three at a time, combo them, do the Konami code on them, see if anything happens. i've forgotten what they do, obviously, thanks to your government's amnesia sticks.

Ferm: you're strong, you are here and able to remember about your amnesia so they didn't get all of you. your soul is intact and the soul is all. thanks to our generous benefactor, or rather his son, we were able to buy your freedom. you are worth a pretty penny but what is money really if the planet is doomed. we bought you from your federal shackles and now you are in our care. Tob, you are a very special...thing...you have the singular ability to locate rich mineral resources all around outer space. our planet has dried up from its arrogance and denial, we need these resources to mend the gaping ozone layer and fill our rivers back. time is not on our side, we wasted our precious years glorifying ourselves and winning elections, there is no future in this future, the future is now. without you, our blue ball will explode.

Tob: not my problem. i'd shed a tear if i could. humanity is getting what it deserves. can't you all just zoomjet off the surface and seek another homeworld?

Ferm: oh you have been asleep, huh. we tried, we tried colonizing on the moon but that place is forever owned by oil barons who snap continuous instagram pics of themselves in space suits nailing holes-in-one on their lunar golf courses. the entire surface of the moon isn't made of cheese, i wish it were, it's now 153 contiguous golf courses. we tried Mars, but after all this time, Mars still needs another 1000 years before the gas process we laid on it by redirecting comets makes the air breathable and the water drinkable. we explored and explored, two solar systems over, but our hearts have been broken every time: there wasn't another race except us silly humans.

Tob: space violins. what about the Hgilthasians?

Ferm: yes but they're more pets, though they did lead us to you. they sniffed out a certain Dog star cluster where you were hiding, sleeping. they have incredible noses but only in a very tiny concentrated area, they can't infinite-scan the way you can. you can locate a small piece of ore 1000 light years away.

Tob: 1000 is the standard. i wish my amnesia came back. i don't want these powers, i want to be normal.

Ferm: you are normal my dear, normal to you, we are the freaks, unfortunately the freaks outnumber. don't think of yourself as special, think of yourself as the one charged with saving the world.

Tob: your world, not mine. when do we get started? let's get this over with.

Ferm: it will take some more time than a second. the answer must lie in one of these buttons, right? everything is insta-click these days, more so than before, the greatest answers are the simplest ones. it's gotta be as easy as pushing your buttons, right?

Tob: don't count on it. the buttons are there, but what is the correct combination? the brilliantly sadistic gubmint docs couldn't figure it out, so why will you? speaking of cheese and the moon and the government and everything, where's my gubmint cheez?

Ferm: worry not, you'll be fed and bathed and upkept. what do you eat? don't tell me, i don't want the answer to be human flesh. yes, one of the drawbacks of the food machines: pills for every occasion, unlimited pills, but because the government doesn't have to anymore bear the burden of feeding its ungrateful citizens, all of that gold is hoarded by the central office, where the CL sleeps. technology wins again.

Tob: the biggest loss was the art of cooking, lost to a one-size-fits-all plastic cup of mechanized pills for each growing boy and girl each day, no savoring a bite of chicken in your mouth, letting your saliva mix with the chicken juices, feeling the drink of a too-cold cola enlarging your adam's apple and making your long breath short as it passes down your gullet, crystalizing your stomach with its wintery wind.

Ferm: no adam's apple for me, small one, eve's apple. at this point i envy the kids, they get more pills than we adults who actually don't need to swallow pills anymore, it's all done through wifi by the government computers, regulated during our sleeps.

Tob: when i get out of here, i have one demand for my spaceship home. no, not green M&Ms, i want a personal chef to prepare all my meals. get me Ramsay's descendant on speed dial.

Ferm: become what you want, an ancient saying i still hold in my memory banks. you should just go to school to become a chef. i'd eat at your restaurant. guys, let's move him to the greenhouse, it's more serene and tranquil over there, more green, you'll at least have lush scenery to look at as we perform on you. let the tests commence.

Tob: yes, by all means, come on boys, lift me to the promised land. i don't remember being a treehugger, but i suppose there are worse relics from your planet that could use some reviving. let the button-mashing begin!

by the lab a ballleaper whizzes by, manufactured by LLL LLC. it wasn't that special, Xat's ballleaper was among many in the sky in celebration of the CL's birthday. sky traffic is the big problem/campaign issue these days. a ballleaper is run by a ball in the engine that is modeled after the ball that Tyson offered as the size of the ball of everything at the moment before the Big Bang. Xat is with an unknown female companion as usual and they are joyriding like tardy schoolchildren down any lane they can find, which aren't many since the sky is congested. the sky is filled with a monotone gold, all the ballleapers look exactly the same, they are all manufactured by the same company after all. Xat's looks exactly like them, too, except for what's on the inside. look under the hood and you see that there's an extra component to Xat's ball, Xat's ball is bigger.

girl: you are crazy today. i like crazy.

Xat: don't sip my wick in crazy. it's all the xtra juice for the empty ceremony. it comes but once a year so everyone gets in their ballleapers and riles up. sky accidents increase tenfold but no tickets are written cos it's the cops who are in most of the accidents. everyone smiles and exchanges insurance information. nothing can bring us down. it's the most wonderful time of the year.

girl: turn up the ear, i can't see anything.

Xat: i'd rather keep it manual, i feel this DJ speaks to me.

the DJ (over the radio): boys and girls out there, this one's for you. children, lucky children, you are our future, so you deserve the best. only the finest music for you, educate your litle minds so you can lead us to the stars. i'm a hack, a has-been, the sky is cluttered with the old and frail, we are done, you young must pick up the electric guitar and make new music, fill outer space with new chords, new melodies, new combinations of notes never heard before, we need new perspectives. ha ha, talk about a time capsule, i dug this one out just in time for Christmas. we must always celebrate our space heritage, kids, never forget the sci-fi lineage we come from: the names, the giants, the titans, the USSs, the sabers, the lores, we can still achieve our dreams, film fantasies lit by stars, but only you can achieve your dreams now, kids. never forget the classics, kids. don't do drugs unless it's the good stuff, the stuff that propels you forward, makes you dream and sing and drum and and bass and lyric,

NEVER FORGET, CLICK HERE, RIGHT HERE AT THIS LINK

girl: you want to crash, huh?

Xat: i'm a wild man, baby.

Xat's ballleaper manages to loop-de-loop and swerve and trade paint with all the rest of the ballleapers in the sky while still managing to stay in its lane. there's a digitized hush as the CL's Christmas message comes on the screens. Xat's ballleaper shoots lasers at the screens, cracking them.

girl (nervous laugh): dude, what are you doing? i didn't know i was seeing an anarchist.

Xat: celebrating, just celebrating, i can afford it, it's Christmas, hopeful time of year, i'm hopeful, he's hopeful, i voted for the guy, we're all hopeful for more years. see?

Xat points to other ballleapers letting their lasers point upward creating fireworks which blanket the silicon valley with bright reds and yellows and turquoises and blacks.

CL (with bug eyes): it's okay, folks, i'm here. hang onto my every word or hang. i feel that pain, i would feel your pain there of that hanging. i feel your pain, i am one of you, i drink your beer, i am your father, son, brother who died in the war, grandpa who tells crazy stories cos he's senile and also the grandfather who tells lucid stories of the war. we don't want to go back, we have to go forward. forward, always forward. that's why we have kids. hehehe. generations will continue, no more of this gloom talk, it's Christmas, celebrate by buying only from small-business shops, they voted for me en bloc so i'm contractually obligated to say that. i am your leader, take anyone to me, i'm the modern modern modern modern modern-day Solomon, i have all the answers, i've read everything on the internet, i'm wise, cut the children in half, have less kids if you can't care for them, we're putting all of our resources into finding more resources. Christmas's gonna be tight this year but it's still Christmas. eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. egg nog doesn't exist anymore and i am sorry for that but that was the fault of the last administration. what do you have to be sad about? look at all this glorious technology at our feet! the technology gets better and better, making us smile wider and wider. technology makes life easier, what little life is left and genuine and not fitted with cyber parts. go out and spend some time at the greenhouse, the last greenhouse on Earth, breathe in the real unfiltered air, not too many inside the greenhouse at once or all the air will run out. remember, you are valuable, you are valuable to us, you are not a number, you are a number of different things: mother, daughter, sister, mysterious woman, receptacle, beaker, lab experiment which will change the world. remember, you voted for me, i am here to stay. remember, as you live this life, look not toward the end end end, or at the beginning because you can't live in the past, look at the middle of your life, look at your middle, that's where the sex organs are, at least in humans, don't know about aliens. don't look to the end, the end is coming, the end of our fait accompli, the end of the search, we will find the groceries we need to survive, as the team's coach says: if you want me to make the meal, find me the groceries. we will discover a new world to settle on, we have to settle on some rock, beggars can't be choosers. one team, one game, one gameday, one race, the human race, we're in this together, not to the end, not the end, end end end END TRANSMISSION

TO BE CONTINUED...

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