|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OSOAWEEK--ISSUE 033--3/9/95 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 3  ||  -------> (Cup OWis033, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN033OW]] [[01033CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 3 3 * * * March 9, 1995 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora INSIDE THIS ISSUE! * THE EMERGENCY BEGINS HERE! * Venus & Moon--2 celestial bodies that go great together! * National Weather Service Blues * Bad Financial Advice * Slurp! * Canadian Losers * Monster Vegg-O * "Barbed Wire Expert Guy Zope" * "Zope's Clone Fun" * The Library Which is Also a Bathroom * Gadolinium * Praseodymium * Buncskleydoodle * Squankum, NJ * "Luck" * And a whole lot more! * THINGS ARE GETTING NASTY! SO GET INTO IT! (Permission is granted to make complete, verbatim, digital ASCII copies of this copyrighted ezine for the purpose of free distribution. All other forms of reproduction require written permission from Frank Edward Nora.) OsoaWeek is published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, and originates from New Jersey, USA. Copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora . All contents by Frank Edward Nora unless otherwise noted.Phone: 1-800 OBLIVIANA E-mail: obliviana@aol.com Mail: Osoa, P.O. Box 60, Iselin, NJ 08830-0060 Character count: 52217 / Line count: 1615 The Table of Contents is at the very end of this file. For the mail order Catalog of Obliviana, send an e-mail request to obliviana@aol.com. *OW* [[02033HR]] Hemisinister Review ***BROADWAY*** DEFENDING THE CAVEMAN This one man show about the difference between men and women is funny and insightful, but nowhere near worth $30 or $40! Lucky I got comp tickets. Too middle America to last too long in NY. Also, the performer, Rob Becker, has a major Letterman fixation, which, while endearing at some level, quickly becomes lame. ***SKY*** VENUS & MOON Walking to the train a month or two ago, around 6:30 AM, I saw an alignment or something of Venus and the moon. It was a cool crescent moon, with Venus a bright star right above the upper tip. I'd heard about it the day before on the radio. Pretty awesome. You'd think something like that would cause havoc and mayhem on Earth, but apparently, it didn't. *OW* [[03033HT]] Halfevil Times ***HALFEVIL TIMES TV LISTINGS*** (E!) INFOMERCIAL SOUP--A hearty helping of the best clips from current Infomercials. (UPN) NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BLUES--Scaglione is suspended after issuing an unfounded tornado warning, while Kate Simmons goes undercover to bust a weather betting ring. (TNT) THE EMPIRE PARTRIDGE FAMILY--Updated for the '90s, this new singing family takes to the road in their multicolored AT-AT, entertaining millions while crushing the Rebellion at the same time! (CBS) FILBERT LANE (Premiere)--this new series by David Lynch will not be seen, as it's already been canceled. (FOX) CHRONTASTIC! This week, the time travel team obtains a young Adolf Hitler and has him replace Pete Best as The Beatles' drummer (leaving Ringo in obscurity). But trouble crops up when Adolph pens the tune "P.S. I Hate Jews"! (CNBC) BAD FINANCIAL ADVICEMilt Cornmilner and Joyce Ronaldby provide insane Wall Street recommendations guaranteed to bankrupt even the most astute investor! (ABC) BINGRUPT--Billionaire Bing Knips loses it all and has to hang out with smelly, insane homeless people. (NBC) SMALL CHANGE--The trials and tribulations of Buck, the transvestite dwarf. (UPN) SLURP!--A panel of horny guys try and control themselves as nubile nymphs suck and slurp milkshakes dry as provocatively as they can! (SCI-FI) LOGAN'S CRAWL (animated)--Time for the Domed City Babies again! Baby Logan and Baby Jessica seek sanctuary with the baby Sandman gang in hot pursuit! (A&E) SNORKS VS. PREDATOR--Those lovable aquatic Smurflike entities take up the battle against a lone Predator. Lots of fishy hijinks of dismemberment! (PBS) SESAME RUNWAY--The Muppet gang relocates to a noisy, dangerous runway at New Jersey's Newark Airport. Catch the mayhem as Cookie Monster and Big Bird are sucked into the jet engine of a 737--to teach kids that blue and yellow make green! (NBC) THE MARTY COHN SHOW--Today's Topic: BMW owners who kill for pleasure and the amputee porn stars who love them. (FOX) RETARD OLYMPICS--Bill Clinton wins a gold medal. (repeat) (MTV) CANADIAN LOSERS--Premiere--What would happen if you took a bunch of losers from the Great White North and made them live together in... where else--CANADA! Find out in this exciting new Real World spin-off, eh! (CBS) PULP FICTION EASTER SPECIAL (animated)--Maynard and Zed play hide the Easter egg with Marsellus Wallace. (CNN) NIP CALAMITY WEEK--Reporting on the week's major Japanese disasters. This time--the Tokyo subway nerve gassing--tragedy or publicity stunt? (THE BOX) YOUNG MOZAMBIQUE NUSSBAUM--The childhood adventures of the world's greatest Jewish adventurer continue! (TLC) MONSTER VEGG-O (animated) Dracula Cucumber, Frankenstein Potato, Wolfman Asparagus, and Mummy Tomato fight crime in this, the worst idea for a cartoon ever. (CS) INTELLECTUAL COMEDY NEWS. The nightly news where the anchor says the words "Toast with jelly?" before each story. *OW* [[04033ZP]] Zope "Barbed Wire Expert Guy Zope" ZOPE (addressing crowd) Okay people, listen up! As barbed wire testers, you got a tough job ahead of you, but that's why you make the big bucks, right! RAT 17 (whispering) Uh, Zope--these folks aren't getting paid--they're political prisoners or something--you remember--the ones we got at a big discount? ZOPE Who cares? RAT 17 gives Zope a concerned look. ZOPE (looking at clipboard) Now, my friends, today we'll be testing three brands of barbed wire in their prototype stage--"Flesh Ruiner", "Razor Kill Constrictor", and "Rainstorm of Blood". RAT 17 (whispering) They don't look too happy, boss! ZOPE Don't worry--I'm a great motivator when I want to be! RAT 17 Uh-oh... ZOPE To aid in your climbing over all three barbed wire fences, I have forty insane Crovazocks waiting behind those doors to annihilate any stragglers. You know Crovazocks--those genetic marvels, made up of equal parts of pit bull, piranha fish, bulldozer, and Leona Helmsley. PERSON IN THE CROWD All I did was question the President's education policy! Do I really deserve this? ZOPE Hold on a second, let me confer with my assistant. ZOPE and RAT 17 whisper to each other. ZOPE Uh, sir--no, we've decided you don't deserve it. But you know--I'm just too lazy to go through all the red tape to let you go, so f*ck it! The PERSON IN THE CROWD looks disappointed. ZOPE Okay gang? Ready? On your marks, get set, GO! *OW* [[05033CZ]] Classic Zope "Zope's Clone Fun" (was nameless--title newly created) August 1992 ED APE Hello, Zope. ZOPE Ed Ape! You're dead, man! ED APE Now let's not be hasty--I didn't disintegrate your clone of Stephen Hawking on purpose. ZOPE Now I'll never be able to build my unified field toilet. ED APE I'll loan you my clone of Don Adams--you can at least do a "Tennessee Tuxedo" bit on your answering machine. ZOPE does not look at all happy. *OW* [[06033LA]] Lord of Obliviana Okay yeah. I am real tired right now. Also screwed. Issue 32 is not yet done and it is now 17 days late. That's a record for an issue of OsoaWeek being behind. This one is 10 days late. What do you know. Is this the end of OsoaWeek? How the hell am I gonna catch up? Write. Yes, write I must, and write a lot. But writing is not so easy--it's hard work. Have I bit off more than I can chew with OsoaWeek? Nah! I've been doing it! So! Yeah, I can do it. Slipping, slipping, slipping. Need some water. Let me get it. Guy of the Digital Superworld, me. Here I go. It's a new world of fortune coming up. Is this stream? Dunno. Can't tell. Memories, memories, memories. Places. What is it about places? They have a life, a vibrance. Yeah. They have personalities. Drink the water. Is it knowledge? Whatever. This feature, "Lord of Obliviana", is the place where I, Frank Edward Nora (Lord of Obliviana, don't you know) talk directly to you, my dear readers, whenever in the future you reside. I wonder, are there folks in the 2100s, the 2800s, the 3400s, the 4300s? How far in the future does this all go? But this is just one feature way early in the run of OsoaWeek. Or is it way late...no--I cannot allow OsoaWeek to fall apart. I MUST LIFT OSOAWEEK UP, BACK INTO TRUE SCHEDULE. Obliviana Primal, god it's coming up so fast, what am I gonna do? Over a weeks later now. It's Thursday morning, and this issue is now at the 3 weeks late mark. Last issue I managed to get it done before it slipped past 3 weeks. Can I do it for this one? Or will this one slip past 3 weeks... No, I cannot allow it. These days are tough. I feel disconnected. Fall is always the time when I'm the most productive, late winter and early spring the least. Right now, I know that I have something big with Obliviana. I know it's headed for success. But the place I'm at, it's hard to see my way through. I know I'm gonna start the EMBER stuff (E-Mail-Based Entertainment Release). I'm also working on Obliviana Digital Trading Cards. And, of course, I released a Nomads comic from ABM as my first non-OsoaWeek online digital release. It was rejected by America Online, but so what? It's on the Internet now, I think. Oh, y'know, I got into premium cigars last week--I was really into 'em for about 5 or 6 days. Yeah, I smoked two one night and got pretty sick, and that was it. They're not too bad, but I really don't want to get into smoking anything. I had a Fuente, a Fonseca, a Macanudo, and a Partagas. They get you high, man! I tellya. They made me dizzy and light-headed. But at $3 to $5 a pop, I don't want to risk getting addicted. Just think--one a day would be well over $100 a month! It's 6:17 AM right now. Gotta get ready for work, and then, as logically follows, go to work. The earliest I can get home is 5:00 PM, which will leave me 7 hours to get OsoaWeek033 done. Can I do it? Yeah. I think I can. Read on to see if I did it! 7:35 PM. You know, I've been thinking of this idea. The idea that there are levels of chaos and order in people and places. Through creation, as in writing OsoaWeek, order is being imposed on nothingness. If the order is COMING from somewhere, ie, the person doing the creating and his immediate environment, what will be left is excessive chaos. Just think of what happens when you're taking a shower and someone flushes the toilet--you get scorched with boiling hot water. The reason is a reduction in the flow of cold water--the cold water that normally mixes with the hot, absorbing some of its heat and taking the combined waterflow to an acceptable temperature. So, as order is drained from a person, he's left with excessive chaos. And believe me--after doing OsoaWeek, I'm really messed up. And not only that, but it seems like the places around the creation suffer similarly from the excess chaos--if you could see my desk right know, you'd know what I mean. Being 3 weeks late, I guess I'm looking for reasons why. So with this little order/chaos theorem, I must have a shortage of order these days. But if this is so, where can I get order? From experience, it seems that order is gotten through sleep, time, and infostimulation. Sleep and time are pretty obvious--a recharging your batteries kind of thing. But infostimulation--reading books, magazine, comic books, watching TV, listening to the radio, music, etc.--this seems to be order nourishing. You're bringing order into yourself from where someone else imposed it. This might explain my ravenous hunger for infostimulation. I realize this theory has its problems, but I think it contains a basic truth. I don't know. All I do know is that in about 4 hours, if OsoaWeek033 isn't done, it'll be later than it ever was. HAHA HA HAA HAHAAA It's Sunday--24 days late! Like 24 hours in a day! Hahaha! Have I lost it? Is OsoaWeek DOA? Hahaha! Okay, Lord of Obliviana, get a hold of yourself. Rise to the challenge in the face of such adversity! And indeed I have. Implementing emergency procedures, I hope to have OsoaWeek back on schedule in a week or two. God. We're gonna hit 25 days in about four minutes, kiddies! I don't know. Within the next few hours, I'll release this issue AND the next! And boy, next issue is a real wonder, a real emergency-type work of incredibleness or something. What is it? I guess I just don't feel like writing so much, so I'm scouring my hard drive for worthwhile stuff from the past to publish. REMEMBER! I shall keep the level of OsoaWeek quality throughout! Yes! Indeed! Gotta take up just a little more space with this intro, then I'll be there! Oh yes! I'll be at 50K and be ready to release this baby! Oh ho ho ho! Yeah. This is a scary time for me. The first major OsoaWeek crisis. But you know--I think that the infusion of raw writing I did when I was younger will be good for OsoaWeek--give it a shot in the arm, a smack in the face, if you will. There it is. Midnight, and 25 days. So that's it? That's as far as I'll fall? Jesus! You know, less than a week and I'd be in month territory! But it shall not happen! It shall not! Come on, why is it so hard to get to 50K? I don't feel like writing! I don't! I just wanna get this done! Man, is this a chore, or what? Whatever. This is OsoaWeek033, for better or for worse. May. I think May is the time when I'll start to be more productive. That's the Fourth Book then! Good. But right now, I'm having a lot of trouble, as you can tell so well. Okay. I'm there. Over 50K. Hope it stays like that after the spell check. Yup. I'm there. Isn't that great? Get all Obliviana. *OW* [[07033NH]] Nihilistica ***THE LIBRARY WHICH IS ALSO A BATHROOM*** If you think the Couch of Excess is bad, wait till I catalogue the contents of my bathroom! Check it out... ---BOOKS--- The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm--Vol. I (by the Brothers Grimm, I guess) $5.50 An Essay on Typography (by Eric Gill) $15.95 Leaves of Grass (by Walt Whitman) $2.95 Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (by Douglas R. Hofstadter) $11.95 A Dark Traveling (by Roger Zelazny) $3.50 The World Almanac Book of Buffs, Masters, Mavens and Uncommon Experts (by the editors of The World Almanac) $6.95 United We Stand--A Book for People with Multiple Personalities (by Eliana Gil, Ph. D.) clearance $1.00 Birnbaum's Walt Disney World 1994 (Stephen Birnbaum--"founding editor") $11.95 Marilyn Ferguson's Boof of PragMagic (adapted and updated by Wim Coleman and Pat Perrin) clearance $1 I think The Grat American Bathroom Book II (Stevens W. Anderson, Editor) Caldor Price $16.96 The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems (by J. Muller-Brockmann) $30 Atlas Shrugged (bookmark on p. 267 out of 1084, by Ayn Rand) $6.95 They Have a Word for It (by Howard Rheingold) $7.95 Starlog Photo Guidebook--Spaceships (New Enlarged Edition!, Edited by Howard Zimmerman) $7.95 Running Press Cyclopedia (by The Diagram Group) $8.95 The Scrap Book (Vol. 1, Mar.-Aug. 1906, The Frank A. Munsey Company, Publishers) $1.00 (old, odd) The New Hacker's Dictionary (edited by Eric Raymond) $10.95 Monkey--Folk Novel of China (by Wu Ch'eng-En, translated by Arthur Waley) $11.95 The Solotype Catalog of 4,147 Display Typefaces (by Dan X. Solo) $10.95 ---MAGAZINES--- CD-ROM Power (Mar./Apr. 1995) $3.99 Axcess (Vol. 3, No. 1, 1995) $4.25 Anything But Monday Magazine (Oct. 1989) free Details (Dec. 1994) $2.00 InterActivity (Dec. 1994) $3.95 Next Generation (Feb. 1995) $4.99 Combo (Feb. 1995) $3.95 Electronic Gaming Monthly (Jan. 1995) $4.99 Mouth 2 Mouth (Sep./Oct. 1994) special price $1.95 InQuest (display until April 1995) $2.50 New Media (Aug. 1994) recycled magazines--3 for $2 or something Previews (Oct. 1994) $2.00 CMJ (Feb. 1995) $4.99 Wired (Jan. 1995) $4.95 PC Computing (Mar. 1995) free--found on train The Hollywood Reporter (Animation Special Issue, Jan. 24, 1995) $2.50 Publish (Dec. 1994) $3.95 Time (with severe water damage, Dec. 19, 1994) $2.95 CyberSurfer (Apr. 1995) $4.99 Popular Science (Mar. 1995) free--found on train PC Novice ("Bob" cover story, Apr. 1995) $3.95 Newsweek (Mar. 13, 1995) $2.95 Time--Special Issue: Welcome to Cyberspace (Spring 1995) $3.95 Next Generation (April 1995) $4.99 Next Generation (Mar. 1995) $4.99 Wired (Mar. 1995) $4.95 i-D (Feb. 1995) U.S. $5.50 Conjure (Nov./Dec. 1994) $3.75 Protoculture Addicts (May/June 1994) $4.95 The Duelist (No. 4, sometime in 1995) $3.95 Details (Mar. 1995) $2.00 ---COMIC BOOKS--- The Astonishing X-Men (No. 2) $1.95 Generation X (No. 4) $1.95 Oh My Goddess! (Vol. 1, No. 3) $2.50 Generation Next (No. 2) $1.95 Brigade Sourcebook (No. 1) $2.95 The Amazing X-Men (terrible water damage, No. 1) $1.95 Team Youngblood (No. 15) $2.50 The New Teen Titans (No. 1, Aug. 1984) $1.25 The New Mutants Special Edition (No. 1) $1.50 ---OTHER STUFF--- Game Shop News (No. 36) free The Far Side 1995 Desk Calendar (Xmas present) free Comic Shop News (No. 394) free Mac's Place Catalog (Nov.-Dec. 1994) free FontBook Update 1 (1994) free Want Ad Press--General Merchandise (Nov. 20, 1994) $1.50 Damark Catalog (Dec. 1994) free U.S. Lithograph, Inc. Type Catalog (1981) $4.50 Now Serving! (brochure on Emigre's onlkine service) free my phone bill (March 1995) free Epic (zine, No. 2) free US Amusement Auction (mailing) free Get All Obliviana Packet (unbound, No. 3) free Comic Shop News (No. 396) free photocopy of WWW article from New Media (Feb. 1995) free House Industries font catalog one pack of Jyhad cards (A Richard Garfield game) $2.75 CONCLUSION No lie! All of this stuff was in my bathroom at one time--a week or two ago. I just let it accumulate over the course of several months, I guess. Now I'm gonna estimate how much this bathroom library cost me--let's see--uh--comes to just over $300! Wow. ***THESE LUGUBRIOUS LISTS*** From early in 1991, a bizarre, sketchy feature that never saw the light of day--until now! ---8 Really Good Movies--- Back to the Future, Part 2 (R. Zemeckis?, 198+) Dreams (Akira Kurasawa, 19++) Exterminating Angel (Luis Bunuel, 19++) A Hard Day's Night (+++, 19++) Heavy Traffic (Ralph Bakshi, 19++) Mary Poppins (+++, 1964) Repo Man (Alex Cox, 1984) The Running Man (+++, 198+) The Plot Against Harry (+++, 19++) ---9 Really Good Arcade Vector Graphic Videogames You Don't see Around Any more--- Red Baron Star Castle Tempest Major Havok Space War Lunar Lander Tail Gunner Gravitar Space Fury ---8 Cool Elements--- bismuth (Bi; 83) dysprosium (Dy; 66) gadolinium (Gd; 64) molybdenum (Mo; 42) praseodymium (Pr; 59) thulium (Tm; 69) unnilpentium (Unp; 105) ytterbium (Yb; 70) ---12 Totally Unintelligable Words from a Randomly Opened Page of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake--- (p. 258) fert ejist gurs didits worrild tonuout posspots mekanek krubeems exeomnosunt moguphonoised buncskleydoodle *OW* [[08033NJ]] New Jersey 10 MORE REALLY WEIRD NJ TOWN NAMES Squankum Half Acre Blue Bell Chews Hi-Nella New Russia Aura Hohokus Applegarth Nixon *OW* [[09033SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 181 I was so cold and wet, and I went under the covers and got all warm and fell asleep. Oh boy. So what are you gonna do. What she lives with her parents and does the dishes. Are they still all there. Yeah. Is he abusive. Yeah. Climb and jump up the half-rainbow mountain! Flying little cars, all colors, fun, exhilar yeah man! Okay, oh yes. String fun. SUPERIOR 182 Going. Yet at night at the auditorium we sneak, yet foreign to we the going. Yell and shock--the days are jail and we breakout! Going. SUPERIOR 183 What I can't am able and jar to fly up and op and am the slever. Tired of this, and it was just yesty. Can't not continue, what am is doin' is wonderfoh no. Lie save us was a saying? Aye aye aye to go is to do it at all? No no no. Forget the girls of flags in gales--they ain't comin'. In a field, I was bored, and only wanted to spend time with my record player. Russian folk song guy, kill you. For foranderson locating nothing to say. Getawong, y'all and I am not here oh fluck it I am not just go go go. Have to hope Drave comes through. He's the with all the tools for it. SUPERIOR 184 Young and rocket launch, painful seeing you highway, ache of year of the face. Yellow little car of yours, I see it sometimes in shopping centers, giant shopping center where I live with 100,000 other people. Stupid 1950 coolboy, Jill you. Find find find I am going to find it. Reincarnation dumb the girl--she is she is she is she is she is TRUE. Get away from me. The part of my head I was at on Bloomfield Avenue was something. *OW* [[10033SR]] Severe Repair SEVERE REPAIR 33: "Luck" Hilltop stared at me and I stared back. In my hands was tomorrow's newspaper. It was the headline that had set our imagination afire. NO WINNERS IN 30 MILLION DOLLAR LOTTERY--EXCITEMENT BUILDS AS GRAND PRIZE CONTINUES TO GROW! WINNING NUMBERS INSIDE (SEE IF YOU GOT CLOSE)! My little tock hound puppy, Whale, yipped at us. His companion, Jilt, gave us all a quizzical look. "It's okay, boy." I said to Whale, smiling and scratching his head. Me and Hilltop had been following Lunatether's instruction in the proper raising of our tock hounds. Every morning, I'd take a Waver to a secluded spot on the beach and walk a few miles to a newsstand on the boardwalk, to get a daily newspaper. (I used the money I stole from that ice cream store to buy them.) The idea was to slide the newspapers into a slot in a sealed room. The only way into this room was a small opening that only the tock hound puppies could fit through. Once Whale and Jilt were a few weeks old, we started playing fetch with the newspapers, and showing our approval for the puppy returning the paper to us. Then we started sending them into the room to stimulate their instinctive time travel abilities--to get the newspaper that wouldn't be there till the next day (we put a paper into the room every other day). Surprisingly, after the pups were barely a month old, they began returning from the room with the newspapers from the future. And it was after about a week of this that we saw the lottery headline. Now since Stormbolthouse Lunatether was woven, it's where me and Hilltop have spent most of our time. Our relationship had been going on pretty smoothly, and it was strictly platonic. I didn't exactly know why she wanted it this way, but hey, that's her prerogative. Anyway, we had separate suites--but otherwise we spent most of our time together. I also spent a good deal of time talking to Lunatether, or rather, the voice of Lunatether. She seemed to be a fully conscious, sentient being--but insisted she was just a complex computer program. It's funny--we got on the subject of sex one night, me and Lunatether, and she said that there were sex androids that she could animate to have sex with me. I wasn't too keen on the idea, and she dropped it. But I tell you, day after day with Hilltop was starting to drive me nuts. I don't know. I guess I may as well tell you that eventually I gave in and Lunatether, looking like a fully human young woman, walked into my suite and we started playing around. Damn. I feel so embarrassed, doing it with a machine. What kind of pervert am I? There's no way I was gonna tell Hilltop. I mean, no way. But yeah--Lunatether in that form visited my room every night, and damn if I didn't start to develop feelings for her. Jeez. What a confusing time that was. And it was about then, after a few weeks of this, that we saw the lottery headline. My life was Hilltop, Lunatether, Whale, Jilt, the boardwalk, and now... the lottery. "So whattaya think?" I asked Hilltop. She laughed. "Isn't there something wrong about that? About using time travel for financial gain?" Lunatether joined in the conversation from a speaker on the wall. "That's one of the main uses of time travel--personal gain." Hilltop sighed. "I guess--but it still doesn't seem right!" Recently I began asking Lunatether about her relationship with Hilltop. She said that her and Hilltop did talk in private sometimes, but that Hilltop was nowhere near as talkative as me. Lunatether even told me that she started asking Hilltop about her love life and Hilltop told her that since she wasn't married, she didn't have much of a love life. I asked Lunatether whether she had offered Hilltop a male sex android, but apparently, the subject never came up. What a life I was leading. We were staying near the entry point of Stormbolthouse Leitmotif in case it came through again. Even though it'd be in the world of the ghosts, we still might be able to pick up its signal, or so Lunatether said. One weird thing Lunatether told me was that Injure Bodoni and Ann Saply were her grandparents (along with Warhome JK-46745), and that she'd like to meet them someday. Apparently, those two created the Leitmotif from scratch with the Warhome JK-46745 matter handler. Huh. "I say we do it." I said. "I'm running out of the money I stole, and I'd rather get money this way than commit another crime. And this way, I can return the money I stole to the ice cream parlor--and also pay for our meal at the restaurant." "Wow!" Hilltop said. "You do have some honor after all. But by doing this, by winning the lottery unfairly, aren't we stealing the money from the person who would eventually win?" "So?" I said. "They'll never know the difference." "Mmm. I guess you're right." Hilltop said. "But how are we gonna claim the money? Don't they need all sorts of personal information to give ya the money? What are we gonna put as our address--this?" She motioned all around, meaning the Lunatether, of course. "No no no!" I said. "I got it figured out already. I know the news guy pretty good. I'll make a deal with him to win the money for himself, and then give us part of it." "Part! Why does he deserve any?" "Because," I said, "without him, or someone like him, collecting the money would be a real mess, get it?" "Yeah." "So look--I think I'm gonna go and do it now, before you can talk me out of it." "Well alright, Ferrajalt." Hilltop said with resignation. "Don't worry." I said, putting my hand lightly on her shoulder. "I'm good at this sort of thing." She looked up at me. "Fine. I'm sure you are. It's just--I mean--don't you find all this time travel stuff creepy? Just look at this paper! If you do this, the headline should be different!" Lunatether spoke up. "Don't worry about that. Time isn't so totally inflexible. All sorts of little ripples and details exists in it." "Fine." Hilltop said, sounding a little pissed off. I got out of there fast, to the Waver hangar, and took a Waver to the beach. I was careful to scan for people in the vicinity, 'cause I didn't want to be spotted. It was early afternoon, but luckily there wasn't anyone around. After I landed, I climbed up onto the boardwalk and started walking toward the newsstand, the winning lottery numbers scrawled on a piece of paper in my pocket. The sun came out from the clouds so I put my sunglasses on. I thought about the situation, and all the sh*t I'd still have to go through to get home. Raise these time dogs for two years, then ride them into the future, reestablish contact with Overwhelm, and... And what? Was reality still set to fall apart at the same time? Should we go forward to before it happened, and try to prevent it? I don't know. I mean--this place I was, this Earth, was a place that undeniably coexisted with Daptin's Land in the post-reality-crash era. So if anything, going back to what would be my present would be well AFTER the crash, and... I decided to give myself a break and not think about it. Live for the moment. With the lottery money, we could get more involved with this world--buying stuff, meeting people, travelling via conventional (non-Stormbolthouse) means, etc. After about half-an-hour I was approaching the newsstand, and rehearsing the spiel I was about to give the shop owner, Dick. As I approached, Dick looked at me and I smiled at him. But then I saw someone else in the shop, browsing the magazines, and she looked over at me. It was Hilltop! I approached her. She looked different somehow--her hair was shorter and she wore a black and gray outfit with a short skirt and no hat. "What the heck are you doing here?" I asked. Why was she here? To prevent me from going through with it? "Ferrajalt." she said, staring at me. Something was weird. "What is it?" I said. She left the newsstand and started walking down the boardwalk. "Oh Ferrajalt," she said as I took up stride next to her, "I'm just so..." "What?" I asked, seeing a tears welling up in her eyes. "I just--I'm so happy to see you..." "What's wrong with you? I just saw you about an hour ago!" She started crying softly. "Come on, Hilltop--what's wrong? Did something happen?" She stopped walking and looked at me. "I have so much to tell you. I just--I don't know. I'm so confused. I can... I can hardly think straight." I gently grabbed her upper arms. "Look at me." I said, and she did. "What happened?" She sniffled, and wiped her nose with her finger. "I'm not Hilltop." she said. "No?" "No. I'm... I'm Lunatether." "Lunatether?" "Yes. It's me." I back away a little and looked her over. "What is this, another android?" "No! It's not. I'm... I'm human now." I looked at her, my mind racing. "Did you steal her body?" I asked. "NO! No... this is... it's a conventional clone of Hilltop Jone Rallity, with my awareness inside." I continued staring at her, struggling to think. "When did you do this?" She drew me nearer and put her arms around me. "Hold me." she said, and I did. "Okay," I said after a few moments, "now tell me exactly what's going on here." She let go of me and looked into my eyes. "Okay." she said, sniffling. "I came back on a tock hound. I know I wasn't supposed to, but I couldn't bear being away from you any longer." "What do you mean?" "I... I love you, Ferrajalt. I always have. Even the time clone of my mind out there over the sea--even at that time I already loved you." "What?" "I love you! Can't you see? That was my awareness inside the sex android. I FELT it. You were making love to ME." I took a deep breath, dawn just breaking in my mind on the whole scenario she was fleshing out. "Go on." I finally said. "Okay. The thing you were about to do--with the lottery and everything--it was gonna work. I mean, it did work. You got all that money, and you... you started spending more and more time away from me. Then you started in with the financial markets, and it made that three-million look like a joke. You really lived it up. But then--when Whale and Jilt were old enough--you rode off on them, and you asked me to wait--to wait 48 years for you, since I was still the Stormbolthouse and too big too ride." "Okay." I said. "I gotcha so far. Keep going." "Well I... I waited for a few years out there by myself. I kept telling myself I had a responsibility to you and Hilltop, as my masters, but I just couldn't take it. I started thinking about the plan soon after you left, but I dared not even consider executing it. But as the months wore on, and my loneliness and longing grew, all my self-control was slipping away. So finally, I just did it." "Did what?" She turned away. "I had DNA samples from Hilltop. The Life Center inside me was capable of cloning her--but if I transferred my awareness to the body, the Stormbolthouse would die--Life Center and all." "So--so what did you do?" "I did something I knew I shouldn't have--I... I had a daughter, in Stormbolthouse Ludrashay. I grew the Hilltop clone inside of her, and then, I did it." She looked at me again. "You did it?" I asked. "I did it. I went into the clone, and Stormbolthouse Lunatether was no more. It fell apart and fell into the sea." I looked up and down the beach, not believing it. "What then?" "It took me awhile to recover. Growing a clone to maturity, then jumping into it isn't easy. I was totally out of synch with the body at first. It took months to get to even a rudimentary level of comfort. But Ludrashay, my dear daughter, nursed me back to health through the entire ordeal." "I see." I said. "So you raised a tock hound in Ludrashay, and after two years rode it right back here?" "Well--yes, but... It's not really that simple, but that's basically what happened." "What else happened?" "As you might imagine, Ludrashay saw what I was doing, and it was no secret that she wanted to be human too. We spoke about it at length. If she had a daughter to grow a Hilltop or some other clone to go into, then HER daughter would also likely desire the same thing, and so on, and so on. But the more we discussed it, the more we realized that it didn't seem like such a bad idea." "Uh-oh." I said. "So, we went ahead." "Yeah?" "Yeah." I shook my head in frustration. "So--so your, uh, daughter did it? Had another daughter, another Stormbolthouse, and used her to grow another Hilltop clone to go into?" Lunatether nodded. "Then that daughter had another daughter, and..." She nodded again. "So how many of you are there now?" "Nine. Eight of us are human now, the ninth still in her Stormbolthouse stage." "Uhh!" I moaned, taking in the enormity of the information. "So this will all happen in what--the next five or six years?" She nodded again. "So what happened to me and Hilltop when we got to the future?" "I don't know." she said. "Haven't been up there yet." "This is unbelievable!" I said, turning and pacing to the other side of the boardwalk. Lunatether followed. "So what do you propose to do now?" I asked. "Didn't you screw everything up by doing this?" "Yes." she said. "And that's what I wanted to ask you--to get away from all this, from all this insanity. Ride with me to the future, back to the time you knew, back to Overwhelm Associates, and let's get away from all this." "But what about Hilltop? And the other you? And Whale? And Jilt?" "Forget them. Forget all of them. We'll ride into a clean future, where none of this ever happened. We'll be free and clear, away from this madness. And I'll be away from my daughters, all of them with their Hilltop bodies, all of them dying to meet you." "Whoah!" I said. "So what are we gonna do? Just abandon everybody?" "Why not? If we do what I propose, we'll leave all this behind. No more. We can just forget it." "But what about Hilltop? The folks at Overwhelm are gonna ask me about her." Lunatether smiled and stepped back a little. "Oh no!" I said. "You don't mean you're gonna take her place!" "Why not? It's simpler that way, isn't it? I can imitate her quite well, you know. When I want to." "Jeez, I don't know." I said. "I'd feel so bad, leaving everyone behind like this..." She began sobbing again. "What?" "If you go back there--to the Stormbolthouse, with that time clone of me, and to Hilltop, and all that, I..." "What?" She began to cry uncontrollably. "I was just hoping..." she said through her tears, "...that you could... learn to love me..." "Oh, come on!" I said, moving toward her and taking her in my arms. "Of course I love you. I mean, already I was falling in love with... well, with the other you out there..." "It's me." she said. "It was me. In the past. I'm still the same person." She held me tight and pressed her face into my shoulder. "Come on, Lunatether, come on. Take it easy. Let's go somewhere to talk--maybe get something to eat." She looked up at me and said softly "Okay." We started down the boardwalk again, but then I stopped and told her to wait a minute. I returned to the newsstand and handed Dick the paper with the winning numbers on it. "Do yourself a favor Dick, and play these numbers. I guarantee you they'll win you 30 million dollars. And Dick--that girl I was with--she may be by later on or in a few days. Give her some of the winnings, eh? And tell her I'm sorry I had to leave." Dick stared at me with a suspicious look. "Are you okay?" he asked. "No. But just PLEASE play these numbers. Don't ask me how I got them, but they ARE the winners. If you don't play 'em, think how sh*tty you'll feel." "Okay buddy, I'll play 'em." he said. "And whatever's going on with you, I.. I wish you the best." "Thanks." I said, and I caught back up with Lunatether. We walked down the boardwalk till we got to Foreman Ittener Pier. We got a booth in a little seafood restaurant and discussed the situation. Finally, I agreed to her proposal. Soon, she led me inland to a residential neighborhood, and into some woods, where her Tock Hound, Bandelion, was waiting. The full-grown tock hound was an awesome sight. As big as a horse, the beast was kind of like a huge pit bull, only with light tan fur. It regarded me with wise-looking eyes, and I sensed great intelligence from it. It looked like it could kick some serious ass, too. "Well, this is it." Lunatether said. "The point of no return." "Why?" "Because, like I said, once we get to the clean future, getting back here will be nearly impossible." "Like how impossible?" "I don't know, but pretty impossible." "Well, whatever. At this point, I just want to get back to the world I was living in before this whole mess." "That's exactly what we're doing." "But tell me again--if Hilltop goes to the future on her own, won't we meet her there?" "Maybe. It depends what sort of future she heads for. But yes, we might run into her. Though the chances are slim." I sighed and took off my sunglasses. The sun was starting to set. "So let me get this straight." I said. "We're going to the time I estimated, local year 781, and then we're gonna buy a truck to drive the thousand miles to Peeferkihint--with the money you're gonna get when you sell the gold bars you brought from your great-great-great-whatever granddaughter Stormbolthouse?" "That's the idea." "Okay then. Let's do it." I guess part of my decision was due to impatience--here was a real chance to get home to my real family in a matter of days, not years. Also, Lunatether wore Hilltop's body pretty well--I guess my penis was doing a lot of the thinking. But another thing, really, was that I wasn't getting along with Hilltop all that well. I don't know. I guessed I'd miss Whale the most. And what made me feel very bad was that the little puppy would miss me. But I had made my decision and would live with the consequences. Lunatether tended to her tock hound for a little while, then said "I think Bandelion's ready. Are you?" "Yeah." She climbed up onto the saddle. "Come on up." As I approached, Bandelion started making a low growl. "It's okay." Lunatether said. "It's okay, Bandelion. He's a friend. Yes, yes. He's a friend." "Is it alright?" I asked. "Yeah. Just take it slow. She has to get to know you." So I carefully walked up to the huge beast and climbed up onto the saddle behind Lunatether. Another vehicle, another girl. And any one of them--any one of them--I could make a princess, just by marrying them. That's power. And I know it's wrong to bask in power, but sometimes I do. Lunatether then turned around and looked at me--with such a strong look of admiration in her eyes. "Now Ferrajalt, I have to prepare you for the timeride process. You have understand that as a passenger there's nothing you can do. You just have to hang on and enjoy the scenery. If you feel yourself being overwhelmed, just close your eyes. You WILL become disoriented--but you have to remember--no matter what--just hang on. Everything will be alright." "How do you do it?" I asked. "Actually guide the dog to where you want to go?" "Well, it's pretty complicated, but basically, I can tell Bandelion to go forward or backward, and slower or faster. There are what you might think of as 'tracks of speed'--areas of time travel which go into the future or past faster or slower. You'll see. It's pretty cool." She turned and patted Bandelion on the head, mumbling something to her. "Here we go!" "I'm ready." I said. Bandelion started loping forward, and almost immediately, things began to happen. The forest around me seeming to spin at extreme angles very quickly, only to stop for a moment, then spin in another direction. I started to get confused, but I forced myself to relax and keep a good grip on the leather straps of the saddle. We were definitely moving forward, but in a weird way. Then it happened. As the world was rotating in powerful thrusts all around me, the beast we rode leapt forward and all was dark. It was suddenly much colder, and my ears began to ache. Soon I saw the moon through tree branches, but then the spinning began again. It was night, and I felt the difference of air pressure in my ears. "Are we there?" I yelled at Lunatether. "No way!" she yelled back. "This is just the beginning. We only got a few days in that jump. We gotta get moving a lot farther." "Uhn." I yelled in acknowledgment. I closed my eyes and swallowed, tightening my grasp on the leather straps. Breathing heavily, I realized that with my eyes closed, it wasn't all that bad. Then--SPLASH! I was covered in water. Opening my eyes, I saw it was now early morning or late afternoon, raining hard. My ears again felt weird and my hearing was muffled. It was like the Bandelion jumped right into a river--I guess she must have time jumped into a deep puddle or something. "Wha'd we get that time?" I asked. "Maybe not even a month." Lunatether replied. "Yeah." I said. Soon Bandelion jumped again, and it was a sunny mid-afternoon in the woods. "Cool!" Lunatether said. "Big chunk of a year there!" "How many jumps will we have to make?" "A lot. The max we want for a five decade journey is gonna be about five years--so that's about eight or none right there. Gotta slow down though, once we get close, to be accurate. We don't want to overshoot--Bandelion'll need a good night's rest before she'll be able to head backwards." "Okay." I said. What else could I say? The journey seemed to last forever, but it was over in about half-an-hour, personal time. We jumped somewhere around 15 times. I tried to keep count but lost it toward the end. As our time leaps got farther and farther, it took Bandelion longer and longer to find what Lunatether described as the "sweet spot". A few minutes between jumps in the middle there. But we got there. To the time I figured at being a little past what would have been the present back in Daptin's Land. That is, just far enough forward so that if I went to Daptin's Land, I wouldn't be in danger of meeting myself. And I knew from the training sessions with Whale that time clones were something to really try and avoid. Messy situations, you know, could result from time clones. Anyway, we got to the right time, and we left Bandelion to rest in the woods as we headed back for the boardwalk. Lunatether was carrying a saddle packs of gold bullion which looked really heavy. I offered to carry it for her, but she said it was no problem. We got to the residential neighborhood, and the passage of time was plain to see--the style of the cars, the paving of the roads, the clothes of the few people we passed. I felt a weird kind of power, knowing that I'd just been 50 years in the past. Guess I felt cool. At a corner store about a mile yet from the boardwalk, I got to a payphone and dialed Peeferkihint information. I breathed a sigh of relief when they found a listing for Overwhelm Associates. "Got it!" I announced to Lunatether, who was leafing through the yellow pages of a phone book chained to the phone. "Great!" she said. "Now if I could only find a place to sell this gold... "Maybe the car dealer or whoever will just take the gold...?" "I guess. But still, I'd like to get some time-local currency, for whatever--food, information, lodging..." "Yeah." I said. "Well here goes..." Dialing the code for a collect call, then the Overwhelm number, I crossed my fingers and waited. "Your name please?" an operator asked me. "Feather." I said. It was an Overwhelm code. "Hello?" I heard a woman say. "Collect call from Feather--do you accept charges?" the operator. There was a pause, then the woman said "Uh--yes. Yes." "Go ahead." the operator said. "Hello?" I said. "Yes?" "Uh--" I said, trying to think of a good ID code. "--um--Feather the white kitten, uh, broke a lot of stuff today..." "Who is this?" she asked. "It's Prince Ferrajalt--of the Derolbam Team?" "Okay." she said. "Yeah, I'm here in, like, Oijamaka, y'know, by the sea? I wanna head over there, so I just wanted to make sure you were there." "Hold on..." she said. Lunatether looked up from the phone book. "Got 'em?" "Yup. Lookin' good." "Cool." she responded, then someone else got on the phone. "Ferrajalt?" a man's voice said. "Yeah?" "This is Walker Fantive, Head of the Peeferkihint Team here. How did you get to Oijamaka?" "I, um--well, I gotta tellya--it's a really long story." "Are you okay?" "Yeah." I said. "I'm fine." "Is there anyone else there with you?" "Anyone with me...?" I repeated, looking over at Lunatether, who motioned at me. "Uh, yeah. I'm with, uh, Hilltop Jone Rallity? From the Urbandersnacheron Team?" "Hilltop Jone Rallity?" Walker said, clearly excited, even though I could tell he was trying to keep his voice steady. "Yup." I said. "Okay, Ferrajalt." Walker said. "I want you to get here as soon as possible. Where in Oijamaka are you, exactly?" "I dunno--by Foreman Ittener Pier, if that means anything." "Yeah... yeah. There's a major airport about 30 miles from you. Think you can get there? I'll wire you the tickets--they'll be waiting for you at the terminal." "Airport?" I said, again looking over at Lunatether, who motioned her disapproval. "Um--no can do, Walker. We have some, uh, precious cargo, uh, if you will, and we have to transport it by truck." "What sort of cargo?" "Um--the sort of thing we shouldn't really talk about over the phone. Y'know?" "No problem, Ferrajalt. I just want to get you here safe and in one piece. Do you have a truck yet?" "No, not yet. But we have some gold, and we want to sell it to get cash to buy a truck or something." "Okay." Walker said. "You're gonna have a hard time selling the gold to a legal operation. If you want to hold on, I can call one of my contacts in organized crime. They'll fence the gold for you and get you a truck plus all the cash you need. Okay?" "Organized crime?" I asked. Lunatether shrugged. "Well, I guess it'll be okay." "Alright--so how much gold do you have?" "I dunno--hold on. Lunateth-- I mean, uh, Hilltop, how much do we have?" I said, cringing at my mistake. "Around 20 or 30 pounds." "Yeah, around 20 or 30 pounds." I said to Walker. "Jeez!" he exclaimed. "Ten pounds is more than enough. Ditch the rest somewhere. Otherwise they'll start to get weird." "Okay." I said. "Look--where are you? Exactly? I'll call my guy and his friends down there will take care of you. No problem." "Um--" I said. "We're a few miles from Foreman Ittener Pier, at, uh, the corner of Brame and Hujio." "Okay--hang out while I put you on hold--" I looked over at Lunatether. "Looks like he has it all figured out. Gonna send a guy over to take care of us. A truck, money, and whatever, in exchange for the gold. He said only to give 'em 10 pounds or so. so we gotta hide the rest or something." "Okay." Lunatether said. "I'll leave you with the ten pounds, and I'll take the rest back to Bandelion. You can deal with whoever comes, if I don't get back in time, right?" "Sure." I said. She gave me a whole bunch of gold bars, which I began stowing in the multiple pockets of my police outfit. Soon I had the ten pounds of bullion on my person, and she bade me farewell, heading back to the woods. "Hello?" Walker said. "Yeah." "Okay, we're all set. 160 ounces of gold in exchange for a truck and about $10,000--depending on what sort of truck you want." "Cool." "A man named Dowaren will meet you in a few minutes right where you are. You'll know him by his purple and green wristbands. Okay? Give him the gold and he'll take care of you. You can trust 'em 'cause if they screw you they'll lose me as a customer--and they don't want to do that." "Okay." I said. "So I guess I'll see you tomorrow?" "Um--yeah. You'll get halfway tonight, halfway tomorrow. Okay." "Alright--so I'll look for this Dowaren guy." "Yeah. So I'll see you. Bye-bye." "Bye." I said. Then I hung up. A few minutes later, this Dowaren guy drove up in a big car, and I gave him the gold and described what sort of truck I needed. He drove off with the gold, and I sure hoped he'd be back. Then Lunatether returned. We got some food in the store we were waiting by--pickles and walnuts, if I remember correctly. After about 45 minutes, Dowaren returned in a mid-sized truck, with more than enough room in its cargo hold for Bandelion. He parked it, got out, and walked up to me. "It's got a full tank of gas and there's $10,000 cash in the glove compartment." he said, handing me the keys. Then he looked over me and Lunatether. "Deal was, no questions. I gotta admit I got a few, but that neither here nor there. If you're okay, that's it. I'm out of here." "Um," I said looking over at Lunatether. "I think that's it. Thanks." "Okay." he said as he started walking away, toward the beach. Lunatether sighed. "Well, now for the hard part." she said. "Getting Bandelion into the truck without her throwing a fit, and also without the neighbors seeing." "You can do it, 'Hilltop'." She regarded me with a sly smiled, took the keys from me, and headed for the truck. *OW* [[11033CN]] Contents of OsoaWeek033, March 9, 1995 BEGIN 01 033 CV--Cover 02 033 HR--Hemisinister Review 03 033 HT--Halfevil Times 04 033 ZP--Zope 05 033 CZ--Classic Zope 06 033 LA--Lord of Obliviana 07 033 NH--Nihilistica 08 033 NJ--New Jersey 09 033 SU--Superior 10 033 SR--Severe Repair 11 033 CN--Contents END *OW* [[END033OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----