Everything2 New Writeups

The bomb in a milk crate (fiction)

2009-11-28T15:03:14Z

In the dim shadows of sunset, two figures scampered furtively up the narrow, bitumen alley behind their favourite cafeteria. Derrin touched his wrist-watch; its electroluminescent face showed 18:12 for a few seconds, slowing fading back into darkness. Exactly where they were going or what they were doing they didn't know. Statikz was on their brains, and they needed to just go for a stroll in the fresh, night air. A security camera glared tauntingly from its darkened dome, but tonight the boys ignored it. A single, red milk crate sat gloomily against the wall, on an angle where it had been thrown. It was Thursday evening, the Farmers Union guy had been that morning. Derrin stooped as they passed it, without pausing in his stride, and swung it gently as he continued walking. Jeremy took occasional sips from a carton in his hand. The two emerged from the end of the alley, and were suddenly immersed…

Saint George used the wrong tactics (poetry)

2009-11-28T14:33:31Z

Hoping the pay will cover this life
my tip cups filled with love letters
and a grocery list
nothing but need.

While there's ink in my pen
and fire in the tank

This war torn town
will need seasonal gardens.
Roses lining the town square
daisies in the gentlemen's lapels.

School taught me
that everybody loves roses.
That's what I remember
and I only remember events.

Do something romantic
place a rose in my barrel
the thorns framing the trigger.

Slay the dragon with a kiss.

you cannot meet again unless you part (idea)

2009-11-28T13:52:14Z

We were sitting on a bridge, he and I. Well, not exactly on the bridge. More under it. But not on the sidewalk. We'd climbed onto the supports and were sitting perched over the people who jogged and strolled below. One arm of mine was resting on his neck, the other pressed against where I sat, legs dangling down across the walkway. Him with his head against my shoulder, legs locked around a pole in case I moved. He leaned on me, eyes closed, as I watched the world, the swans on the water, the couple on the grass where they played like children. Felt his hair on my neck and the heat of his body against mine.

When the others came there were raised eyebrows, as he refused to move and I refused to ask him to.

Are you two..? Um. Uh. Are you?

And when he left…

Enrique de Malacca (review)

2009-11-28T11:38:56Z

Enrique, the first circumnavigator?

The idea Magellan's slave, Enrique, had rounded the globe has so beguiled many writers and historians it has become in some a fanatical belief the fact it is false is for them not relevant or important or open to debate.

One hypothesis is he was Cebuano so when the fleet reached Cebu he ahead of anyone on earth became the first man to circumnavigate. The other hypothesis is he was Malay, either from Malacca or Sumatra or even the Moluccas, and after May 1, 1521 he somehow was able to hop unto a sailing ship—an event recorded by no man but absolutely imaginable--and reached his hometown at a date unspecified by even the most inventive mind ahead of Victoria, the nao of Magellan's Armada that made it to Seville on Sept. 6, 1522.

The slave's name is "Henrich" in Antonio Pigafetta's account (Page 89, R.A. Skelton English edition of the French Nancy-Libri-Phillipps-Beinecke-Yale codex, click http://books.google.com/books?id=RB4usvtAZrEC&pg=RA1-PT1&dq=M…

Return to the 36 Chambers:The Dirty Version (review)

2009-11-28T09:20:18Z

It is said that there is no such thing as bad publicity, and that is a statement that has a degree of truth depending on how many degrees of cynicism you have in you. I think for those who have a degree of talent, publicity can be a bad thing for those whose merits are eclipsed by their antics. And the Ol' Dirty Bastard's aka Russell Jones', aka a host of other aliases' (even by Wu-Tang standards) first album, "Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version" is a case in point. When the Wu-Tang first begin their operation of spin-off albums, the first to release was Method Man, who was the most visible face of the Wu-Tang, and who despite some occasional flashes of brilliance, was not a hardcore lyricist on the level of other members of the Wu. The second album, from Ol' Dirty, was much along the same lines: Ol' Dirty Bastard was known as an eccentric presence, brought in to liven up tracks with more conventional rappers on them. Would he…

this unlight mantis creeps (event)

2009-11-28T07:06:06Z

A mantis that is as large as the moon does not sway and shiver. It stretches forever through the black silent vacuum as if to grasp the earth in its pincers and drink up its oceans. People on their way to work see the mantis glinting off of their tall buildings as it reaches slowly toward the moon, as if to grasp it in its pincers and eat it. You saw the mantis the other night, coming out of a club and clicking over to a VW and crunching it in half. The birds see the mantis on the telephone lines, swaying and shivering in the wind, as its pincers flash and it munches on an insect. The microscope sees the mantis on the slide, gracefully engulfing its prey. God sees the mantis orbiting the nucleus, screaming and not connected to anything. On my gravestone it says I am sorry that some of you do not know the mantis, but some things are forgotten, and that is just the way things are.

Doing nothing together (idea)

2009-11-28T06:44:38Z

Remember Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh? His most famous line, or certainly one of them, was "Doing nothing together is what friends are for". Have you ever been with someone, and wished nothing more than to simply be with them? Where you didn't want to do anything with them, just be together? Ok, so what's up with that?

Research has shown that in the presence of someone completely trusted, certain changes take place in the body. Respiration and heart-rate dropped dramatically, muscles relaxed, and the senses became dulled. It's almost as if your body shuts down all auxiliary systems, and puts the essentials into a low power state. This state is beneficial to the body both as it promotes repairing, and as it relaxes the mind. If both people were to enter this state simultaneously, the result would of course be highly dangerous. During normal sleep, the human body is still sensitive to the presence of smoke or…

Cripple Mr Onion (thing)

2009-11-28T05:39:37Z

Cripple Mr. Onion is a fictional card game mentioned in several of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels. Although it gets mention in a number of them, it's only actually played for the reader aboard a riverboat in Witches Abroad. During a journey undertaken by the witches Magrat Garlick, Nanny Ogg, and Granny Weatherwax (forming the standard maiden, mother, and crone trio), Nanny loses their traveling money to a gang of hustlers playing Cripple Mr. Onion. Granny Weatherwax decides to hustle the hustlers and win their money back, in her own unique manner. It's during this sequence that we get our best, indeed our only, look at the game.

Resolving not to use magic (Cheatin's all right. That's practic'ly fair. I mean, anyone can cheat. But using magic — well, it's tempting Fate), Granny uses the principles she calls "headology" to distract, annoy, and agitate the card sharps to prevent them…

Dear whoever (poetry)

2009-11-28T05:10:32Z

This winter's afternoon, I sit
here in my third-floor, lacquer-washed
little glass box.

The boss is away, and there is
just enough work, if I forget
the filing, to fill
half
the time until five.

(I find, somehow, that I can
always forget the filing.)

And so, I write.

When I'm done, I will take
these shaped-and-crafted,
thoughtful words,
and print them blackly
on white A4. I'll fold the page -
five simple folds to form
a paper plane, and send it
spinning from the window
to soar or plummet.

I hope when you find this, stranger,
smoothing it out to read
my message, that it will make you smile.

Perhaps you'll look up
into the inscrutable eyes of the
blind office buildings, seeking
a flash of sight
and understanding.

But even if you…

these arms, this heart, this body, sleep here (idea)

2009-11-28T03:37:31Z

Together, they were in the sunroom, a large, light-filled room at the top of her house. It was positioned so that it caught both the sunrise and the sunset; it looked down into the valley and across the hills to the distant mountains. If you stood in that corner there looking through that window at night you could see the flickering lights of the town down yonder. Over there you got a full view of the stables and adjoining paddocks, by standing here with binoculars you could watch the ducks on the dam.

The room was white-washed and decked out with furniture most suitable for a beach house; light wicker chairs and soft-colored cushions, small tables with magazines in drawers, and a gramophone on a stand with rows of records alongside it. Bamboo blinds stood quietly by the windows, ready to be pulled down at a moment's notice, which would render the room…

#everything2 (place)

2009-11-28T03:30:52Z

#everything2 is the IRC channel for this site, as the name would suggest. It's on the freenode IRC network, and everyone on the site is free to join in. Because IRC is super old school wizardry, weird and technical discussions are more common in #everything2 than in the catbox. It's also a good place to go to find out what's happening if the site is down. We also will not chase you away with burning whips and chains like #everything will, unless you do something particularly awful.

How to connect:

Get an IRC client, like XChat (for Windows, XChat Aqua (for Mac), or mIRC.
Connect to irc.freenode.com
/join #everything2

Or you can use the web version! It's not as nice as a regular client, and you probably wouldn't want to leave it open all the time, but it is handy.

Driving on the Interstate Highway System with a gunshot wound (how-to)

2009-11-28T02:35:13Z

This is an instructional type writeup that contains vital instructions and information on...

How to drive on the Interstate Highway System with a gunshot wound

One of the things that happens when you are living a correct life and getting out there and mixing it up with the kind of trash that belong in an eight by ten cell is that you get shot. As someone who has been to Cairo as I have and is talking to someone like you who has never been to Cairo and never will, I am the best person to instruct you in these matters.

The first thing you need to do after suffering a gunshot wound is to get on the Interstate Highway. This is because the police can get a look into your car on city streets and also on county roads and other numbered streets that go from here to there, but on the Interstate Highway you can move fast and even if highway patrol cars drive alongside you everything is so blurry that they don't know whether you are a man behind the wheel or a dog.…

Project Steve (idea)

2009-11-28T02:28:52Z

Evolution is a vital, well-supported, unifying principle of the biological sciences, and the scientific evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of the idea that all living things share a common ancestry. Although there are legitimate debates about the patterns and processes of evolution, there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence. It is scientifically inappropriate and pedagogically irresponsible for creationist pseudoscience, including but not limited to "intelligent design," to be introduced into the science curricula of our nation's public schools.
Project Steve's official statement

Project Steve is a tongue-in-cheek response to creationist claims that evolution is a "theory in crisis". Directly, it riffs on the…

potato salad (poetry)

2009-11-28T02:03:01Z

chop

bang

So, are you with her, or not?

bang

chop

Which doesn't make sense

not really

if you think

(stop... because, in the heat of mingled legs and soft juices, dripping chins and jaws of open honey, this is like asking what means alive is alive the same as being alive?

chop

bang

So, are you with her, or not?

bang

chop

if you

(stop... because, in the heat of all these hot lip kisses exchange, a mingling flesh of two thin brothers, slick hips and hot california detail, how do you take a pair of hips?

chop

bang

look, fuck this somehow in moreover...

bang

chop

I can't

(stop... because in the heat of all that, and it's hot make no mistake, how does a guy hold back? What, it's my shit, my whole dog responsi-what-a-lity? Heh, bitch you got somethin...

chop

dispose

Spotlight eyes on the endless skies (poetry)

2009-11-28T01:31:12Z

How pitiless the moon,
And how endless is the sky?
Indigo and ivory,
Ebony and empty,
Silence lingers in the black.

The Ten Most Ridiculous Metal Videos Ever (review)

2009-11-27T23:47:43Z

Oh fuck a pig with Thor's hammer, I'm spoilt for choice on this one.

Yano how I wrote about the ten geekiest metal songs ever, and how if you're a metal band you can get a field full of overweight, oversexed, overbearing drunkards thrashing about to songs based on Warhammer 40k or Galactus or even arsing Nintendo games? Well, for the same reason you can do this, music videos like the following are made. Enjoy. They are all silly beyond belief and all totally rule.

10. Blind Guardian, "This World Is Sacred"

In one two-word sentence: ORCS MOSHING. Specifically, computer generated orcs moshing in a computer generated hall while a computer-generated version of the band performs on stage, like it's a cut scene from a video game. Which it is. Because this song, and the video to it, were released as part of the game "Sacred 2 - Fallen Angel." And they weren't just bundled with it - they were integra…

And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids! (thing)

2009-11-27T23:47:26Z

For those of you who don't know, this line is often heard used in the Scooby-Doo television shows and movies, starting back in the series titled, Scooby-Doo, Where Are you!.
At the end of most-if not all-of the episodes of any of the Scooby-Doo saga, the caught villain often angrily accuses the team for his/her failure, sometimes including something along the line of "And your mangy mutt too!"

Many other shows, movies, books, and comics include references to this quote, often directly.
It's often used in tribute to Scooby-Doo, as his material has been a profound influence for the past 40 years on people from all ages.

I won't cite any references to other uses of this quote, mostly because there appear to be so many, I'm more concerned about its origin.

At least the villians give credit to the 'meddling kids' whenever they're captured, which is more than most would do.

For cliches... This one is one of the most popular.
"And I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids."

Habeeb's Laundrette (person)

2009-11-27T22:52:40Z

Habeeb's Launderette

Seeing as I'm here, in the warm, throbbing, shabbily clean environment provided by the launderette, I may as well say something about Habeeb. Habeeb was, if not lord and master, then at least overseer and regulator of a domain just like this one, his warm-as-toast refuge against the spiky cold Chicago nights of my lean, unemployed, homesick months. Habeeb's was a launderette – although, of course, there they say Laundromat – of the ordinary kind; smelling strongly of detergent, washing powder adverts on the walls, the television, on which Habeeb…

Reverse Convertible (thing)

2009-11-27T22:30:21Z

Introduction

A reverse convertible is not a car with a messed-up gearbox and no roof, but rather, a hybrid security that can behave like a bond or like shares, as the issuer desires. As such, it is vaguely similar to an ordinary convertible bond, where the choice is made by the investor. In this node, we'll take a look at precisely what this reverse convertible is, and why one would or would not want to buy one.

What is it?

In a reverse convertible, the issuer has the choice to pay you back in either cash or a certain number of shares. Now, if the value of these shares is lower than the value of the cash, you can expect to get the shares. If it is higher, you will probably get the cash. As such, the seller has in effect the option to sell you shares at a price equal to the value of the bond divided by the shares price. As such, this option has an effective strike equal to this price. It is noted that this "option" is…

Princess of pentacles (fiction)

2009-11-27T22:07:32Z

The upper reaches of the castle are cold and dark; he is warm in fur and velvet and silk, waiting for Cinderella in this deserted hallway. Over and over he turns the box between his fingers, waiting for her. Surely, he reasoned, she had come. Surely, she was waiting.

They had met at a market in the shadow of the train station. He, escaping from his bodyguards and the press of responsibility, dressing down like a common tradesman and perusing the stinking press of humanity. She had been smeared with clay and dye, an apparition in common men's trousers, her black hair caught back from her face in a messy bow of viridian, shocking emerald against the tanned skin of her neck and arms. (It matched one of her eyes: mismatched green and brown in her heart-shaped face.)

Words had been unimportant; conversation had passed into drinks, and late into the evening, they had talked. Unselfconsciously, she had pulled him up into a narrow garret and undressed before pressing him down into her bed…

the madwoman and the jackals (fiction)

2009-11-27T21:06:49Z

Jackals howl between the brambles; brassy-toned and belligerent, they are worrying at the remains of her cottage, looking for the last scrap of the meat they came to feast on. Between the twisting, blackened limbs, she crouches in the mud (in the middens), whispering beneath her breath to the daughter held safe between bony limbs. They will not find her here. She is more clever than their noses; there are tokens inside her ragged bodice, hiding them from site.

Jackals. Two-legged jackals on horses with spiked bridles and in fine blued armor. She murmurs softly to Jessifer, though the child is still. Herbs. Herbs in her broth so that the child will not cry out. Her daughter. Her own little witchling.

On the fine mare, the golden mare, the jackal's lady sits high and fine in her silk and furs, gazing coldly into the wreckage of the cottage. Her dogs are baying about the door, yelling.…

Two weddings full of mystic secrets: My Deathly Hallows moments (fiction)

2009-11-27T19:50:37Z

This was the summer that I finally finished my bachelor's degree, through the white flag maneuver of signing up for lots of random classes until they gave me a degree in Liberal Studies, which is the academic equivalent of an "irreconcilable differences" divorce. I managed to graduate by riding around on a bus at odd times, and in between all of, my friend got married. And by friend, I mean "girl who I agonized over all through my late teens and early 20s", but you've all heard that story before, and that is not what I am going to talk about. Only point is: it was probably as well that I was invited to the wedding, and I did promise not to embarrass myself. I am, after all, named after the Goddess of Should-be-invited-to-weddings-to-avoid-trouble. This is the wedding that Khadija put on for my friend, out in the scenic, lahar-prone valleys of Hood River. And I am not even going to talk about that, I am going to talk about walking up by the reservoir. In…

The help you need (fiction)

2009-11-27T18:13:29Z

"Security cameras picked you up masturbating in your cell last night." Dr. Stearns said matter-of-factly.

Imperceptibly, Meyer started tensing for a fight. The first flushes of heat in his forehead started pulsating; his fingers became jittery, tapping lightly on his jeans. Meyer looked up from the burgundy office chair he was sitting in and considered the question. "Yeah, I was" he admitted, "what's it to you?"

Stearns was mildly annoyed by the tepid defiance. "Tell me about the fantasy you were using. Was it the same one as usual, or something different?"

Meyer leaned back and crossed his arms. Closed off. Barrier. He felt the familiar resistance now in his mind to this ridiculous question, felt his blood pressure rise. Felt lightness of head, quickness of foot, like an ancestor stumbling upon a sleeping lion. Today, though, he wasn't going to yield. He wasn't going to…

The day my best friend cried (event)

2009-11-27T17:20:42Z

It may as well have rained that day, it would've at least preserved some of her dignity.
I never want to see it again.
It was the most beautiful, yet heartwrenching sight I'd have ever seen in my life.
My best friend was crying behind the store dumpster, smoking in a vain attempt to calm down, like it somehow was supposed to help.
It doesn't matter why she broke down in front of me, all that mattered was that I was there to make it more bearable...The intense pain that she was exhibiting, that she was trying to hide...
I wish it were raining... At least she'd have smiled a little then.
I had gone to check on her, and there she was...
Looking like a complete mess...
Sobbing helplessly, uncontrollably.
Asking if I brought weed...
I came bearing worse news that I didn't want to impart to begin with, but when I saw the intense pain she was in...
It ate away at my very essesense, and suddenly...
The only thing I had to do...
Was listen.
So I did.…

Thurisaz (thing)

2009-11-27T16:49:49Z

Thurisaz is often called the rune of winter, the rune of giants, and the rune of misfortune. The alternate, more prevalent title, is Thorn, as the usage is generally that of a goad or a sharp point. At best, this rune is useful in a bindrune, generally against ill-fortune or to turn back perceived bad luck upon the source. Thurisaz is an unpredictable, chaotic rune, and is useful in rune divination as a warning against folly or malice.

Translations of the Icelandic kennings have given us the following verses to consider:

The thorn is exceedingly sharp,
an evil thing for any knight to touch,
uncommonly severe on all who sit among them.

torture of women
and cliff-dweller
and husband of a giantess.

Modern pagan literature insists that Thorn may also be a reactive catalyst, useful for clearing boundaries, purging trauma, or other forms of catharsis, mainly…