|| -------- -- -----  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 049--6/29/95 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 4  ||  -------> (Cup OWis049, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN049OW]] [[01049CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 4 9 * * * June 29, 1995 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora Visit Obliviana at our temporary WWW address! http://pluto.njcc.com/~obliv Or you could try the more permanent address, likely to be: http://www.obliviana.com/osoa.html INSIDE THIS ISSUE! The 49er's got 49 pts. in the Super Bowl--now you too get 49! Check it out... 01 049 CV--Cover    !!!!!!!! Lyin' in a den in Bombay, with a slack jaw, and not much to say--NAME THAT SONG! 02 049 IW--Into E-mber Forge of Wander    !!!!!!!! It's poetry in motion, when she turned her eyes to me, as deep as any ocean, as sweet as any harmony--NAME THAT SONG! 03 049 HR--Hemisinister Review    !!!!!!!! Mirage, Treasure Island, Indian in Cupboard, Gum 04 049 HT--Halfevil Times    !!!!!!!! Ask Dr. Mike returns! 05 049 ZP--Zope    !!!!!!!! TV PIX ZOPE 06 049 CZ--Classic Zope    !!!!!!!! "Zope's Boasting on Matters of Molten Materials" 07 049 TS--Trick Sojourn    !!!!!!!! Obliviana Radio? Song of the week by Foo Fighters 08 049 LA--Lord of Obliviana    !!!!!!!! Obliviana on the WWW! Fine imported cigars! Junk! 09 049 SU--Superior    !!!!!!!! "Wavver day is ice cold water on a hot day lamting." 10 049 IS--Into E-mber Severe Repair    !!!!!!!! At the end of the drive, the lawmen arrive, you make me feel alive, alive, alive!--NAME THAT SONG! 11 049 SR--Severe Repair    !!!!!!!! "The Pedestrian Bride" PULL THAT LITTLE STUNT OF YOURS BUSTER--GET IT! INFORMATION: OsoaWeek049, June 29, 1995. Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, obliviana@aol.com, 1-800-OBLIVIANA. All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora. This release is Predatorware--you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. You're Prey unless you get a Predator Deed for this release. Contact us for more on this concept. Character count: 67642 / Line count: 1834 *OW* [[02049IF]] Into E-mber Forge of Wander [:[FOW010]:] FORGE OF WANDER E-mber 010, June 29, 1995 Ten. Yup. Only three more to go. Then... who knows? It's weird writing these E-mber intros, considering that I never starting sending them out to anyone--you're reading this in an OsoaWeek text file, or on the World Wide Web, or in some other future form--but not as an E-mber. Or are you? I don't know. Just read on and bask in the glow of rare talent! Yup. INFORMATION: Forge of Wander E-mber 010, June 29, 1995. Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, obliviana@aol.com, 1-800-OBLIVIANA. All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora. This release is Predatorware--you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. You're Prey unless you get a Predator Deed for this release. Contact us for more on this concept. You can cancel or subscribe to this E-mber anytime, via E-mail. *OW* [[03049HR]] Hemisinister Review ***GUM*** CARE-FREE ARTIFICIALLY FLAVORED SPICY CINNAMON Great taste! Sugar free! I'm feeling Care-Free--not a care in the world! But wait... what's this on the side of the pack...? "Use of this product may be hazardous to your health. This product contains saccharin, which has been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals." Kinda takes the fun out of it, eh? The image of all those cancer-ridden, pustuleful half-dead rats and bunny rabbits--certainly makes me crave the taste of "spicy cinnamon"!!! ***LAS VEGAS*** THE MIRAGE Built in 1989, this is the hotel casino that started the whole revolution of the new Las Vegas, or so I've heard. This massive gold-and-white structure, with three towers, all meeting at the center, is quite a sight to see. Illusionists Siegfried and Roy, and their plethora of white tigers, white lions, and other big cats is a big part of The Mirage. As soon as you go in, you see the white tiger habitat, which is rather sparse and uncomfortable-looking for such an environmental and animal rights attuned place. The main atrium is a huge rain forest, with all this fake mist/steam kinda stuff everywhere. And behind the check-in desk is an enormous aquarium chock fulla sharks. There's also a dolphin habitat, which you gotta pay to go to. They act like it's such a great place for the dolphins and stuff, but I mean, come on--it's just a big pool with some coral reef crap at the bottom. They have no "scheduled shows" and they act all smug and sanctimonious that they've so kind to the animals. Come on. You're putting dolphins on display. Get over it. One young male dolphin had a raging hard-on and was trying to hump various pool toys. Huh. I heard once that trainers reward male dolphins by giving them hand jobs. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, egad! Now don't get me wrong--I really like The Mirage--it's just, they treat the animals okay, but not so great they should be bragging about it! Anyway, when The Mirage was built, they gave Siegfried and Roy carte blanche to create their own theater for the ultimate magic show... SIEGFRIED & ROY Okay. These guys are real weirdoes. They're like a couple of white Michael Jackson's. Evidence--they live together out in the desert in a multimillion dollar estate with a bunch of animals, and they wear mock-military garb. The show is good, though. All sorts of special effects. A giant hydraulic dragon. And tricks galore! Almost all of the magic tricks involve people and animals disappearing in and out of boxes. The impressive part is, like, for example there's a box suspended in midair with a girl in it. They cover it up, and then there's a white tiger in there. So like, you know that the girl has to sneak out and the tiger has to sneak in, but getting a tiger to cooperate like that is rather laudable. At the end of the show they have like a dozen tigers onstage--all sitting on this hill thing. They looked stoned, man! Ya gotta wonder what they put in the kitty chow. There are no barriers between the stage and the audience. If a tiger flipped out, it'd mean killed tourist city. So that part, the danger aspect, is pretty cool. Oh yeah, at one point they introduce a song by their "friend", Michael Jackson--a song called... "Siegfried and Roy!" Even at $80 a ticket, it's worth seeing. But those guys, man, are total freaks! TREASURE ISLAND Shaped like a midget Mirage, Treasure Island is pirate themed to the max. Out front, there's a Caribbean village where two full-sized galleons duke it out several times a night. Only problem is, it caused a major unhealthy crowd condition in front of it. See, me and Kerri walked up toward Treasure Island, but quickly the sidewalk got crowded--real crowded. Soon, we were in an unmoving mass of people where you basically had to crush or be crushed. And the thing was, they had a big fence between the sidewalk and the street--I guess to keep people from standing in the street to see it--but no one in the crowd wanted to be there--we were all trapped for over 20 minutes! Not a very pleasant experience. So once the show was over, we managed to get to the fence, climb over it, and run across the street to freedom. Oh what a feeling that was. Anyways, there's a cool little monorail/shuttle kinda thing that ferries people between Treasure Island and The Mirage. That's pretty cool. Also, there's a pretty good midway/arcade with a ton of video and redemption games, complete with audio-animatronic pirate skeletons at the entrance. And hey--you got audio-animatronic skeletons, you alright by me. ***MOVIES*** THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD A kid's movie with a lot of deep, psychological undertones. The actor Litefoot plays Little Bear, an plastic toy Indian made real, albeit still tiny, by a magic cupboard. The story of the boy's relationship with Little Bear strikes some deep spiritual chords, as if it's symbolic of something deep in the collective subconscious... Litefoot is superb, giving the Little Bear role real substance. The guy that plays the cowboy is also great. But the kid--when the he tries to have a look of awe on his face, he winds up looking stoned instead! Directed by Frank Oz, who is Miss Piggy and Yoda, this movie has some great special effects and even a cameo by Darth Vader! It's a gentle, nice little film on the surface. But don't be fooled. There's a lot going on here. *OW* [[04940HT]] Halfevil Times ***ASK DR. MIKE*** by Mike Massotto Date: Fri, Jun 23, 1995 7:49 PM EST From: SGotham Subj: Dr. Mike, Help! To: Obliviana Dear Dr. Mike, I haven't had a puff for three years and two days because I got a new job in a new town and none of my new colleagues were smokers and, though they didn't exactly come out and say it, I was able to devine (sic) their you'll-have-to-smoke-outside-no-matter-how- sh*tty-the-weather-is attitude. I might mention this place has extra sh*tty weather. Anyway, now when I see some loser smoking (you know, the kind who buys one pack at a time), I think "What a loser, crudding up your insides like that and giving all your money to unscrupulous Carolinians."But when I see someone cool smoking, I think "How come he gets to smoke and I don't?" So here's my question: do I kill my colleagues for making me too self-conscious to smoke, or do I kill the cool smokers in an attempt to hasten their extinction? Actually, if you could give me an excuse for smoking, that would be even better, but I don't expect miracles. (I'm not worried about the dying thing, as I'm nearly 2500 years old already.) Peace to all beings, Sid Gotham * * * Dear Sid, First off, before you send me any more of your obsequious ponderings, fix your f*cking typewriter--it's putting annoying little stars where the " i's " should be when you use the word "sh*tty". (((That's my fault Doc--OsoaWeek policy, at least till I feel like changing it--Lord of Obliviana))) Secondly, your name smacks of something that gets lodged in my teeth in a particularly annoying area (such as my rear molars). Lastly, if you were truly 2500 years old like you say you are, you would have already mastered the innate celestial powers of "insta-health", "selective genocide", "random f*ck", "fax transference", and "parallel reality walking" to name a few which would have been long since solved your inane, piss ant, Lilliputian little faggot of a problem. But since you've chosen to burden me with your impotent lack of wisdom, sure I can give you a couple excuses to start smoking again: A) You're such a f*cking computer geek with no life that not even a cannibalistic mortician that's been on a Dexatrim and Slim-Fast diet for a month would give one rat's ass f*ck about you even if your cancer-ridden corpse was laid out sauteed and filleted on a silver platter in front of him. B) I hear there's a free blow-up sex doll you can get by accumulating enough Marlboro miles. You won't get laid any more frequently, it's just designed to explode painfully when you're having sex with it, causing a terminal case of "blue-balls" which should serve you right for the diarrhea this letter has given me. *OW* [[05049ZP]] Zope TV PIX ZOPE ZOPE Get a loadda this, Joe! A TV and phone wire leading into a time hole right to the mid-'70s! MASTER JOE So? ZOPE SO!? Come on man! I'm gonna play TV Pix! MASTER JOE What the hell is that? ZOPE What is it? Are you on drugs, man? It's only the coolest in-between afternoon cartoons thing ever! MASTER JOE Yeah? ZOPE Yeah! It was on WPIX, channel 11 in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area. What it was was--they had these Mattel Intellivision on the screen, and a kid called in, and whenever he said "Pix", the laser would fire or the quarterback would pass, you know. MASTER JOE So this was an online thing? ZOPE Haha! No way! All it was was some guy on the other end hitting the fire button whenever you said the magic word, "Pix". MASTER JOE So you're gonna play now? ZOPE (adjusting knobs and dials) Yeah... as soon as I can get this darn thing tuned to the right time... Suddenly, the title "TV PIX" comes up on the screen. ANNOUNCER Okay kids! It's time again for TV Pix on WPIX channel 11! Call in now to play! ZOPE frantically dials the phone. ANNOUNCER Today we'll be playing Astroblast, and the winner will get an autographed Pop Warner Joe Namath tot-football. Okay--I think we have our contestant... hello? ZOPE Hello? ANNOUNCER Hi there--what's your name, caller? ZOPE Zope. ANNOUNCER Soap? ZOPE No--ZOPE, with a Z, you fruitcake. ANNOUNCER Oh... okay, uh, Zope, I... Let's get ready to play TV Pix! Are you ready Zope? ZOPE Never been more. ANNOUNCER Good. The rules are, every time you say "Pix", a laser blast will zap out and fry any alien cruiser in the target area. If you can get ten or more in 30 seconds, you win the football! ZOPE Sounds great, chief. ANNOUNCER Okay--go! ZOPE Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! Pix! While ZOPE keeps saying this, every single alien shipped is zapped and destroyed. ANNOUNCER Whoah, Zope! You had a perfect score--26. What's your secret? ZOPE You just keep saying Pix as fast as you can, you moron! I've watched this show--and every kid who kept saying it always won! ANNOUNCER That's very... good advice, Zope! Now stay on the line and we'll take down your address, okay? ZOPE Okay, and I also wanted to mention the full-scale, thermonuclear war that's gonna occur in 1980--so kids--may as well drop out of school, loot, rape, pillage, and all that--y'only gotta few years left--and ya don't wanna spend 'em bored to death listening to some douchebag droning on about cotton gins, hypotenuses, and magnesium! ZOPE hangs up. MASTER JOE Sure that was a good idea, Zope? ZOPE Goddamn, who cares? That was great fun. And who gives a crap what happens in an alternate timeline anyway? Maybe there Generation X will turn out better. MASTER JOE Yeah--with all that looting and pillaging-- ZOPE --and raping-- MASTER JOE --yeah--and raping--thy won't have time to watch so much bad TV to become obsessed with in their twenties! ZOPE Yeah... CRAP! MASTER JOE What? ZOPE How the heck am I gonna get my Joe Namath tot-football now? MASTER JOE Um... maybe just wait about fifteen minutes until you lose interest in it? ZOPE Yeah, that'll do it. *OW* [[06049CZ]] Classic Zope "Zope's Boasting on Matters of Molten Materials" 11/6/93 TIN ALLEY RASCAL Ah Zope! So good to see you out & about after your accident! ZOPE Screw you, Tin Alley Rascal--it wasn't an accident, I melted the 26 backhoes and frolicked in their molten remains just for laughs. TIN ALLEY RASCAL Stuff and nonsense! Are you mad? ZOPE (splashing pail of molten steel onto TIN ALLEY RASCAL) Liquid steel is fun to play with--here, have some! TIN ALLEY RASCAL AAAAHH! NO!!! TIN ALLEY RASCAL is burnt to a crisp by the molten steel. TIN ALLEY RASCAL Grgl grgl. ZOPE Watsa matter? Can't take a few thousand degrees, you miserable weakling? ZOPE (drinking molten metal) I can drink it too, see? ZOPE (dropping a drop of molten metal into his eye with an eyedropper) And use it as eyedrops! Aren't you impressed. TIN ALLEY RASCAL, burnt to a crisp, makes *FZZZ FZZZ* noises. *OW* [[07049TS]] Trick Sojourn ***OBLIVIANA RADIO?*** I've just been playing around with this Internet Radio Station thing, using a technology called "RealAudio". I couldn't get it to work with the AOL browser, but the idea is pretty awesome--broadcasting audio via the Internet! Man, it'd be so cool to have an audio server--I could have my own radio station, dude! And it's... it's... like, within the realm of possibility! Then of course, comes The Obliviana Channel... realtime video broadcast... ***SONG OF THE WEEK*** "This is a Call" by Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl's new band, from their self-titled eponymous album of the same name, if I may be redundant) [:[END]:] *OW* [[08049LA]] Lord of Obliviana 7/23/95 Where the hell am I? I'm here alone. Gotta finish Obliviana WWW version 1.0 by tonight. OsoaWeek048 is just about done. May as well finish it up before it gets past 31 days late. You know, I'm tired of talking about how late OsoaWeek is. It doesn't mean anything anymore. This issue plus three more and OsoaWeek is kind of over with. One year. I'm thinking of having some beer then walking around in the woods, smoking a cigar. Yeah. Whack myself out, okay. What's wrong with me? I always find it therapeutic to talk to you people. I know you're out there, far and near, in the future. A lot of me's out there, but a lot of other people too. In the Obliviana WWW, OsoaWeek is segmented, so you can easily jump around and skip what doesn't interest you. That's why I feel it's okay to ramble. Cuz you don't have to read it. Whatever. Look--it's weird being here. I got a tape of "St. Elmo's Fire" playing in the other room. Never saw it. I catch glimpses of it when I go out there. I think I should set up my Super Nintendo on my desk here with a little B&W TV set. There are a lot of things. I feel like I'm in the middle of a big chaos cloud. All this creation is throwing off a storm of disorder. Just gotta keep on moving. I guess I'm avoiding finishing the WWW site. But why? Idunno. Maybe fear of success? Maybe not. A little later. Just finished OsoaWeek048. I have no enthusiasm for this format anymore. Adding line feeds so that DOS people can read it. All that crap. I don't know. I can't take it anymore. Just gotta do it though, 049, 050, 051, 052, and that's it. OsoaWeek changes MASSIVELY after that. Oh well. Here I am--I thought OsoaWeek was the one project that was working. Now, I can't wait to eject it from my milieu. Yeah. But it's the FORMAT not the CONTENT that I'm fed up with. Better upload 048 now. Before I don't care at all. 7/24/95 morning train, terribly late So I got Obliviana WWW, Edition 1.0, done last night. But due to technical limitations, I'm actually gonna hafta SNAILMAIL a pair of disks to the Internet service provider. What sucks is it's gonna take 3 to 5 weeks to register "obliviana.com", so I'll be at a temporary address till then. I sure hope it works, after all the laborious toil I put into it. It took DAYS of effort to link all the pages together. And that's just the links for the first 13 issues! Well, hopefully by the time I get my domain name registered, I'll have a vastly improved and expanded Edition 2.0 ready to go. I gotta figure out a way to automate the linking process, though. I guess it means doing some amount of real coding, which I'm not all that much into. Ah--coming into station New Brunswick, a mass of people on the platform, but I'm on the aisle in a two-seater next to somebody--so I don't have to worry about having to move or getting squashed between the window and a fellow commuter. Got a "Plainsboro, NJ" shirt at the supermarket on Saturday, and I'm wearing it now. It may be kinda lame to wear it in Plainsboro, but once in New York, it'll be cool. New Brunswick. College town (Rutgers). Think of all the WWW hookups out there... all those potential readers... It's funny--I've been thinking that if Obliviana gets popular on the WWW, I'll be kind of unprepared to handle it. I guess I'm oversensitive, the lessons of the guy counting his eggs before they've hatched, or Charlie Brown bringing a big suitcase to school for all the valentines he thinks he's gonna get. But, like, I do believe that at some point, Obliviana WILL catch on. So what do I do then? See, there's this gap--between now and when the Internet debit infrastructure is in place. I mean, I WOULD like to make money directly from the Internet, but how's that gonna work? I think the way to go is to have a free area, and a chargeable area. The idea is to make the digital entertainment so cheap to download/view that it's easier to pay than to try and get it through pirate channels. But I have a whole nother concept--Predatorware. This allows for freeflow copying of the file, while retaining an abstract kind of ownership thing. (see 11040NH for more info). Yeah, I wanted to mention that with the Obliviana WWW, I envision preserving each Edition, and putting them all on a CD-ROM eventually, allowing you to see the evolution of the Obliviana WWW site for yourself! Another thing I gotta decide is about renting an FTP site as well. There's a lotta cool stuff I could offer, like the Pelter clip textures (now at manageable sizes, thanks to JPEG), Balbitype fonts, Obliviana War cards, audio, video, and a whole lot more. Yeah, I definitely need an FTP site, but I think I'll wait till my WWW site gets fully established. Oh, there's something I've been meaning to mention. Back when I was a kid, around the late '70s, I drove cross-country with my family to Montana, to visit our relatives out there. We did it a few times, but this one time, I brought a tape recorder there, and with my cousin and brother and sister, we did these goofy tapes. The cool part is, the tapes were a spoof of a TV station--which I named "Channel 67, WWW, Omaha, Nebraska". See, I was just making a joke on how all the stations start with a "W". But all over this tape, I'm saying "You're watching channel 67, WWW!" Wow. Another thing, and this is from 1988 or so, I created this thing called "Interweb"--before I ever heard of Internet, and before WWW was even created, I believe. I was a pretty cool idea--I'll have to describe it in detail sometime. People have always thought my ideas were really strange. Now though, my ideas are starting to make real sense, with the dawn of the Digital Superworld. I wonder where I'll be a year from now--Obliviana Day 1996... I hope I'll be in business. TRAIN HOME Huh. Whattaya know. America Online has this thing called the "Greenhouse", where they want to form partnerships with hypercreative online asskickers--kinda sounds like me, eh? I'll look into it. Hey, they offer "equity capital funding" or something like that. Guess that means they want to own your f*cking life for some $$$. Don't know if I'm with THAT. So the WWW site is done, and more or less on its way to being online by Obliviana day, four days from now. Already I want to make a whole lot of refinements to it. But ah, I won't have my coveted domain name for about a month (the guy there checked--"obliviana.com" appears to be available. YEAH!) But imagine--Obliviana on America Online... ahh it'll never fly. They'll fret over some of my rougher content and I'll be like, forget it. I hate America Online. Why would I want to be in business with them? Cuz it'd be like a golden opportunity and stuff! Yeah. Oh well, maybe. Maybe. I tellya, exploring OsoaWeek on a Web browser is totally jovial. It's so cool, being able to whizz around like that. It was murderously tedious to code, but well worth it. Does this mean I'll be doing Books 2, 3, and 4 in the same manner? Guess so. CONTENT. I got a lot, lemme tellya. I gotta organize it into Revolvers, though. Right now, it's still too chaotic. Never did drink beer and wander the woods smoking a cigar yesterday. Pity. I want to deal with this whole cigar thing. I gotta tellya--premium cigars--handrolled and like $3 to $10 each--are a rare treat. I never smoked a cigarette in my life, mind you, and I've only smoked about ten cigars over the course of many moons. But each cigar is a unique experience, full of magic and nuances. Dunno about the health risk--mouth cancer likely for the occasional smoker? I think not. Ya don't inhale the smoke with a cigar! It just goes in your mouth! Y'know? Ah, whatever. Believe what you wanna believe. All I'm saying is, unless you've tried a PREMIUM, HAND-ROLLED cigar, you don't know what you're talking about. The cheap cigars are not even a pale shadow of true cigars. Come on. I got this cast iron skillet, if I may change gears, and it's quite perplexing. I have this idea of starting to eat "Egg-Beaters" based scrambled egg and English muffin sandwiches. I tried one, not in the cast-iron skillet, as you'll see why soon, and it tasted quite good and my stomach accepted it more or less, and yes, this is a rather blatant run-on sentence. Anyway, this whole cast-iron skillet thing is very complex. See, I didn't read the fine print when I bought it. Seems you gotta like "season" the thing by coating it in like Crisco or something, then cooking it. Apparently, rust is the big concern. Then like every time you use it, you gotta coat the cooking surface with more solid vegetable shortening. Kind of a pain, you know? But the reward, they say, is a virtually infinite cooking utensil which gets better and better the more you use it. I know if I get started with it, with all this vegetable shortening baloney, I'll probably lose interest in it after using it a few times. But who knows. Its rusticness is what attracted me to it, there in the Caldor, so maybe that which be rustic may conquer the short attention span? I'm out of it. I'm eating these Mustard Combos and typing here, and I know I'm bugging the guy next to me reading "The Vampire Lestat". Sorry, dude. Hey, if you ever read this, drop me a line, bud, and tell me if I was, indeed, irritating ya! Your stop is Edison--saw it on your monthly. Funny, y'know! This sorta communication! Also you got Reeboks. Okay. What next? Poland Spring! 16.9 oz.! So what is this, stream of consciousness? Guess you could call it that. Streamlike. Now there's a good word! Maybe I'll mosey on down to Severe Repair and use it! 7/25/95 on the train home Damn, I'm gonna hafta like eat then go to bed as soon as I get home! Bummer. Gotta check my E-mail, though! Gotta get my WWW site up and running... 7/27/95 morning train SUCCESS! OH YES! OBLIVIANA IS NOW ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB! As of yesterday, the Obliviana WWW site is ONLINE! Here's the address... http://pluto.njcc.com/~obliv This is just a temporary address, cuz it'll take a few weeks to get "obliviana.com" registered. Man, how sweet it was last night, signing onto America Online, going onto the WWW, and seeing my Obliviana logo right there... Awesome. Now all the people on America Online (2,000,000+) as well as all the other online services and the Internet--CAN GET ALL OBLIVIANA! Yes indeed. Of course, no one knows about it yet. (Well, almost no one.) I figure that I'll use the next month or so to refine the site and add more of OsoaWeek--at least Book Two, but hopefully more--like all of Year One, including this issue! Wow. Y'know, I wasn't even planning on this. I thought I might be on the WWW by the fall. But as usually happens, reality prods me in unpredictable directions! It's cool though--Obliviana Day 1994, OsoaWeek begins--Obliviana Day 1995, Obliviana is on the WWW. Obliviana Day 1996--I'm in business for real? I better be. I'm not cut out for this "burning the candle at both ends" crap. I mean, for godsake--I'm outta college six years now--and all that time I've been striving to start my own business. Admittedly, I DID have a business right after I graduated--Anything But Monday Magazine. But it folded not six months later. At the time, I was too inexperienced. Now, after all these years of steady forging, I'm ready. Ready to be in business. Guess I gotta make it happen, eh? Oh, on another subject, I had a cool idea yesterday. I saw these new watches from Fossil, called "FSL", at Sterns. One of them had like this little pouch on the wristband. And I had the coolest idea--to put all 22 major arcana Tarot cards in it, from my mini Tarot deck! Wouldn't that be awesome? Having Tarot cards as part of your watch? YO! Unfortunately, I tried the watch on and the pouch turned out to be kinda lame. So I didn't buy it. But I'm thinkin', why not just make a pouch of my own? Or--someone must sell these watchband pouches on their own, y'know? Yup. July 27, 1995. 208th day of the year. Trainhome. So I'm there. On the WWW. But no one knows about it yet. I guess it's good to have some time to refine my site before introducing it to the world. It takes a few weeks to get my domain name, "obliviana.com" registered. The idea is to have a much improved site online when I get my permanent address. THEN I'll start promoting the heck out of it! The question is, what am I aiming for in the next edition? Well, ideally, all 52 issues of Year One should be included--and this alone is a pretty monumental task. And I gotta finish this issue and three more to boot! Next, a much more efficient navigation system has to be implemented. Basically, this means link indexes at an issue and feature level. I was gonna do this with Edition 1.0, but I ran out of time. I also have to question the need for all the buttons I have. With these indexes, jumping ANYWHERE would be a two-link process. The reason I'm worried about this is that all the buttons I have take an awful long time to download, slowing down the browsing process. The arrow buttons are for spontaneous exploration--but with the process so slow--such meandering may be too frustrating to engage in. Right now I have eight buttons on each page--Obliviana (home page), feature, OsoaWeek, Wild, and the four directions. I think, basically, I'll dump the directional buttons and cut it down to four. Huh. This'll make converting OsoaWeek to HTML a LOT easier! I tellya, creating the links for eight buttons--an incredibly mind-numbing, draining task. With only four, it should be remarkably easier for me to do. So all 52 issues by the official launch is now much more feasible! Kinda makes me wish I thought of this method BEFORE doing all that work. But who knows--if I never did it that way, I might never have thought of this way. 7/28/95 The 209th Day of the Year OBLIVIANA DAY 1995!!! Yes folks, it's here. Obliviana Day 1995! And with it, the official commencement of Obliviana on the World Wide Web! You know, a year ago today, the first issue of OsoaWeek was released. What a year this has been! 48 issues completed--all chock full of incredibly killer content! Quite an achievement, I must say. But the real quantum leap will come in a month or two when I unveil Obliviana WWW Edition 2.0--complete with all 52 issue of OsoaWeek Year One, my own domain name (obliviana.com), an enhanced interface, and PROMOTION. Edition 2.0 will on or before October 20, 1995 (the beginning of Book Six). Hopefully, it'll be out long before that! Yup. So there was this monster thunderstorm last night. I was awakened at about 2:30 AM by all these incredibly bright flashes outside. I was delirious from, like, being asleep, but also, there was no thunder yet. So I got up and walked across the room, not knowing what the hell was going on. Nuclear war? Alien invasion? I made sure to stay on the carpet and not touch the walls. I remember thinking that this would protect me from whatever it was. Delirium. What a wonderful thing. But then the thunder and rain started, and I realized it was a more mundane event. It's hard to call a thunderstorm like that mundane--there's a supernatural quality to a thunderstorm. I don't think meteorologist understand thunderstorms all that well. I mean, like why exactly they happen. More anti-science ranting and raving from the Lord of Obliviana! Oh yeah, but it was the thunderstorm was cool, cuz I realized I forgot to plug my PowerBook in for the night. I hesitated, fearing a power surge or something, but I figured, like, I must have the surge protector power strip for some reason, no? So without the thunderstorm, I wouldn't be writing this right now! My 800 number, 1-800-OBLIVIANA, may be in jeopardy. I thought I all my bills, but then AT&T sends me a letter demanding payment of my "final bill". But my service is still up and running! Also, they have the wrong account number on the notice. Oh well. Whatever, I can probably just send them a check and everything will be hunky-dory again. Hunky-dory--pretty severe word, eh? But the thing is, do I still NEED it, the 800 number? I mean, I guess it'd be good to have in the future, when I have a real office and stuff. And both me and my girlfriend use it to call home, which is really convenient. But we get all these wrong numbers for Alitalia Airlines--sometimes in the middle of the night. This is what happens--Alitalia's number is 1-800-6-ALITALIA. But many people misdial it--they do 1-800-6-ALITIA. And y'know what? That's the same as 1-800-OBLIVIANA!!! Damn. The first 800 number I got was 1-800-THE-VOID. Thing is, buncha f*ckers misdialed Time Magazine's 1-800-THE-TIME and got me! Y'know, I thought I was safe with 1-800-OBLIVIANA. And I was, till maybe six months ago. Then Alitalia screwed me up. Hadda choose "6", eh? Couldn'ta been any other number? Couldn'ta been 4? Or 8? Or 5? Sh*t. But yeah--with the WWW, do I really need an 800 number? Folks can E-mail me--either on their own or via my WWW site (as in a "mailto:" link or a form). But what of mail order? That gets a little trickier. Folks may want a number to call with problems... Eh, I'll probably try to keep it. What the hell. Still Obliviana Day Trainhome I had to piss before but I'm so drenched with sweat right now, I guess I expelled all the extra water from my body, so I'm alright. What I did was, like, I took the 1 train, and uh, I had my Walkman, but I had a crappy tape, so I wanted to buy a cheap new one for the trip home. So I got off at 28th St. and walked briskly through the muck of the suprahumid evening to The Wiz, where I kept browsing and browsing, all the while getting closer and closer to missing my train, a 5+ minute walk away. See, I wanted to get a cassette which I wouldn't really want the CD version of. They had a piss-poor selection, but I finally settled on the best of Abba for $7.98. I also got the Foo Fighters CD, cuz a guy let us listen to it at work today and I really liked it. Uh-huh. So I walked to Penn Station, briskly again, and got thoroughly drench with sweat. But I was in an air-conditioned office all day, and I just drank about a half-a-bottle of Poland Spring sparkling spring water just before I left, so I was okay. Oh! I didn't tell you the best part! My friend Michael Knobbe (see his Fonosta at 09003FW, and his E-mail at 05017LA) got me this massive "Book of Scientology" for 20 cents. It's pretty scary--like full color of every page, and tons of pictures of spaced out Scientology "success stories". I'm gonna use the book to freak out Mike Massotto when he comes over tomorrow. I'm gonna put it somewhere and see how he reacts. Cuz y'know, like, he's into Scientology. One time he told me I'd really like it if I got into it. I told him, y'know, like since I'm trying to start my OWN cult with Obliviana, I didn't think it's be such a good idea to join another cult. Then he told me Scientology isn't a cult and all that. Whatever. From what I hear, maybe it's more like the Mafia than a cult. Hope they don't f*ck me up for saying that. One of the many valuable Lord of Obliviana secrets I have is that NO ONE is immune to cults. With enough contact and immersions, ANYONE can be indoctrinated into just about ANY cult. If you check out my treatise (what's a treatise?) on the "Manifold Beyond" (at 09017TN) you'll see a little of what I'm talking about. I think I have a more detailed essay on this somewhere else, also. It has to do with what "Backyard" your supernatural self is in. Folks in other Backyards can draw you themwards, and theirgodswards. Inventing some major wordage today! Anyway, I gotta be careful with this Scientology connection. But who knows--maybe I can learn some cult-building tips from the book. And maybe, like who knows--I'll have a massive "Book of Obliviana"--even bigger than that stupid old Book of Scientology! I'm thinking about leaving this Abba tape in my Walkman permanently. Huh. I wonder. I guess "Game Boy" was inspired by "Walkman". But Nintendo's new system, "Virtual Boy", I don't know. I've heard others comment on this too, but it sounds like some kinda pedophiliac porn thing. Y'know, like a virtual little boy to do with as you will. Ah, whatever. The Japs always translate stuff f*cked-up. Gee--kind of a dangerous Lord of Obliviana today, eh? Bad mouthing Scientology, calling Japanese people Japs, I dunno. But hey--that's why I'm the Lord of Obliviana and you're not. So now I'm not going to Boston this weekend So I'll get to act in "Plan Nine from Uranus" after all. This is a video project by none other than Ron Lordi, of "Celtic Pride" fame. Well, not fame actually--more like near-total obscurity. But he does some awesomely funny stuff. Who knows--maybe you'll be able to see some of his stuff on the Obliviana WWW site. Y'know, I'm starting to, like, think I gotta come up with a better name for Obliviana on the WWW than "Obliviana WWW". Like what? Obliviana Primal? Hmm... but I don't wanna confuse things. Right now, it's just "Obliviana". I like that. Funny-I don't feel like wrenching my skull off my neck (see 09008HT). Okay. Guess I'll continue working on Severe Repair. Right now, I'm at the part where Ferrajalt is awakened by a psychic assault... July 31, 1995 I think I just saw a hate crime! Yeah--at the train station parking lot here, Princeton Junction, I saw a book on the hood of like a Jeep Cherokee--and I looked to see what it was--"Mein Kampf" by Adolph Hitler. Whoah! How much you wanna bet the truck belongs to a Jewish guy? Jeez. I thought about calling the authorities, but like, you know they'd suspect me, as the caller. So whatever. The book was from the Rider College library, also, for the record. Y'know, I'm really tired of all this Hitler and Nazi crap. Jesus Christ, beyond all the human rights stuff, these guys were sworn enemies of America--they declared war on us, remember? Massive numbers of American boys lost their lives fighting Hitler--boys who would have been the uncles and grandfathers of today. So quit it with all this Nazi stuff, you bozos! It's like totally early-'90s! Crap! My PowerBook screen has been messed-up by the sun! I was sitting at the platform, and this guy was casting a shadow halfway across the screen--the other half was being hit by direct sunlight. And now--the side where the shadow was is still darker. This sucks! Hope it don't last. I hate my Walkman. It flutters and frets whenever it moves the slightest bit, it drains batteries like a whore or something gives like blow jobs (<-- failed analogy), and the radio button can be hit so easily, and it drains the batteries! So, I could put it down, the radio will be turned on accidentally, and when I go to get it again, it's dead! It's the Aiwa TX646. I think it's a very popular model--I see a lot of 'em out there. But if I can help just one person avoid buying it, then what I'm doing here has purpose! Don't you hate that? How people say like "If we can save just one child, blah, blah, then blah, blah, it's all worth it. Bull! Like "In banning R-rated movies, if we can save one child from becoming violent, it's worth it." It's flawed logic. Like I heard about these OSHA regulations. (Ocuupational Safety and Health Administration). It seems that they require such massively expensive procedures when dealing with certain substances, that the net result of their regulation is a LOSS of life. For example, some company had to spend billions to protect a few people's lives--but in the process--they had to lay off a bunch of other people to pay for the regulations. What results is more people in poverty--and poverty is a very unhealthy state to be in; poor people are more likely to die, cuz they don't eat as well, visit doctors as often, etc. So a regulation designed to save lives winds up costing lives. And these are regulations the massively intrusive and overkill nature. I'm not saying let people die from chemicals and sh*t--just that regulations should be realistic. Cool! My PowerBook screen is healing! So this morning I had a nice reality blam. I took two hundred-dollar bills, a fifty, and a twenty with me. I got to the parking lot, and I was like, crap, I gotta buy parking token for $2, but I gotta spend $249 on my monthly rail pass, and to use the machine, I'd have to put the $20 in and get ten tokens--leaving me $1 for the day! So okay--I decided to go to the "En Route" store and buy something, then walk all the way back to the machine and pay for the parking. But first I had to wait on line to get the monthly. It took about ten minutes for me to get to the ticket window, but when I did, I felt in my pockets and realized NO MONEY! "Crap!" I said as I had to exit the line. I frantically searched for the money, but it just wasn't there. I called home and Kerri saw the money on my desk. Great. So I went back to my Jeep, ate a Cinnabon Minibon, had a V-8, went home, got the money, and went back. But the only parking spot left was like covered in broken glass! I said "f*ck it", and carefully pulled in. My tires seemed okay. Otherwise, I would have had to pay $6 to those sleazy guys with their own private lot. Then I got the ticket and--oh yeah--I was waiting to use the bathroom, and I could swear I saw this girl come out and stand there, so I got up and tried the door, and this woman yelled at me from inside, "Just a minute!" or something. I told the girl I coulda sworn I saw her come out, but she said no. So I sat down and when the woman came out, I guess she thought it was the girl who kept trying the door--haha!--she didn't know it was me! Now I'm on the train, and I told you about the PowerBook screen thing. I'm really late. I'm supposed to be at work by 8 AM, and it's now 8:51 and I'm just in Metropark! Had more cigars yesterday. It's weird--the olfactory experience of cigars seems to be jarring loose memories of a past life. I think I must have smoked cigars in a past existence--and I'm recalling it, albeit at a pitifully vague level. Man, this train is like the local to end all locals--stopping at every friggin' stop. Listening to Pink Floyd "The Wall". Just go to "Run Like Hell". So the weekend was quite... knocking... yeah, that word seems to describe it. On Saturday, Mike Massotto came over with his girlfriend Nancy. He went out with her back in college and while we were doing our magazine, but he broke up with her long ago. But they got back together. Whoah--the past is coming back! He thought I spent like $40 on the Scientology book, and I was thrilled to tell him it cost 20 cents. I let him have it, cuz I started to get brainwashed a little just browsing through it. Man those cults are dangerous! It was funny--yesterday there was a show about cults on MTV and they did a piece on Scientology, and Kurt Loder was all smug, cuz they found out that once you're deep into the Church, they tell you about "Galactic Overlord Xenu" and stuff. Gee, whatta shocker, coming from a religion created by a sci-fi writer. Obliviana is a far superior cult. I mean, come on. And I'm a better sci-fi writer than L. Ron Hubbard to boot! Man, I'm really cleaning Scientology's clock today, eh! The thing is, you gotta wonder. I mean, to be serious, I think there probably ARE supernatural beings involved in Scientology, just like any other cult. It's extremely hazardous to play with strange occult beings. I mean, in life it's kinda okay, but once you die, your soul is f*cked. But back to the weekend, yeah, it looks like Anything But Monday may just come back--on the WWW! It's kinda scary, how everything's comin' full circle and all. Then yesterday, I went over to Ron Lordi's house and played a part in his "Plan 9 from Uranus" movie. It was cool, to be back in the gathering of young people for a creative purpose kind of mode. Kind of an ideal of mine, eh? Yeah. Well, no matter what anyone else does, I'm juggernauting forward with Obliviana. 9:09. Just at Newark now. Y'know, I have trouble working a 9-to-5 type job. I get bored a frustrated real easy. But I find myself doing things at a subconscious level to keep it interesting. One thing is being late, which does add an element of excitement and fear to the morning. Another is buying sh*tloads of magazines and CD's. Getting wildly varied foods for lunch and staying out a long time is another strategy. Unfortunately, this sort of behavior can get you kinda fired from some jobs. Good thing I have the job I have for now, I guess. Whatever. I had this idea for a scene, but I can't think of where to use it. See, there're these two evil characters hanging out outside somewhere, and this guy with a yamaka comes up to a streetlight or something, leaning on it, and breathing real heavy. Then wunna the evil guys says, "Get outta here, lungkike!" I don't know what made me think of that. Just thought it was too funny not to present to you. Man, this LOA is getting curiouser and curiouser. Is that a quote from "Alice in Wonderland"? The "curiouser and curiouser" part? Guess so. ON THE TRAIN BACK HOME This issue is just about finished--32 days late. A record! But as I've said, as look as issue 52 is done, I'll crank out a bunch of nigh-content-free issues to get back on schedule, in the wrecked Book Five. (Always wanted to use that word "nigh"--like in Chris Claremont's X-Men--"Colossus--made of nigh-invulnerable organic steel!") So I guess this issue'll get out tonight. Yahoo. I don't know, I'm just like, uh, totally tired of this damn ezine format I've been using. It's pissing me off! That damn cover section with all those exclamation marks, the E-mbers which have never been E-mailed out, all that. I can't wait to move on. But it's been this way near the end of each of the third two book, so why should this be any different? It shouldn't. But following through on the plan is extremely important to me. So if I gotta suffer through a few issues, so be it. And if I gotta be a month late, so be it. So be all of it! This paragraph is being written after the next two. Just wanted to tellya that OsoaWeek049 is now 33 days late--but it looks like it'll get done today. Isn't that great? See ya next time. Until then, you know what to do... GET ALL OBLIVIANA! *OW* [[09049SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 281 We speak of the multiple meaning, but mancic days, whose magnificent fireworks on a videotape, a true quest, and it was mothingful. Quesfa, I ask of ya. Cellular flak, you can't dismiss the dreamworld shopping center if you want. I want it in shades of brown, I think it is like a girl's wrist collar. Wavver day is ice cold water on a hot day lamting. Speak of inherited word day camp woods calculator fun and envy. I was too peyond the all of it, I am jookli in a funny coincidence. Think of it as knoit, you ar the tremor dell. SUPERIOR 282 Noony, gimme sex. Like I said. Forget what you're thinking, it ain't a piece of clothing. So much more. Noony is my friend, she is my slave, she gives herself to me freely. Nothing mysterious. Plain. I am noble, I own her, but I have a good relationship with her. I make no threats, no promises. Sure I buy her things, buy her clothes--everyone does that, dress up your pets. But I'm not like that. I'm just joking when I say stuff like gimme sex and junk. I love Noony, but I know this is the best way. So does she. She doesn't want her freedom, and if she asked for it, I don't know what I'd do. But we like it this way, and in this time and in this place, it's the way things are, so rather than fretting, we just enjoy ourselves. But I think we might be the only ones. SUPERIOR 283 I have been of the makin to an art. You rip some crap out of the paper Xexit. Wannknow what I think? Ckess it. Let's examine that. Omminow Knether, the shopping area, we haven't labnored it yet. I remembered bolt haven the corner mazen. Underground. Gotta go. SUPERIOR 284 Bright, bright, and bright. Bad in school, what could they do with a crazyswimmer like me? Oh yes there is much in these video stores, just look, 284 titles and expanding fast. Each one you can Thurmop of Strangle Village, I give you muy pasta. Wanted to corgive youne, hanaha! let me buy you crop. No never deform timespace and dimension. Was can joy unjix the girl having fun, an infinity of it, she is in 1981. And am as I? SUPERIOR 285 On transit like a narcotic would love to f*ck North America. SUPERIOR 286 Soft doors of the summer body, predatory spice of the winter mind. SUPERIOR 287 Piarund, airport skedaddle. Line like, the decoration of carbonation. Was trinnanul was ample in the joining. Troc must trav in Rockefeller Center World. SUPERIOR 288 Writing a check, such a thing. Fond of the table games, can I have a soda. Seen the rusting of the hipness kids. Remap. Ya can reject all previous doctrine anytime at all. Make a new home for the animals. In your toolmind of the madness of hedonism, for lack of better sex drug rock. Night. You go back. Fighting, but in the end. Kinda harsh the scirocco us. *OW* [[10049IS]] Into E-mber Severe Repair [:[SVR010]:] SEVERE REPAIR E-MBER 010 by Frank Edward Nora Severe Repair RULES! Enjoy. INFORMATION: Severe Repair E-mber 010, June 29, 1995. Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement, obliviana@aol.com, 1-800-OBLIVIANA. All contents copyright 1995 Frank Edward Nora. This release is Predatorware--you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. You're Prey unless you get a Predator Deed for this release. Contact us for more on this concept. You can cancel or subscribe to this E-mber anytime, via E-mail. *OW* [[11049SR]] Severe Repair SEVERE REPAIR 49: "The Pedestrian Bride" Dizappacha was 21 and a petite young woman. She wore a blue shirt, a multicolored tie, and a man's sport jacket, black. Below, she had a schoolgirl-style skirt going down to mid-calf, a black-and-gray checkerboard design. Her hair was a soft blue-green, dark, and it hung full of body halfway down her back. On her feet here a pair of black basketball sneakers. She was walking down Rillekon's Road. Alone. No money. No stuff. Until recently, she had been a member of Streamlike Lodge--an exciting young startup company which took over a building and converted it into a plethora of "Atmosphere Suites"--rooms stuffed to the gills with sound, lighting, scenting, visuals, theming construction, and the like, all meant to create certain atmosphere. As well, there were "cast members" in costume and in character all the time while in the rooms. The net result of this was quite effective. People who entered the suites were quickly drawn into the created situation. Only problem was, the whole venture had to make money, and this was where they ran into a little trouble. Renting the suites was rather expensive, but with a group of people chipping in, it might not be so bad. Streamlike Lodge pitched the Atmosphere Suite service in a variety of way--as a place to take a date, hang out with your friends, have company meetings or entertain client, and the like. Each suite had different sorts of diversions. Some, like the Perfect Family Home, had a den complete with TV and stereo stocked with vintage content, plus "Mom" to bring you snacks, and brothers and sisters to play boardgames with. Another, called "Opium", offered a smoky (non-narcotic) exotic dance and gambling environment--a real popular one to bring a client to in business. Dizappacha danced in this one, till she caught the drift that there was some real prostitution going on. Then she high-tailed it outta there. "Shelter" recreated a cozy little cabin in the woods with a variety of natural disaster going on outside, like hurricanes and blizzards. Complete with roaring fire, this was a popular one for dates. But the cost of operating Streamlike Lodge was sky high, and they were barely keeping their heads above water. Still, it was a unique concept, and they were getting a lot of press, so the founders all hung on, though they were losing their shirts. Dizappacha had a small equity stake--her boyfriend had been one of the founders--but they broke up. It was mostly amiable. He started cheating and she didn't care all that much. She realized she didn't want to be with him anymore. But then the whole thing with Injure Bodoni started. He was also one of the founders, and a real techno nerd kinda guy. Basically, he started obsessing on Dizappacha after she broke up with Larry Jonx, thinking it was his chance to date her. He wasn't all that blatant about it, and that was the problem. He'd talk to her, but avoid eye contact, and sort of shuffle off in the middle of a conversation for no reason. Typical loser, Dizappacha thought. She was wrong, though. Injure Bodoni was the guy who had the original idea for Streamlike Lodge. But it was really esoteric, and involved people going into some sort of meditative state in the suites, in order to try and transfer their minds to some other universe. Well, Injure's friends thought it was a cool idea making all these different Atmosphere Suites, but they didn't really get the whole new age aspect. They had nothing against Injure experimenting, but they decided that promoting the venture as a place to go and meditate and maybe drift off into another world was not the best marketing angle. There was one Suite that was Injure's brainchild--"Maximum Ice". It was themed as a barren, Arctic, night with a sky full of brilliant stars. But the incongruent part was this highway running through the wasteland. It seemed kind of out of place. People rented Maximum Ice, but nowhere near as often as some of the others. Injure spent a lot of time in there, constantly making refinements, sometimes at an insanely meticulous level, like moving a star a few millimeters, rearranging the fake snow, fixing the letter spacing on the signs on the highway. Everyone thought he was nuts. Dizappacha took pity on Injure. She saw how hard he was working and how sexually frustrated he was, still a virgin at 24. She wasn't thinking of starting a relationship with him--she didn't find him attractive in the least--but rather, she felt that maybe she could steer him in the right direction, make him less nervous around girls, maybe even coach him a little on dating etiquette. Of course, this just frustrated Injure more. He wasn't interested in any other women except Dizappacha. And soon, Dizappacha came to regret getting closer to Injure. Cuz he starting using some kind of magic or psychic powers on her, and she wound up getting too deep into Injure's bizarre sphere of activity. It started with the dreams--of her and Injure travelling to wonderful places across time and space. At first the dreams were thrilling, but as the days wore on, the dreams took on a darker, more sexual tone. And in real life, Dizappacha acquiesced to Injure's desire for her to start meditating with him in Maximum Ice. And once she started with this, Injure really started to hit her with the whammy. And before she knew it, she was in bed with the novice love maker Injure, leading him by the hand through the simplest of sexual activities. She realized that something was wrong, that Injure was exercising some sort of supernatural control over her, but she liked it. She figured that maybe Injure was MAKING her like it, but she didn't care. She knew then that Injure was a real genius, far ahead of his time. And she wanted to be part of his world. Her friends were concerned, though, and they kept after her about this weirdo Injure. What did she see in him? Her explanations came out like gibberish. "Genius in a cosmic sense", "Innovative meditation guru", "Boundary-wrecking super man", stuff like that. Then Streamlike Lodge started to have real financial problems, and there was talk of shutting down. But it was just talk at that point. Then one night she was meditating with Injure, when all of a sudden she found herself on the highway in Maximum Ice. Not the miniature from the suite, but a full-sized, honest-to-goodness highway. Exactly like the one Injure had so precisely modeled. She'd been working in the "Brandylake Times" suite, and was still wearing her business suit/skirt costume. (BT was a kind of nostalgic newspaper office at the edge of an idyllic lake). Looking around, Dizappacha saw that she was in the middle of a vast, snowy wasteland. And she was starting to get real cold, real fast. She yelled for Injure, but there was no response. And her voice echoed in an unsettling way. Nothing to do but start walking. Which way, though? Injure had often spoke of Rillekon's Road--a highway that passes through the massive States of Reality. In the Suite diorama, the road was built in false perspective--getting smaller and smaller the closer it got to the wall. Going the other way, the road got bigger and bigger, till it got obscured by a scale model snowhill. But from here, both ways stretched off equally into the aching waste. And Dizappacha was starting to come to her senses--here, she was no longer under the influence of Injure Bodoni. And she started to see what a fool he had made of her. So she headed toward where the wall would be, toward where the scale model road departed into infinity. It made sense to Dizappacha to move away from Injure, no matter the level of abstractness. She took the first of many steps down Rillekon's Road. * * * Prince Ferrajalt awoke with a shocking buzz in his mind. It was dark in his room in Deep Violt Junior, and Lunatether was in a deep sleep beside him. His eyes were wide open, and his brain was trying to grasp the nature of the mental shockwave now assaulting him. It was a plaintive, crying, primal signal. He shook his head, but he couldn't diminish the intensity of the wave. He took a deep breath and sat up, being careful not to wake up Lunatether. He closed his eyes and shook his head again, but it was no use. Then he got a strong feeling that whatever was doing this too him was outside. He stared at the window and then over at the clock. 3:40 AM. Then he quietly slipped out of bed, and as he did, he summoned forth some superstrength, just in case. Naked, he threw on some sweat pants and a T-shirt and then carefully approached the window. Looking to the street below, he saw it. Whale. Whale! His tock hound--little Whale--all grown up now. He locked eyes with the beast and he was overcome with emotion. The animal looked so happy to see him--happy enough to cry tears of joy if it were able. And Ferrajalt realized that since Whale was imprinted with him, he could serve no other. It seemed so pathetic and heart-wrenching-the poor dog wandering the streams of time seeking his long-lost master. The psychic pressure vanished, and was filled with an urgent sort of suggestion to go travel through time. He smiled. But then--what if Whale had come along with Hilltop Jone Rallity and her tock hound, Jilt? The adrenaline surged, and Ferrajalt felt a lump in his throat. The prospect of seeing Hilltop again... He looked over at Lunatether and felt so confused--would he now abandon her, as he did Hilltop before? Or--he wasn't romantically involved with Hilltop, so... And then he thought of Martha, his secret girlfriend at the Hay-Hengren Seaside back home. Something about her--no--wait a second. Something about her, similar to... to Lunatether. In personality... the way she walked... talked... No. No way. Lunatether was Martha? If Ferrajalt left Lunatether now, would she really seek him out in the past and try to get him that way? He narrowed his eyes as he glared at Lunatether's snoozing form. Yes. It seemed to ring true. And the more he thought about it, the more it clicked. The Martha of his past was this Lunatether in the future. He was sure of it. He looked back at Whale and tried to psychically inform the beast that he'd be down soon. He set about silently getting dressed, and he thought--Whale and Lunatether, two artificial constructs questing after his affections through time and space. He should he have to put up with all this? "Is anything wrong?" Lunatether suddenly said. He froze. "No." he said. Then, "Yes." "What is it?" she said groggily. He hesitated, then said "Whale has come for me." Lunatether sat up in the bed and frowned. "Yeah?" "Yeah." She looked him in the eyes and could tell immediately that something was wrong. "What is it?" she asked in a tone of dread. "Does the name... does the name Martha mean anything to you?" She bit her lip and looked down. "I guess it had to happen sooner or later." she said. "What?" "That you'd figure it out." "Figure what out?" She looked at him with those wide Hilltop eyes. "That I was Martha Henruletta." "What?" Ferrajalt said tersely. "I thought you just said if Martha meant..." "I did--it's just... I don't know." "What?" "I thought it was... I don't know. I mean, I thought it was something that would happen in the FUTURE, cuz..." "...you were planning on leaving me tonight." She said those words very mechanically, but tears started to well up in her eyes. And Ferrajalt, himself, began to cry also. He threw down the pants he'd been having trouble getting on and went to Lunatether, taking her in his arms. "Yes." he said, through his tears. "I want to tell you the truth. I was thinking of going." Lunatether burst into uncontrollable bawling, and she squeezed Ferrajalt as tight as she could. "I... I... I've never felt... so human..." Lunatether said. "I love you... thank you so much for helping me be human..." Ferrajalt felt horrible. Just a few minutes earlier, he was thinking of just abandoning this precious lover. How could he? How could he. After a little while. They both started sniffling, and Ferrajalt held Lunatether by her upper arms. "Look at me, Luna." She did. "I want to go home. I just... I can't get it out of my mind. What must be happening there. I have to go back." "Can't you wait for when we get Deep Violt C?" "I... that's gonna take weeks--months! I can't wait. Look--now that Whale is here I was... I think I might want to go back to the future and get to Walker Fantive. He can get me home." Lunatether's expression turned from tired to angry. "Wait a minute. If Whale is here, then Rallity can't be far behind!" "I thought of that." he said. She narrowed her eyes. "You love her and not me." "That's not true." "I think it is. I know what signs to look for to read people's emotions and detect lies. I've known for a long time, but I've been in denial. I always thought that with her body, I could make you love me. Now I see that that's impossible. I'll never be anything more than a machine to you." "Luna, that's now true!" Ferrajalt said, then he laughed a little, since Lunatether was giving him a "truth-detection" glare. "Come on! It's not!" "Ferrajalt, I love you. What I did at Hay-Hengren--I did it to get to know you better. You're a very complex person, but I think I know you. And the one thing you want more than anything, deep, deep down, is to be king." "That's not true." "And the reason you want to go back--you don't want to jeopardize your succession." "No." "And another thing, Prince--you can't face the truth." "That's not..." "I thought I could change you. But I guess it's a lost cause." "No!" "When you made love to me as Martha--you were making love to Hilltop's body, you know." "What!?" "The garter I wore--the yellow one? It was a disguise mesver. It made me look different, but I had the Hilltop body all along." "Huh?" "Let me show you." She leaned over and rummaged around inside a knapsack on the floor next to the bed. Soon, she got back up and showed Ferrajalt the garter. "Now watch." She put the garter on, and in a matter of seconds her form blurred and shuddered, only to come back into stability and focus as Martha Henruletta. "I'll be damned..." Ferrajalt said. "I don't want to be a princess--I just want to show you love." Lunatether said in a mocking way. Ferrajalt shook his head. "I don't know about any of this." "This what?" "All this... all these choices..." "Tell you what," Lunatether said, removing the garter and returning to her normal self, "I'll take you up on your previous offer. Go home with Whale. Me and Carroll can carry out the plot. And once we get the deed and keys, the first door I open will be to your quarters in the palace." Ferrajalt nodded thoughtfully. "Okay." "But may I ask one more thing of you?" "What." "Make love to me once more, before you go?" "Now?" "I want to remember it--remember YOU--as accurately as possible." "Well, I GUESS I could do it..." [:[END]:] *OW* [[END049OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----