|| -------- -- -----  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 089--4/5/96 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 7  ||  -------> (Cup OWis089, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [[BEGIN089OW]] [[01089CV]] * * * O S O A W E E K 0 8 9 * * * April 5, 1996 "The weekly ezine of Obliviana Super Occult Amusement!" by Frank Edward Nora CONTENTS 01 089 CV--Cover 02 089 LA--Lord of Obliviana 03 089 NH--Nihilistica 04 089 HR--Hemisinister Review 05 089 FW Fonosta World 06 089 SU--Superior 07 089 SA--Severe Repair Almanac OsoaWeek089, April 5, 1996 11th issue of OsoaWeek Book Seven Written by Frank Edward Nora Published weekly by Obliviana Super Occult Amusement (E-mail address in transition) 1-800-OBLIVIANA http://www.obliviana.com/~osoa All contents copyright 1996 Frank Edward Nora Regarding this file, you are free to make digital copies, so long as they're not altered or sold. All other forms of reproduction require permission. An Obliviana Cup containing this file will be available. Stay tuned for more details. ASCII Characters: 58743 / Words: 10294 / Lines: 1346 Days late: 0 *OW* [[02089LA]] Lord of Obliviana Sun 3/31/96 * 10:15 PM * home * Tarb 3678 Obliviana the game is gonna begin in 26 days, time enough to get it going, but not if I drag my feet, and I'm very prone to do just that. Almost April... and the winter is over... and I am refreshed and I am standing here at a new dawn and I am overlooking the 1996 that is coming. Going to bed soon. I have changed a little. I used to always get overwhelmed by emotion on Sundays. But today I wasn't, even though I pored over thousands of papers and objects from my past in the garage attic. I don't know. I've been trying to change. Now that I am changed, I guess I'm kinda worried about it. Haha, there you go, more of what it means to be human. Such an appetite for change... and so little stomach for the thing... 26 days. And I feel confused now, here. Think I'm gonna hafta change some more to be able to conceive of the responsibility of running an Internet game. Y'know, that's just it... there's some aspect here that I'm overlooking... something that will both make the game easier for me to run, simpler, and more compelling. But what is it? The extreme would be having no control over your Fonosta, but that doesn't make much sense. I mean, pay $13 dollars and spend the 13 weeks watching your Fonosta mature... Just had an urge to floss my teeth. I think if I really do it, the urge will go away, as it is a rather unpleasant thing. Here goes. Hmm... just watching your Fonosta... hmm... I think I might have something here. I mean, I was planning on having players submit a rather detailed list of moves for each week... but now I think that even that might be a little too interactive... there could a standing orders... thing for the Fonosta to do every week... and watching your Fonosta would be like caring for and nurturing a plant... making little adjustments here and there... and enjoying the slow progress over time... So folks COULD make moves every week, but it wouldn't be absolutely necessary... or maybe a lot of players would just make minor modifications to their orders each week... Limited interaction. That's where it's at. And I now plan on allowing individuals to have multiple Fonostas. It's impractical to try and prevent this... I mean, a different E-mail address is the easiest thing in the world to create, on AOL for example. As long as each one is paid for and it doesn't upset the game balance. Yeah, that's the right idea. Good night. Mon 4/1/96 * 7:25 AM * Amtrak * Tarb 3680 I was thinking about continuing some of my Halfevil Graphics minicomics. In the garage attic, I ran across tons of extra photocopies of HG minicomics... and it got me to thinking... about producing new issues in the same format... Imagine an issue 6 of "Franx Comix", or a new issue of "Zope's Big Atomic Party", or even an issue 2 of "Wonderful Reality Show"... These titles probably don't mean much to you. Or they might... cuz I intend to eventually digitize all of my minicomics... You know, I won the award for worst minicomic of the year. It was from "Tim Corrigan's Small Press Comics Explosion"... I guess it was 1986... what won was ANYTHING from Halfevil Graphics. I think I got 2 votes. That was more than anything else. We're not talking the Academy Awards here. Anyway, he also gave me the "Golden Lemon" award in one issue for the worst minicomic, for "Zope's Big Atomic Party" #1. For a long time, I was producing a new minicomic every week. I guess the weekly issues started on June 7, 1986 and continued on till sometime in '87... let me check the list on HG pubs in OsoaWeek004... Okay. It looks like weekly publishing began in July, and last all the way through January. In February I published Anything But Monday #5. At the end of the month, I started going out with Erin. And in the next few months, I ran as Mike Massotto's running mate for Student President of Drew University. January 1987 was the time of Little Frankie Nora (my music), and The Evil Farm (my movie). It was quite a time... Back to the present. Huh, maybe I don't like the present as much as an idealized past. Ten years ago I had wonderful experiences and did wonderful things. But I was messed-up. I was totally immature and socially awkward. And I went through a lot of hell because of that. In remembering those times, I emphasize the good and blur the bad. I hold my own past in an almost mythic reverence. I'm fascinated by the prospect of studying my own past. While cleaning up, I found a number of checks, and I found it fascinating to see how my signature has changed over the years. So I guess I am totally self-absorbed. One comment that comes to mind is that I'm the most interesting person I know. I remember when I was a kid, when other kids picked on me or whatever, my mother would say something like "you're too smart for them" or something. I remember feeling very alienated in my early adolescence, calling regular people "normals" and believing myself to be a superhuman entity. My great triumph has been, it seems, in becoming a "normal" myself. Would the me of ten years ago be shocked if he saw the me of today? I wonder. I think it would have been too much to bear. I just imagined what it would be like if I saw a 38-year-old Frank Edward Nora in 2006, still struggling, still seeking his core endeavor... and I can't abide such a vision... Huh. The possibility of that happening... I cannot conceive of it... of remaining in this rut for another ten years... no way... I gotta launch Obliviana NOW, for better or for worse... I'm revealing a lot about myself. But I can, cuz I don't have all that much to hide. I've always liked myself and been comfortable with myself, except maybe with my body, which has always been somewhat troubling to me, but not too much. Anyway, I am aware that it's dreary for you to have to read about how I feel that I myself am such a wonderful mystery. But maybe in such a self-analysis, you can see a reflection of your own plight... "Dreary". A funny story... when I used to be on America Online, my name was Obliviana... and this often resulted in folks thinking I was a girl... so one time I changed my profile a little and went into one of the lesbian rooms, hoping to have cybersex with another "girl", fearing in the back of my mind that I'd probably wind up having sex with another guy, both of us posing as girls. And what would that mean? Anyway, the crap never held my attention long enough to achieve cybersex, but I did attract a weird man and woman who were looking for a girl to share... and they propositioned me... and I guess... I think I told them it was just a company name or something and we started flaming each other, and the guy said he KNEW I was a girl cuz I used the word "dreary", and only a girl would use that word. Well, I don't know about that, but I don't care about sounding like a girl. I mean, in order to write Severe Repair, with so many female characters, I DO have to sound like a girl. Ah, what the hell. Where am I going with this? I don't know. Obliviana is a solitary thing. Right now, I am the sole creator and audience for it. I mean, my idea is that everything I write in OsoaWeek will EVENTUALLY be read, once Obliviana gets big. It better get big, or I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life... Yeah, I assume that I'm facing an audience right now... the sum total of all the people who will ever read this, far on into the future. What the...? There was a sesame seed in my coffee! I wonder if this writing will be labeled as classic Generation X. I think maybe it should be. I am certainly of Generation X, and my writing, especially in "Lord of Obliviana", reveals a lot about what it means to be in Generation X. I think that this constant awareness of the importance of a work in history is characteristic of GenX. On the Beatles Anthology, John Lennon says something like "We were just four guys, we were just a band." And I think he meant it... I think they WERE just a band, and not striving for superstar status. But today... all these bands... so much megalomania... like "we're DEFINITELY gonna make it man, we're gonna be big". So much awareness of it all... and I do the same thing... envisioning my writing as something people will respect and honor by reading it far into the future... Should I "just be a guy, just be a writer"? Should I pretend to be unconcerned with becoming a superstar? I don't know if I can, cuz I'm not good at pretending. I crave recognition. I crave respect. I'm not just writing for the sake of writing, but because I think I will eventually have an audience. I want to succeed. Here's an observation... when you're alone, with no lover, and you see two people kiss, why does it feel like a stab, seeing that? Mon April 1, 1996 * 9:40 PM * home * Tarb 3683 All I have to say, I'll say here on the subject. Obliviana. The last detail, the vital detail, is about the level of interaction. And here I am. I am at the very deepest level of the Foundation of Obliviana, and it is the level of interaction that is the matter at hand. The answer here is that the interaction in Obliviana should be limited... very limited. And here is the concept, the thing which is at the heart of Obliviana. It may not be a very sexy idea, or a very shocking idea, but it is, I think, more important in its own way than anything else. And here it is... A player shall buy a Fonosta and establish it, setting it up with its basic attributes. And then, the Fonosta is set free and acts on its own. A player can sit back and watch his Fonosta for 13 weeks without any further interaction. Most likely though, a player will issue a few directives to his Fonosta every week, to guide where the thing is going. And that's it. To comment, I believe that this setup establishes the proper level of interaction for Obliviana. Having your own Fonosta who is within Obliviana makes Obliviana interesting to you. You can pop in a few times every day to catch up on what's going on. See, eventually Obliviana will be updated on a constant basis, something which won't be possible at first. You might compare a Fonosta to an intelligent agent, as in that Magic Cap thingamajig, but I don't think the comparison is justified. I mean, Fonostas exist solely in the realm of Obliviana, and are not really programmed, so much as given schedules of what to do during the course of a week. So the vision... plan your strategy, set it up, then sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. Reach out and adjust the setting now and then, but otherwise, plant the seed baby, and thrill to the sproutings. Yeah. So there it is, the core of it all. Now I have to make it a reality. Actually, now I have to watch Episode 18 of Murder One, far and above my favorite TV show at the moment. But yeah, I gotta make this all reality soon. And with the core in place, the core that is the last piece of the puzzle, it's only a matter of time... 10:48 PM I was just pissing and I realized that I always feel like I'm making history. Could it be that I'm just a pathetic little fool, duping myself into believing that Obliviana is something of value? Could it be that Obliviana is just something that a sick mind is using to amuse itself? Or is it that this sort of self-doubt and self-analysis "looks good"--that I come of better--to myself and to you--for writing it down and thinking it? Why am I so self-absorbed? Is it because I'm mentally ill, or is it because I really am in possession of a great mind? Wow. That was some paragraph. More self-reference. Well, I guess I just wanted to insert this little bit of self-doubt, perhaps just in case I don't turn out to be the success I see myself becoming. Or maybe... it's to insure that if nothing else, I am creating great literature... Murder One will be back on soon. One of the themes of the show is that you don't know whether Richard Cross is really nuts, or just manipulating people with an incredible act. I know that I am not putting on an act... but still, I have to remain lucid about this whole thing. Am I really at the dawn of something wonderful, or is this dawn just another construct of a sick mind? The answer in a few minutes. 11:03 PM Yeah, here I am. I don't know why I wrote all that. Except... it IS what I was thinking. But why am I thinking it? I guess my whole endeavor... is just so strange... and I AM a rational person... so I have to analyze myself--if I didn't, then I might really be crazy. I guess above all it's the lack of feedback I'm getting. I'm kinda working in a vacuum here. Man, I just pissed again. It reminds me of another time I was pissing a lot... and a theory about it... At Drew University, there was this girl, Noel Rosenfeld. She handed me the first beer I ever drank. I found this weird piece of green metal in the cafe in the University Center... and one time I showed it to her and she kept bending it, back and forth, but it didn't break... afterward I used "telemetry", the psychic art of getting impressions from objects, to read an image I felt that she had imprinted on the thing... see, for some reason I had this idea that she had this thing with werewolves... maybe thought she was one... it was probably from things she or someone else said... in fact, what else could it have been? Anyway, the image I got was of her in werewolf form, and she was biting my penis, in a very violent act... I mentioned this vision to her later, but I don't remember what her reaction was. So, at some other point, I was in her room... it could have been a humid morning or afternoon, and I was talking to her... maybe about weird stuff... and I had to piss so bad... way out of proportion with anything I had drank... and I theorized that with water one of the four basic elements... along with earth, fire and air... that some mystical thing was going on, causing an imbalance in the elements, causing an excess of water in me... I was into the supernatural in a big way... Noel and Bryan Cassidy were playing mind games with me... I remember one time in the Tolley-Brown Lounge they said that they were these supernatural beings visiting me... I guess I was imprisoned in some way... they described some sort of alternate world... a grassy hill with a palace or something on the top... and something about some other guy... a guy who spoke Latvian... and Bryan referred to Superman III, where Richard Pryor broke into a computer system, and stole all the portions of cents which were rounded off, but which still added up to millions of dollars... he said the whole thing related to something like that... and then he said it also related to the comic book "The Phantom Stranger". I think it was just college kids fooling around... I was so weird and out of it, I guess I was an irresistible target... and Bryan had the hots for Noel... I remember he told me once how he confronted her once and asked if she could "share his affections" or something, which she didn't. So maybe he was just doing it to be able to form some connection with him... In the comedy video I made with Mike Massotto in the Fall of 1986, "Weird University", I created a character for myself, an interviewer, named "Iggy Szalzo". I guess the Iggy part was from Iggy Pop, who did the theme song to Repo Man... and the Szalzo part was definitely from the Doctor Who movie I made in the summer of 1985, written by my friend Jim Glynn ( the guy who reluctantly saved me and my brother when my parents' BMW 2002, which I was driving, broke down on the fateful day of June 6, 1986, the day before the start of Halfevil Graphics, a day I associated with the number of the beast, 666). Anyway, Noel's boyfriend was this guy Tim Archdeacon... I remember one time I saw him on campus and started talking to him, and he said something like "get the fuck away from me" or something... and one time I remember Noel asking me why I had chosen the name Iggy. See, Tim's nickname was "Iggy Wizard". And... I remember seeing Noel and this girl Denise Amrich by the University Center... long after my birthday in 1986, October 3, where I admitted to Denise that I had feelings for her, and when she blew me off... much the same as Bryan had been blown off by Noel... this is referred to in "The Story" (see OsoaWeek018), when I wrote something like "I blew up". (((4/5/96 now--here's the paragraph I referred to: "Now it is after the fact. On my birthday I blew up. My feeling for the she created so much pressure that my shelter exploded. It all led up to that. Now I feel better, but I'm still struggling. The struggling never ends. It may stop, but it never ends. Now I am somewhere else. The movie is finished, but split Anything But Monday, so I will pick it up and mend it."))) Me and Denise were "special friends", meaning that I desperately wanted to fuck her, but she just wanted to be my friend. It was Mike Massotto that she was really after... though I can't say she was friends with me just to get to him... but one time she did beg Mike to fuck her and she did... I remember I was making up the Nomadi language with Mike, and we had this word, "pozzcone", which meant "good friend", and she considered me her pozzcone... but after I told her my feelings, I don't think we were really pozzcones anymore... but that's the way I preferred it... I've never liked being a special friend to a girl I wanted to fuck. Yeah, those were interesting times. And I realize all this sounds weird, and you know I have a powerful imagination, but all of this stuff is 100% true... or at least, 100% the way I remember it. I had such strange experiences at Drew... I remember as a freshman... on the first day... some guys on Brown 2nd offered me a beer, but I held up an issue of "The New Mutants" and said, trying to be funny I guess, "I don't think that my heroes, The New Mutants, would approve of that." Funny, since those characters probably WOULD have approved of it. See, I was terribly indoctrinated against drugs and alcohol by my parents. I remember my father saying once that if he ever found out one of his kids took drugs, he'd beat the hell out of them. And he wasn't a violent guy, so hearing that was pretty impressive. Anyway, another incident with my friends on the floor, they got me to do shot after shot of vodka, and I eventually puked my guts out outside... But the incident I was thinking of was outside the suites, and I was a little drunk, and they said they were gonna get me laid, and I kept saying "I'm not ready for it, I'm not ready for it." What can I say? I was a fucking mess. It wasn't until a year later that I finally got a girlfriend... I think I've written about this before in OsoaWeek, but I'll go into it again... See, as I said, I really liked Denise, but she liked Mike, and Mike liked this girl down the hall... I remember that she was pretty short, and Mike told me once how cool it would be to fuck such a small girl... anyway, this girl, I forget her name, had a boyfriend and resisted Mike's advances... I remember he even sent her flowers and shit. So I looked at this situation, at all this unrequited love, and figured that if this system was consistent, there must be some girl out there who really liked me, but who I wasn't interested in. So, I figured, I'll just go out with her! That girl was Ilana Bassman. Our courtship was painfully drawn out... I remember lying in my loft, talking to her about "X", which was the possibility of us becoming boyfriend and girlfriend... I was so fucked-up, I couldn't even name the thing... but eventually, it did happen... I was with her at the cafe at the UC, and then I had to go down to the A/V center to edit Weird University... and she came to see me... and it was just us there, me editing... and she put her foot up against my leg and kneaded it back and forth... and eventually, we kissed... I think it was November 10, 1986, cuz I remember that on 11/11/86, me and Bryan Cassidy had our first experience of "zoning", which I know I've referred to before, where we wound up at that haunted music store and stuff... it was the first day of school... the same day I rejected the beer, that I was walking to a barbecue and heard Bryan, who I had never met, say to someone that he was interested in the secrets of the universe... and I started talking to him, and I found out that he lived in Tolley 209, while I lived in Brown 209... and so 209 was born... I only went out with Ilana till January break, when she went to Israel, and when we got back in February 1987, it was so funny... neither of us sought the other out... That February... haha... I remember threatening reality at large that I would destroy it if I didn't get a new girlfriend by the end of the month... I remember actually attempting the first stage of destroying the universe... I remember it... like knocking out support pillar at the base of something... I actually thought I could do it... Well, whatever the fuck was going on, it worked, and right at the end of February, if I remember correctly, I started going out with Erin Foley, a relationship which lasted well over a year... yeah... I remember that summer we used to go to Drew with two sleeping bags zipped together, and we used to go up to a field in the Arboretum and make love... All this, and I didn't even mention the "Demon Wars" as I called them... which lasted from February 1986 to May 1986... the most compelling supernatural experience I've ever had... and which I refer to in my "resume" in OsoaWeek021. Yeah, those were magical times. Also in February 1986 I created Zope and I started the Anything But Monday radio show with Mike Massotto. Okay. So you have a glimpse of the past that I hold in such reverence. It was fucking INTERESTING. And I still have a lot of unanswered questions about it... And another one, in May of 1988, where I wound up making out with two girls at once... I wonder if I ever expounded on that in OsoaWeek... may as well, I guess... ah, I don't have the energy right now... but let me tell you, it's an experience I still masturbate to sometimes... So the whole point here... about me idolizing my own past... I think it is WORTHY of being revered... and if I am self-centered, it's because I AM so interesting... in a way that maybe up till now I've been the only person to really be familiar with... Now I'm thinking autobiography... haha, with that, how can I deny being self-centered? Hmm... see, the thing is, I was a miserable weird nerd, obsessed with the occult and all messed-up... but I've managed to grow up, to rise above that state... and now I sit here and look back on everything, and it's just really amazingly fascinating, y'know? Wow. If I wrote a book about all those experiences... all of them... all the stuff I've mentioned here, plus the whole ABM thing, plus the whole Demon Wars thing, plus my whole time of loserdom in the early '90s... there's definitely a book in it. If you've been reading OsoaWeek and these Lord of Obliviana sections, you can see that my life is STILL pretty fucking interesting. I mean, this whole Chemistry thing that just happened, in the past six months or so... it's a supernatural, sexual kind of thing on par with stuff from my Drew days... only with no sex... but then again, that was college... So I think that my feeling that I am always making history is justified... I am not crazy, and this whole thing is not the offspring of a sick mind... I really am worthy of attention to futurians, the definition of making history... No, I am not crazy. So what am I saying, "I am great"? Ah, no one wants to say that, right? Well, Oasis does, but they're a British rock band. Anyway, I guess I am saying that I'm great. But in order to prove it, I have to succeed in the marketplace. And that's just what I plan to do. All in all, an amazing diatribe... Tue April 2, 1996 * 7:30 AM * Amtrak * Tarb 3686 Doing that routine again... shuttle bus... large decaf and cinnamon roll... last car of the train... waiting till New Brunswick to eat the roll... Comforting. At En-Route, the PJ station coffee shop, where I get the roll and coffee every morning, they sometimes, when it's very busy, have a pile of money on the counter, where you pay and make your own change. I know my roll and coffee is $2.40, so I tossed a five on the pile, and took back two singles, two quarters, and a dime. As I was doing this, I realized that nothing was compelling me to pay the right amount except for my honesty. I could easily have tossed a dollar onto the pile and taken 75 cents back in change and they wouldn't have been any the wiser. But I'm honest, and I wouldn't do that. Part of honesty is a sense of right and wrong, a feeling. But another part of it is common sense. At En-Route, if people DID underpay consistently, the system of having the big pile of money would be swiftly abandoned. But think about it... it speeds things up without costing the place more money, which they'd have to pass on to their customers, right? So it is in my own self-interest to be honest, in addition to the desire to do what's right. It's amazing that such a system DOES work. I mean, all it would take, out of the hundreds, maybe thousands of people who pass through there every morning, all it would take would be a few bad people, and it wouldn't work. But clearly, the people who go there on their way to work are GOOD people. People who make the long journey into New York every single day, to work and earn money to live and support their families. Honesty, hard work, responsibility... all these things go hand-in-hand. It's kinda terribly how such terms... honesty, hard work, responsibility... have become cliches, weary parodies of themselves. What could be more uncool than telling someone to work hard, be honest, and take responsibility for their actions? What is the rhetoric of today? Be yourself, follow your heart, do what you think is right, don't let anyone else tell you what to do or think, pursue that which is enjoyable. Well, these concepts would work fine if they were directed at mature, educated, able people. But they're not. These slogans are aimed at kids... individuals who are by nature irresponsible, capricious, selfish, unskilled, and undereducated. These are not people who are going to benefit from the admonishment to "follow your own path". What they'd benefit from is following a disciplined course until they are grown up, educated, and employed. THEN people should follow their hearts. Cuz the inevitable end of ones own heart-guided path, for most young people, is back to live with their parents, unable to support themselves, and with no direction. Now in Generation X, it's cool to be a loser. And I have even adopted that sort of stance. But it's like, here we all are in this predicament--we were all crippled by the liberal sewage rhetoric spouted by well-meaning but foolish teachers and parents in the '70s. There's no way to turn things around for this generation. So we may as well have some fun with our failure, for which we should take some, but certainly not all, of the blame. Young people don't make very good decisions. There--that is the key to so many secrets. Young people are inexperienced, unwise, idealistic to the point of losing touch with reality, and lost in the haze of hormones. To put it wholly upon their shoulders to make the vital decisions of their lives... is to condemn most of them to spending their twenties in their parents' basement. And this also applies to abortion... the idea of "choice"... choices made by girls barely out of childhood, certainly not making the choice based on some deep campaign of moral thought. They make the choice based on what they see around them, on what's acceptable, on what they hear about abortion on TV. So the very campaign which supports choice is also promoting the choice of YES to abortion, through its convoluted moral reasoning. How many people say "I'm pro-choice, but I beg women not to get abortions, I beg them to keep the child no matter what"? Not many. Most assert, through implication if not outright statement, that having an abortion is no big deal. And THAT is the problem with the pro-choice movement... the fact that pro-choice and pro-ABORTION are inseparable. Society tells us what is right and what is wrong. It can tell us that it's okay to buy and sell black people as slaves, it can tell us it's okay to slaughter millions of Jews, it can tell us that women shouldn't be able to vote, and it can tell us that abortion is okay. So the "choice" is something that is made possible only by the championing of a rotten, evil idea. Abortion is morally inconceivable to many people. As inconceivable as... as this... say you have a baby but you don't want to care for it anymore... well, you can stick it in the oven and have it for dinner... now THAT is morally inconceivable to everyone (let's hope)... and if you're a supporter of abortion right, understand that as repulsed you are by the idea of cannibalizing a baby, that is how repulsed a great many people are by the concept of abortion... it's just so wildly evil as to be impossible to embrace as a concept... but it is embraced... like slavery, like killing the Jews, like all that... And the fucked-up thing about all this, is that the horror and mayhem of abortion is championed just so that irresponsible, capricious young people can have casual sex without the fear of any repercussions. You know the way it goes. A girl "screws up", has unprotected sex with a guy, get pregnant, and seeks abortions to that she doesn't "ruin her life" by having a baby. That's the dogma. Having a baby ruins your life. But of course, you have to have unprotected sex, cuz I guess not having it would also ruin your life. When you have sex, protected or not, you're running the risk of pregnancy. Then you have to choose between "ruining your life" and killing your own baby. So that's what sex out of wedlock, sex for pleasure leads to... between a rock and a hard place... and yet people condemn religion for suggesting that you shouldn't have sex before marriage. Ha! If folks followed the basic Christian rules about sex, guess what? There would be NO AIDS and very few abortions. Now I am fully aware of the dynamic between the ideal and the real. These ideals I'm talking about, they were never followed to the letter. Every ideal is strayed away from to some degree... so the strict rules of no sex before marriage and all that, folks still has sex before marriage, but just no SO MUCH and not SO FLAGRANTLY. Shift the moral guidepost to where it is now, and just about ANYTHING goes. But people just don't get it. When you set the speed limit to 55, folks'll go 65 no problem, but they don't usually go 85 or 95. It's the same with morality. Overly strict rules help keep people in the general vicinity of virtue, which is usually good enough in the real world. But now, we aren't in that general vicinity at all. An the end result of all this questing after pleasure is inevitably pain. Tue 4/2/96 * 6:42 PM * Amtrak * Tarb 3689 I have decided that players will be able to run multiple Fonostas. One Fonosta will be inexpensive, and there will be package deals for multiple Fonostas. One problem here is, since each Fonosta is individually named and numbered, what will be the unifying aspect among all of a single player's Fonostas? In other words, how will Fonostas be connected to their owners? Before, when it was one Fonosta per person, the connection was easy. But now... I will also allow Fonostas to be run by groups, organizations, companies, whatever. The main rules are that Fonostas must be paid for prior to the beginning of each Trick Sojourn, and each Fonosta must have an active E-mail address connected to it. My previous idea, of one Fonosta per person, induces greater interaction, and more work all around. A Fonosta is no longer your personal avatar, but more like a racehorse or showdog. So then, is there to be a player avatar object in Obliviana? No. How that'll be handled is, a player can choose one Fonosta to focus his efforts on, with his other Fonostas working for the central one, hence the central Fonosta becoming the de facto player avatar. Wed 4/3/96 * 6:41 AM * Amtrak * Tarb 3692 Full lunar eclipse tonight, and I have two difficult questions to ask today, I have to ask my parents to loan me some money, and I have to ask a girl out. I'm kinda stressing on these two questions, but they're not that big a deal. I mean, if I get NO to both, I'll still be okay. If I get YES to either, it'll be pretty cool. And if I get YES to both, well, that'd be pretty good. I wanna get these questions over with as early as possible. I'm human, dammit, and stuff like this makes me nervous. I just wanna get it over with. The possible rewards... paying my bills... having a girlfriend... hmm... It seems like these are two issues I've been lamenting about. My messiness is another problem, but I've been making good progress on that. And Obliviana... I have to start the game this month, and I'm making good progress. So it's all connected? All these different aspects of my life? Will they all rise together? In adolescence, I was obsessed with escaping this world, with dimensional travel, time travel, magical abilities, superpowers. Now, my greatest desires are to pay my bills, clean up my apartment, have a girlfriend, and... and establish a successful company, based on my creative endeavors... In this, I think I have succeeded. I no longer seek to escape the confines of humanity; I embrace it. I LIKE being human. I like this feeling of nervousness. If I was an ultrapowerful reality traveller, what would it take to make me feel this way? I don't even wanna imagine. You might think it's just that I'm finally growing up. That all this interdimensional stuff was a crutch for young mind with so much intelligence but too little emotional strength and stability. Well, that might be nice for me to believe, but with the evidence before me, I really think there's something else going on. The idea is that in a past life I did attain great powers, and by abusing them, I lost my humanity. Here, as Frank Edward Nora, my goal was to regain the precious humanity I had lost. If this is the case, my accomplishment is far more stunning. But I don't know. I did have a difficult childhood... I was such a weird little psycho... and look at me now... Now... nervous about asking two questions... two questions which could lead to positive steps in my life... bills and romance... two things which mean a lot more to me than interdimensional travel... 7:13 AM 7:16 AM Yeah. Just thinking about everything. It's funny, but if I had just one question or the other, I think I'd be a lot more worried and nervous. But with two... each helps to blunt the other. It's like, okay I gotta ask this girl out, but I can't worry about it too much cuz I gotta ask my parents for money. And vice-versa... asking your parents for money is no big deal compared to asking a girl out... You see what I mean. Well, hopefully within the span of a few hours, both questions will be asked, and maybe answers will be had. Wed April 3, 1996 * 6:03 PM * Amtrak * Tarb 3695 I'm awfully defeated. Having to ask your parents for a loan is a defeat in itself. That they said yes is a pyric victory. I didn't ask the girl out, but it wasn't entirely because I chickened out. I don't wanna talk about now, though. I walked to Penn Station from work, about an hour's walk, smoking a Belinda I got at J-R Cigars near the WTC, which I walked to from work, smoking a Macabi. I felt weird on both walks. On the first, I felt a sense of impending failure, and on the second, the weight of failure. I still feel that weight. But, even though things are no better in my love life, they're also no worse. Yeah, I started coming up with justifications, but I'm sensitive to these, and not too fond of them. Like, maybe I avoided a really big mistake. Y'know, maybe I did. Or maybe I made a mistake. All I can say is that the shame of asking my parents for money, along with my decision not to ask the girl out... they form a unique feeling of dull defeat. Yeah. It was a weird day. I have to say that I am acting irrationally when it comes to Obliviana. I shouldn't be concerned with getting a girlfriend at this time... I should be devoting all of my efforts to Obliviana. Anyone can go out with a girl... no one but me can do Obliviana... and few could do anything similar... Still, I set out to do something, and I failed to do it. The depressed feeling I have is just a feeling... I have no regrets... I mean, I couldn't have done it any other way, considering the circumstances. It's just... just the strength of my emotions over the past few days and weeks... regarding this girl... and now... I don't walk away with a rejection, but maybe worse, I walk away with great pessimism, where there was just recently great optimism. And right now, it doesn't feel good to be human. I feels kind of bad. 6:41 PM It's clear. The sky. I don't know what time the eclipse is gonna happen, but I want to see it. But I have to say that I am avoiding the task of building Obliviana right now. Today was a big distraction. But it may have averted an even bigger distraction... going out with that girl. So once again, despite my best efforts to sabotage myself, I walk away hardly scathed. So I say this... from this moment forward, Obliviana is my #1 concern. I don't FEEL that way at the moment, but rationally, I KNOW that Obliviana must be my central priority. Why don't I feel it? Well, I think part of it is that deep down, I know the right plan. But I'm holding myself back, till I arrive at the right plan. And I am close. That much I feel. A sight I just had... staring ahead in the train car, and in my peripheral vision, the lighted platforms of Metropark streaking by... in the endgame of dusk... Looking back at my recent Lord of Oblivianas, I see them as violent rips, spatterings of rage, fissures revealing something bigger... I don't know... Yeah, I'm getting there. With Obliviana. The problem is this... at some point, I'm going to have to mount a massive creative effort to build Obliviana, based on the blueprint I have at that time. The blueprint is constantly changing. So at any given time, I'm wondering, wondering if it's the right blueprint, or if it needs to be developed a little further... Well, I have a deadline. And it's in a little over three weeks. My intention is to run a test Trick Sojourn, with a few friends. I think that still might be possible. So I have to focus on Obliviana. Thu 4/4/96 * 7:17 AM * Amtrak * Tarb 3698 The 37th Tarb Century is gonna end at 2:00 PM today. So what was the 37th TC all about? I finally started to organize my life. I had a love interest, which I really believed was gonna go somewhere, but in which I lost hope yesterday. I wrote a lot of complex, raving Lord of Oblivianas. OsoaWeek is on schedule, consistently now (something I would have thought near impossible up till recently). My financial situation looks to be improving, with my bills soon to be paid on time. Here's something I may have commented on before, but I'll go into it anyway. My dining area table was covered in bills and envelopes and all sorts of stuff, and there was an equally big pile underneath the table. It was so imposing, so fantastically complex. Until I tackled it. Until I went through every single piece of paper, and discovered that only five or six bills had any meaning any longer. And the thing was conquered. That mess was not there due to my inability to organize. It was there because I NEEDED it. I needed it to shield me from reality. If I knew how much I owed all the time, I'd feel restricted and squeezed. I needed to confuse myself, until I grew up enough to be able to handle the truth. And luckily, I have. I'm 28 years old, and I've been trying hard to grow up. I had a real bad start... first, I'm in Generation X, and our parents and teachers did all they could to shield us from any pain or discomfort when growing up. What they didn't know was that pain and discomfort are inseparable from growing up. Think about it. There's something you're too immature to handle. You try to handle it, and you wind up getting beaten to a pulp by it. That's painful, but you're now much closer to mastering the thing. Anyway, besides being Generation X, I had a built-in disparity--greater intellectual power, but a weaker emotional state. What I didn't get about high school--which is probably good in the long run--is that you endure the boredom and being lorded over by loser adults because of the promise of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. Let me tell you, I'm not into drugs at all, but if I was in high school with my current emotional state, I would DEFINITELY be into marijuana, Led Zeppelin, drinking, vandalizing, and all the rest. It all makes sense now. My emotional state was so young, that I couldn't handle anything like that. I had crushes on girls, but no means to do anything about it. My big musical breakthrough happened later on in my high school career, with band like Men at Work, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Thomas Dolby, etc.--1983, 1984, like that. At the time I graduated high school, I had never drank a drop of alcohol (except maybe some wine from my parents), never smoked, and never took any illegal drugs. It was torture going through high school without the salve of the promise of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll. I had nothing so compelling to distract me. But in retrospect, I got through it, and I'm better off for not indulging in that crap back then. See, if I had had the capacity to appreciate S/D/RR, I would certainly have indulged. But I was like an astronaut... wearing a spacesuit of childish innocence... observing the alien lifeforms around me... hiding in the library, researching the occult, writing poems, fearing a military career, fantasizing about comic books and Dr. Who... I broke out of that shell in college, but it's taken me till now to finally emerge as an adult. And what's done it more than anything else? Having a job and having to pay my own bills. You gotta do that, boy, and you GOTTA grow up. 7:43 AM Metropark. I have a place in my heart for it... gliding through it now... lived there for three years... the third one with Kerri... and I walked to the train every day... that is, the times I was employed... Weighed 214 this morning... seems to be the lowest I can get these days... I'd love to get down below 200... I'm starting to care about my appearance cuz I wanna attract chicks. I'm still avoiding Obliviana. So let me explore it now. The idea is set, that there are eight Obliviana Roadways, each containing a Core Revolver, a name, a theme, two colors, and a Fonosta style. Roadways also contain Virtual Video Games... but I'm still developing this concept... Obliviana is played in 13-week segments called Trick Sojourns. Each player has one or more Fonostas. Each Fonosta is either new, or continuing from the previous Trick Sojourn. A new Fonosta is put onto a Roadway, and it takes on the body and colors of that Roadway. A continuing Fonosta can remain on the same Roadway, and receive possible evolution in its body, or it can switch Roadways, and then take on the Colors OR the Body of the new Roadway, but not both. In this way, many exciting variations of Fonostas emerge. At the beginning of a Trick Sojourn, each Fonosta is given, by its player, a set of standing orders, detailing how that Fonosta should allocate the 42 4-hour Tarbs it has in each week. Standing orders may be changed, but at a cost of some Tarbs, meaning that if you constantly change your Fonostas' orders, they'll be less effective. In this, the player is relieved from the burden of interacting every week, and Obliviana is relieved from the burden of processing so many orders every week. This lowers the cost, and, in my opinion, heightens the enjoyment. Players can log onto Obliviana via the WWW whenever they want, and observe what's happening without the toil of having to constantly interact. So here is a vital component that I just came up with while writing the previous paragraph... the idea that modifying a Fonosta's standing orders incurs what amounts to a time penalty in the game. This is, perhaps, the final piece in the puzzle of the foundation. Now, I believe, the hard work of implementation can begin. Thu 4/4/96 * 5:55 PM * Amtrak * Tarb 3700 So, the 38th Tarb Century has begun. I leave behind me a great deal of uncertainty. Ahead, some clarity. The 38th TC has to be a time of construction... of building Obliviana. I now have the basic foundation... the idea of standing orders for Fonostas, and game penalties for changing those orders. This may not seem like a very profound idea, but I truly believe that it is. Because out of all the ways an online entertainment system can be configured, I think I've struck the best, the strongest, the most enduring model. And there are multitudes of other models out there, to be sure. The model I've developed would seem hopelessly outdated, hopelessly non-interactive to the so-called "digerati" of this day. But everyone will see, when Obliviana rises, far beyond anyone's expectations but mine... they will see that in 1996, I was right. Fri 4/5/96 * 4:47 PM * home * Tarb 3707 Half day at work today. I just paid my rent for April and got $40 worth of cigars. I was pissed-off at work today, but at a client, who everyone else there is also pissed-off at. Clarity today. Epic dream last night, about Conductor Girl (see last issue for the story of Conductor Girl). In the dream, I first sought out CG on the trains, and found her, I think. Then... I got a new job... doing scans... and when I went there, CG was there... it was a little tiny room... I was to do the first part of the scans, CG the rest... then I had, I think, my father drop me off by a shopping plaza, kind of old and run down, and I was hanging out in front of a Caldor or something (like a Wal-Mart, K-Mart, whatever). But there was a lot more, harder to remember, all different parts, where I was desperately seeking Conductor Girl. At one point, maybe as I was waking up, I thought I should just hang out at Penn Station New York for as long as it took till I ran into her--the most realistic plan I can think of in full waking consciousness, except that in full waking consciousness, I don't feel such a need to find her. I do find Conductor Girl fascinating. I'd like to have her as a friend, but I see in her such a sexual repression... I don't know... Anyway, I guess my angle would be, if I see her again, which is probable is I keep taking the trains after I move, to ask her to play Obliviana, if she had a computer. This prompts me to reconsider allowing E-mail-only playing of Obliviana. It's something I have to think about. I'm listening to the Alice in Chains EP CD "Jar of Flies"--I used to hate AIC, but now I realize that they're one of the best bands out there. I used to hate Nirvana too, a long time ago, maybe for no other reason than that they were so popular. Right now, I really hate Alanis Morrisette, but when her popularity wanes, who knows, I may like her, too. But what the heck--you can't like every band that's out there--it'd drive you nuts. You gotta pick and choose, rational or irrational, good or bad. 5:01 PM I lit up a big Casa Blanca cigar after I left A Little Taste of Cuba in Princeton, and I'm still smoking it... even after coming home, then going out again to pay my rent and deposit money at the bank. Cigars last a long time; they're with you through a long period of awareness. Maybe that's why you can consider a cigar to be something like a friend. I mentioned clarity before. I have to say that the novel "Altas Shrugged", Ayn Rand's masterwork, has helped me greatly in reconceiving myself. I know that people have this negative view of Rand, but it's gotta be related to political correctness and all that... Atlas Shrugged is the greatest indictment of liberalism I have ever encountered. So it stands to reason that the liberals would want to bad mouth it. So I have to finish this issue up. Only seven hours left before it would be late. Get all Obliviana. *OW* [[03089NH]] Nihilistica ***ALL THE PELTERSETS*** PELTERSET 1: ANCIENT EVIL Alaska, Alien, AllFalse, Blink, Brew, Brick, Congo, Cove, Crossbow, Crowd, Dane, Din, FlyOver, Glacier, Gut, Hal, Hoop, HornHat, Hotel, Infernal, Isomer, Lichen, LighterFluid, Matchbook, Neuron, OldEye, Plowshare, Racetrack, The, Uncovered, Unwelcome, Wheatfield (4 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 2: FAR OUT Bantam, Blotto, Canola, Celestial, CornOilSea, Cosmiclike, Dawnmare, Dodo, Donner, Ferris, Gush, Hullabaloo, Incursion, Initiative, Jaunt, Knight, Lady, Lens, Lost, MagicBus, Noble, Operation, Reefer, RollerCoaster, Sapient, Shroom, Stuff, Torrent, Tribulation, Trifle, TuneIn, Ultrascope (5 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 3: HARD ROCK Audrey, Booze, Calamity, Carbonize, ChainSaw, Coal, Cyber, Dean, Dorm, Engulf, Helena (was Helens), Holler, Ingot, Jangle, Jupiter, Like, Liquor, Madison, Molten, Moray, Ordnance, Ore, Peer, Pennsylvania, React, Ripsaw, Rockplace, Scramble, Seneca, Sex, Viper, Xylem (9 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 4: MODERN AGE 1983, Admission, Blackjack, ChemLab, Citation, Comb, Conditioner, DejaVu, Dorian, Foam, Frozen, Hero, Holiday, Crux (was LavaCollect), Masterful, Medicine (was Medal), Micro, Minnow, Office, Overtake, Pepper, Poppy, Scientific, Scribble, Season, Shaver, SkateShad, Spade, Spell, Starboard, Try, Weird (6 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 5: MUSEUM 1776, Abandon, Airline, Ape, Bump, CafeWall, City, Communist, Cup, Damage, Dis, Exister, Expensive, Fashion, Flake, FoolsGold, Fugue, General, Goody, GreatRace, Gulf, NovaCamo, Orient, Outback, Paperer, Pawn, Royalty, Skirt, Sluff, Softener, Tribe, Wrench (8 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 6: PEACEFUL Bermuda, Borealis, Coy, Detergent, Feminine, Flare, Flock, GodKnee, Halo, Hazy, Healers, Here, Ignite, Jethro, Last, Love, Mage, Marathon, Oceans, OddSand, Peddler, Perch, Pylon, Relax, Roller, Saturate, SherilynFenn (was SeaDay), Stage, Thermal, Titan, Uncloud, Witness (9 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 7: RUSTIC 1876, 1975, Atoll, Bishop, Cabin, Child, Columbus, Commoner, Country, Creek, EarlyAutumn, GasGiant, Halloween, Hen, Herbalist, Hierarch, Icon, Mall, Marsha (was Marsh), Moat, NewHay, Parch, Reactor, Rope, Ruin, Rust, Shift, Snicker, Stitch, Store, Vine, Zest (7 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 8: TEA PARTY Aisle, Alice, Amble, Barker, Butterscotch, Cathedral, Cream, Dust, Escalator, Fad, Florence, Gadget, GodFetus, Herkimer, Lingo, Listen, Lolly, Mock, Nanny, Newglass, Nurse, OverTheHills, Pliers, Primordial, Tiger, TowerOne, Toybox, Treats, Victoria, Wombat, Wrecker, Zany (4 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 9: CAMPUS ArtGirl, Behavior, BioLab, Bong, ChickenMouse, Creator, Destructive, Evil, GodBullet, GoodMorning, GrapeSoda, Guitar, Horny, Hut, JackDaniels, KungFu, Lisa, LSD, MusicChannel, Nerd, Occult, Parcheesi, Pussy, RedBaron, Rushmore, SopwithCamel, Tiedye, UFO, UltimateOctober, Vodka, Weapon, Youth (11 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 10: HAPPENING 1981, Ale, Aspirin, Balm, Bonnie, Caress (was Cares), Cheyenne, Classictronica, Crunch, Depress, DisasterClass, EyeFun, FoxyLady, FutureCoolBuilding, GodInHeaven, Habanero, InProgress, Learn, Morristown, NearSummer, PalaceGallivant, Phloem, Polliwog, Poly, PsychicWave, Shiva, SillyTale, StrawPoll (was StreetFighter), SuperRiot, Total, Twinkle, Wilderdark (22 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 11: MOIST ArtificialColor, AxeMutiny, AztecBull, Basketball, Corporation, FairyDreadnaught, FertileHill, FuturePopularColors, GinRummy, Ic, Knack, Lease, Leopard, Lie, Narwhal, Nipple, Offensive, OutBackDoor, PearlRoad, Plateau, Pshaw, RawDeal, Roosevelt, Route22Day, ShipAtNight, SouthXarilina, SuperColSponge, TheReflex, Tobacco, Tunic, UltraTree, Wren (21 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 12: WHAMMY Gearloose, GreatSeal, Gee, Guy, Hence, Hindu, KingArthur, KnaveOfSpades, Lag, LapisKing, M80, Manhattan, MisterTaco, None (was Note), OlderGala, Politic, Quadrillion, ShowerCurtain, SixtiesBabe, Snipper, Snow, Spaced, TapestryDune, Tick, Toytown, TrueIcePhoto, Unit, Universing, Whenfield, Wilderness, Xed, Zixel (20 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 13: DEJA VU 1988, ArenaFootball, Barracuda, Basement, BlamedaySunglasses, BlueStar, Canada, Candyfall, Capricorn, Chakra, Charm, Commuter, ConvenienceStore, CottonCandySoda, DeepMind, Fizzle, Flush (was Florsh), Juicing, KnightBlast, MissingFonts, Ontario, Patagonia, Provo, Purplestorm, RepoMan, Scrawl, Serendipity, Sewing, Stoned, UtahMallWander, Voluminous, Walrus (6 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 14: LAWN Agriculture, BalletLesson, CardboardBox, Corky, Cornflower, Evolution, FantasyNightForest, Fieldstone, FirstWorld, FreeWorldDawn, HangingGarden, Hare, LetThereBeLight, MallChild, MistyMountains, NativeAmerican, Phenomenon, Picnic, Roadhouse, Somerville, SphereRain, SpiderAge, SpringJollity, SpringRevealing, StillLife, Strawberry, Teahouse, TheJungle, UnknownWindow, Walking, WoodRosin, Yosemite (12 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 15: MILITARY AnnihilationNight, AttackForce, Crusade, CyberPsycho, DeadSea, DeepWar, FinalStarEncounter, Fire, FrostVampire, Furnace, GuarGum, Heart, Hephaestus, HitByStorm, HypeSquash, InfinityRun, LayWaste, MutuallyAssuredDestruction, Nunavut, Patriot, PhaseCop, Prometheus, Rome, ScienceFiction, Shield, ShockwaveFantasy, Snowblind, SpiritNuke, Stareback, TargetHeat, TropicTechNight, YellowTV (10 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 16: MONTE CARLO AirElectric, Automotive, Brijit, Casino, Cigar, ConferenceCall, Continental, CostaRican, CountryWestern, CreditCard, ForgottenRules, Glider, JetSetGoddess, Lingerie, MagicReligion, MajesticSerpent, MajorSaga, MightyMachine, MoogSleigh, MotorcycleJourney, PinkWave, Pitchfork, Potlatch, Priceless, PsychicShower, QuietRoom, SeaNight, Sofa, SpicySmoke, Superstructure, Topological, Trove (12 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 17: NEW JERSEY Adios, Aquarium, China, Crucifix, Cuttlefish, EightiesArcade, FaderineAftermath, Flapper, FrogPuppet, GreenArchery (was Greenery), HarmingJade, Hellgate, Innocent, JavaLongDay, LeopardHeaven, LobbyWall, Lonesome, Minihawk, DearMonkey (was MonkeyKing), ParamusPark, Piston, PowerMarble, Sulfuric, Supertrain, Tao (was Tap), TulloRoad (was Time), Tongue, TornadoGuy (was Tornado), VortexTrek, Who, Wired, Wives (20 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 18: PROWLER Astronomy, AwareOfVacuity, BakersDozen, Dram, DryClean, EntireCityBlock, ForceTen, Gray, GreenApple, Grosbeak, HerWall, Homeopathic, Jam, LostAndWild, MagicChildhoodSymbol, Martinsville, OnSomething, Owl, Panda, Poker, Pottery, QuadSports, RoboticMessage, Roctober, Rug, Snark, Snowhunt, Starmade, TheBlueEye, TumbleDry, Vanish, WaveOfPleasure (23 Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 19: PAIN KILLER Adriatic, BlackCherry, CavernLeague, Chemistry, Clean, ComeAsYouAre, Deborah, DecompressionChamber, EngagementRing, EnormousGrove, FatherPlanet, Heidi, Hibiscus, LaLuna, Lancaster, LegitimateGrape, Manufacturing, Me, Photocopier, PunkRock, RaveWaste, SaskatchewanRun, Siscowet, SmilingTeak, Suffrage, TargetCold, TechnologyAdvances, Temperature, Tracy, UnqualifiedKing, VineEnvy, VirtualRaincoats (No Storm Pelters) PELTERSET 20: SOLITAIRE ADreamKilling, AJokerFlorida, AquaCommerce, BluePopHorse, ColdUniform, ComputerHi, CuteRobot, DancingDays, Daphne, DewBrowser, DirtyJustine, DrainFur, EmotionalSectors, EnchantedTikiRoom, FandomComputerized, FieldsAndTimes, JungleVideoGame, LastFloralHero, Losers, NewCoolStore, Oak, Porno, RockTheDestination, Satan, Shaker, ShowerWorld, SinglesHike, SpiritOfRadio, TheRealFred, TheSoup, TrafficVoices, WorldFinancialCenter (No Storm Pelters) *OW* [[06089SU]] Superior SUPERIOR 509 * 3/19/96 Bribery? Incremental? Dishonesty hurts you in the long run, helps you in the short run. And there's always the feelings of others, if you have the capacity for any sort of empathy. Vitamin pills... I took two this morning on an empty stomach... and for about a minute 20 0r 30 minutes later I was in great distress... a blast of sharp nausea... I was close to throwing up... So what happened? My body detected the presence of two little dense objects, and couldn't handle digesting them... and went though most of the phases of getting ready to throw up... but didn't. How much is a body like a car? A body is an "it", not a he or a she. To me, that's proof of a soul. And dark sunniness. SUPERIOR 510 * 3/19/96 7:54 AM. How many of these have I been through? Over ten thousand. And I hope I'm nowhere near halfway done with my life... so there will be a lot more 7:54 AM's for me... SUPERIOR 511 * 3/19/96 Dulerhuperscear, of? Bark. Myth dove gannage. Feelo. Apla? More elcean more. No... no more fake words here... a little guy... mystery of his girlfriend... he's so secretive about her... the name of the mountain... drama of the crab... what is what I wonder... imbecile... and Laneco, Phillipsburg, I bought incense, who know when it was, she touched me on the shoulder, who am I. Clearness. She is available. SUPERIOR 512 * 3/19/96 Climbed up the radio tower and lived there for some time. Eight girls from the local college idolized me. I demanded a pinball machine, and they had to employ a crane to get it up there. But it never worked right, and one of the girls kept passing me notes that she wanted me... in her room... in her bed... that her roommate dropped out, we'd have it all to ourselves... and I had to admit it was tempting... as an alternative to the radio tower... *OW* [[END089OW]] -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----