Aardvark

Dr Schmittstein. The man, the myth. If there was a Mad Scientist Monthly, each month's cover would be Schmittstein cackling madly from a different angle. No other mad scientist in the history of the universe could ever quite be the mad scientist that Schmittstein was. Even the original mad scientist, whoever the hell that was, couldn't have imagined anyone more mad scientist than Schmittstein. He was a scientist and he was indeed quite mad. He had it all. He had the offwhite lab coat, stained beyond white from years of chemicals, with strategically placed burns that showed his various layers of underclothes which served more as padding incase of a mishap than anything else. He had the 3" thick, leadlined asbestos gloves for handling hot, volatile materials. He had the frizzy beard, greyed beyond belief. He had the unkempt hair that had never seen a comb in it's life. He had the cap, a cross between a pilot's cap and an old school cap, complete with a pair of goggles he rarely wore. They were rarely worn because that would require the removal of the monocle. Infact, the only thing he lacked was the eyebrows. Which just added to the image. His laboratory also fitted the image perfectly. It had everything from lightning conductors to metal coils. The walls were lined with shelves filled with books and unlabelled jars. The contents of the jars ranged from green bubbly liquids to pickled animals. There were benches everywhere, all holding a mechanical contraption of some kind, some also holding chemistry sets and other interesting oddities. Somehow, the mad doctor had managed to fit more benchspace in his lab than there was lab. One of his many mad innovations, he would tell anyone who asked. The time period for this little window into the Doctor's busy schedule would be mid 19th century, when the gene pool spewed out an unnatural concentration of potential mad scientists into the world. We happen upon the doctor as he is busy adding the final touches to his latest mechanical contraption. Quite possibly his greatest mechanical contraption, too. According to the everpresent drawing board, a large chalkboard which caused the destruction of several tons of chalk a year, the creation was called Titanus. As unoriginal a name as you're likely to get out of any mad scientist, especially for an endeavour of this magnitude. The blueprints (drawn up in blue chalk, too) show a complex mechanical monster. An acute observer would realise, by observing the complex array of pipes, the various pressure and temperature gauges and the many release valves, that this mechanical contraption was steam powered. Pulling ourselves away from the drawing board and to the creation, we see the Doctor is thinking on a grander scale than most would, when designing a steampowered mechanical contraption, especially one called Titanus. With a loud metallic slam, the Doctor closes the hatch he was just working on and climbs down the ladder. Once on the ground, he makes his way to a large switch. Gripping the switch, he begins his clichéd mad scientist monologue. "Ahh, zey sed it couldn't be done. Zey sought I was MAD for even considering ze possibility. But look at you, Titanus. You in your 50 foot steel glory. Soon zey vill fear you. And zussly shall bow down to me! With you enforcing my vill, I vill Rule ze World!!!" The actual monologue should go for three hours, but we lack time here, so for the purposes of the story, he then laughed maniacally for the next two hours, fifty nine minutes. But we'll skip that bit. He threw the switch. Generators began pumping electricity into the central control unit of the contraption. Oil furnaces deep within it's belly fired up, boiling the water, turning it to steam. Various metal struts begin groaning as the machine heated up. "Yes... YES!!!!" Schmittstein shouted with glee as his creation began to, slowly but surely, rise to it's feet. It should be noted here that the ceilings in Schmittstein's lab, as in all mad scientist labs around the world, was adjustable in height. Self-adjustable. It was always almost high enough. One more mad innovation the Doctor would brag about. Even though, in this case, it meant the machine, Titanus, created a head-shaped dent in it. At it's full height, Titanus did indeed look impressive and intimidating. Created in the image of a man, a misshapen monstrosity of a man, with large claws in place of hands. Other than that, it resembled a human in most other aspects. Major joints in similar positions, knees, elbows, although they all had restricted movement in unnecessary directions, as one would expect for a steam driven monstrosity. The head was a masterpiece. Jagged teeth lined a jaw that did little more than look menacing. The nose was simply a large slab of metal welded on at the last minute. No ears, flat top, lack of chin. But the eyes, coal black with two red beads of light in the centres. Anyone who saw it would think the eyes were simply for show. Anyone couldn't be more wrong about them. But no one would ever know how advanced they really were. "Go, my creation. Go to ze houses of zose who scoffed at my efforts and show zem ze true nature of Science!!!!" With groans of metal parts, scraping of head against roof and hissing of escaping steam, Titanus took several bold steps towards the exit to the lab. Then he stopped. "Vhat??? Vhat is wrong viff you, stupid bucket of bolts????" The mechanical contraption attempted another feeble step forward, then fell with a loud crash. "Stupid machine!! Vhat the devil is wrong viff you now?" The doctor picked up a comically oversized spanner and made his way to the machine. Then he noticed one of the many external gauges he installed incase of critical pressure buildup. The gauge was reporting critical pressure buildup. The doctor panicked and dove behind one of his many benches just as Titanus exploded, turning the lab into a smoky sauna. The doctor waited until the clattering of flying parts died down before sticking his head out. The lower half of Titanus remained intact. The rest was strewn about the lab. A large hole in the roof, probably caused by the head rocketing straight up, flooded the lab with natural light. "Vell, it is back to ze old drawing board for me, zen" Schmittstein, never one to waste a moment, turned to his drawing board, only to discover a pressure gauge shaped hole through the middle of it. After the outburst of foul language, Schmittstein removed his mad scientist cap, threw it on the ground and jumped up and down on it several times, cursing all the while.

I would pick myself. I've always wanted to see what I'm really like from a third person perspective. I've asked many a person, their answers are wide and varied. And for the bonus points, I'd go George Bernard Shaw. Just to see how many times I have to quote him before he loses it and tries to deck me

"Such a pity, such a waste," commented Ng when the figure was wheeled into his lab. At first glance, he was looking over a 6'2 male, perfectly normal in every aspect, except that he was dead. Ng pondered as he went over the incident report. Something so simple had caused this. But how? And why? Without sparing a seconds thought for the body, Ng brandished a scalpel and slashed open the cadaver's abdomen. Revealing a complex array of circuitry and wiring. A solid hundred million worth of circuitry and wiring, now little more than a junkheap. A wisp of smoke arose from the incision. Ng took a large whiff. He loved the smell of fried silicon at 3:14 in the afternoon. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves, more out of habit than anything else, and probed the robot's innards. It had been designed beautifully from the ground up. Ng knew this, as he was head designer on the project. But the design process had been a democratic process. Someone came up with a better way to do something, it was put to the vote. And Ng didn't get the veto power he so desired. This would never have happened, he thought to himself, if only they'd worked as a team and done things his way. He placed a pen torch between his teeth and used the scalpel to search through the complex wiring of the robot. Hmmm.... not here. Must be in the chest cavity. He dreaded opening that area up. Although he'd approved the power process, he had second thoughts when he saw how it was installed. One of his colleagues had commented that it was his own mortality thumbing it's nose at him from afar. And he was almost inclined to agree. The power regulator and distributor unit resembled a human heart a little too much for his liking. And the power cells, although nothing more than grey rectangular slabs, were positioned like lungs on either side. Looking upon them was like seeing an abstract artist's view of an inside out man. But pressure from on high meant he had to fix whatever it was. He sliced up from the solarplexus, then along each collarbone. Another thing that gave him the creeps was the robot's endoskeleton. It resembled a human skeleton too much. He made another two cuts along the bottom ribs, then pulled the plastiskin aside. Far too similar for his tastes. But the project was to design a robot that would pass for human on the outside. So they'd stuck with nature. He undid the series of bolts up the sternum, then pulled the ribcage open. He'd insisted on the well oiled hinges. Other options had been removable ribs to a ribcage that came right off with ease. But his logic won out in the end. Ohh... He'd found the problem. The power regulator segment had burned out. In human terms, he'd had a heart attack. There didn't seem to be any other damage, but he would replace the wiring to the segment anyway, as a precaution. Possibly also replace the power cells, just to be safe. A heart attack... what had caused this? The incident report was about as useful as cross trainers to a quadriplegic. Best way to find out would be robot's eye view. He closed up the ribcage, rolled the robot over and sliced the back of it's head open, revealing a console port. He plugged a cable into it and fired up the robot's sensor logs. It had been designed to interact with it's environment as a human would, allowing it to pass for human. But, as advanced as technology was, they simply couldn't replicate the whole spectrum of human reaction and emotion. So for now, they'd installed a logic decision process. They'd done their best to program various emotions into the machine, but the end result was never what was desired. Sensor log segment... console port upload detected... no, earlier than that.... tactile sense ambient temp.... no, not that... damnit. The machine's logs were recorded logically. Every so often, there was a sensor sweep. Every sensor, be it tactile, aural or olfactory, would report. Then there were the reports from a sensor detecting a significant variance. He could read through it without getting lost, but it was a pain. Someone else's contribution, he reassured himself while flicking through the entries. Ahhh, this might be it. Final log segment. Ambient temp: 21, ambient light... useless. He scrolled down. Ahh... here we go. Social interaction initiated: Subject Female. Tactile sensor 34 active. Aural sensor recording.... logic circuit failure. A woman had said something to him and he'd had a heart attack. Dr Ng didn't know he wanted to hear what, but he searched the aural logs anyway. When he found it, he laughed. There was no way he could present this to the committee. He would go with excessive powerdrain from logic circuits. And maybe recommend a separate emotional processor. He had an odd feeling his project would need it

It's already been one. Found this one totally by accident while looking for The Cure on Napster, all those years ago... Dangerous Toys - Cure the Sane But if it has to be fictional... hmmm.... Written by Bowie, but performed by Barry White (mayherestinpeace) And it would probably be called "Broken Minded" Bowie... well, 'nuff said White, 'cause I think he's a sexy sexy man with a beautiful voice, in a totally heterosexual way Don't ask, that was the only one I could think of that didn't involve explosions or chicken/kangaroo crossbreeds

He gently blew on his hand as he stared at the sight before him. The result of the last four days had been a 300 page paperstack of flowing cursive, surrounded by broken, empty, useless pens. But it was finally complete. A novel. His first. Hopefully not his last. Written in his beautiful handscript, his flawless creation straight from his brain to the paper, via the many pens he'd sacrificed to create it. But... Often, his friends and family had recommended he make the switch, like most writers, to computer, or at least typewriter. The amount he wrote, he'd cause himself serious wrist strain, they said. He took no notice. He loved writing, he loved handwriting, he loved the way letters and words looked and felt as they were formed on the page. Each piece warmed his heart as his eyes followed the ink across the page. He felt as though a little piece of his soul was transferred through the pen. Only... He'd always written like this. Blue ink biros on plain A4 paper, lineless. He'd heard some claim pages to be a dam in their stream of consciousness, others claim biros lack the old charm of a good fountain pen or, in some rare cases he'd heard of, quill and ink. Yet others still scorned ink altogether, claiming a pencil the superior choice for creating a story. They could do what they liked. Biros were inexpensive and could be bought by the boxful. Sure, they ran out often due to the sheer volume he wrote and they were plagued with inconsistencies that could spoil the flow of his work, but he never felt right unless his hand was guiding a ballpoint across the page. Always the same paper, too. The same low-grade paper used in common printers and photocopiers. He didn't need lines. Still... After creating a piece, he would use his photocopier, a state-of-the-art machine itself loaded with professional paper, to create the copy he would mail to his love and agent, who would then type up and offer to various publications. His work was always in demand, rare for a writer of his calibre. He could easily make enough from each piece to get by. But to simply get by is rarely satisfactory. Thus his novel. 300 pages of his beautiful script. Finally completed. He placed the final page on the stack. He'd proofread his work three times. As flawless as usual, it conveyed every image his mind had funnelled onto the paper perfectly. But there was something missing. Something he couldn't put his finger on. Of every piece he'd ever created, none had felt this... off. As if he'd forgotten something. Reading it felt nothing like any other piece he'd created. It was as if he was reading another writer's work, in his script. It felt... fake. He shook his head clear and prepared to go over it once more. This feeling was so wrong, he simply couldn't release his work like this. But he had put too much time and effort into it, he couldn't simply bin it. It was, in his opinion, a fantastic story that had to be told, just... not like this. Not until he found why he was dissatisfied with it. He lifted the final page and lightly traced his fingertips under the last few words. He was startled by a phone ring. Just once. His imposing aura had once more intimidated a potential publisher, he humoured. Or, more than likely, someone had realised not early enough they'd just dialled the wrong number. His eyes returned to the page. Oh Blood He'd cut himself. A small nick on his thumb, but enough for blood to dribble out, onto his page. Safely away from any ink, however. He thought about getting a bandaid, then it struck him. Oh, how pathetically simple. He couldn't believe it. He took up one of the depleted pens, dipped it in the blood spot and signed his name. There. Complete. After patching himself up, he set about the tedious task of copying the entire thing. His love had assured him that she was fully capable of copying his works without ruining them and he believed her. He just didn't trust fate not to intervene if he ever parted with the original. Copied in glorious colour, the glossy paper showed the bloody signature darker than it was. He smiled. It didn't matter. His work was now complete.

I saw something today that really would change my world perspective, if I were one of those people who's world perspectives were changed upon seeing something that would change someone's world perspective I saw an owl. I haven't seen an owl for quite a while. Infact, I'd completely forgotten the little buggers exist. This owl was hanging from an electric wire. Well, actually it was two electric wires. One for each wing. This owl was hanging from two electric wires, by it's wings. In it's claws was clutched a possum. Still alive, this possum was, but I knew that was only temporary. An owl, hanging by it's wings from two parallel electric wires, with a possum in it's claws, ripping into the furry little thing, stopping only to stare at me with those owlish eyes of it's, being an owl and all. Just thought I'd share

The first paragraph puts me in the right mindset for the rest of the story. I've discarded countless stories, both here and in the past, just because I got to the end of the first paragraph, sometimes not even the first sentence of it, then just alt+f4ed the page out of existance. The only time I ever edit one of my stories is when I spot a typo that the spellchecker didn't pick up (In this one, sides somehow became sixes). I never cut anything out once I'm done and only ever change something if I'm really unhappy about how it feels to me. All arguements for the discarding of initial paragraphs can be ended with one title. Tale of two cities. Unless someone finds Dickens' mysterious discarded initial paragraph

'To my darling Candy, All characters in this book are fictional, and any reference to people, living or dead, is purely coincidental' Mysterious first page of bible Blatently stolen from Red Dwarf

Luck, chance, fortune, things we cannot control control us. One in sixty million chance that we were born, as opposed to someone genetically similar, but totally different. Odds stacked against us that we survive to maturity. Living in a world where no matter how many safety signs they put up or sharp edges they coat with rubber, there are still hundreds of thousands of ways to die. Billions upon billions of cells in your body, any one of which, at any time, can turn against you. Millions of other people, many of whom can drive and do vote, around you every single day, each decision they make potentially impacting upon your life, your little world, either now or later in life, and you rarely know they've been made. When you think about it, chances are, you will die at any given moment and you have no say in the matter. "Three dee six" he said to himself. He studied the red cubes in his hand. He'd raided old, abandoned board games in the tops of cupboards to find these three. About fifteen millimetres cubed each, painted a nice bright red, with white dots signifying numbers on each side. Numbered one through six. With each pair of opposite sides adding up to seven. When tossed, each side had an equal chance of coming up. One in six chance of his number coming up. But he had three. One in two hundred and sixteen chance of any combination coming up. If the dice were different colours. Or had some other way of differentiating between them. Numbers themselves had differing odds. Thirteen was the most common, he remembered. Life had gotten to him. In his sixteen years, he'd never felt as bad as he was now. He hadn't done anything. Never. Not a damn thing. But everyone and everything was against him. His parents thought he was a freak and forced him to see a psychiatrist each week. A middle aged woman who only knew his name because it meant one hundred and twenty dollar an hour to her. A woman who asked about every detail of his life, but didn't care. He knew she didn't care. It took all his willpower each day to not ask her why she does what she does if she doesn't care. His teachers couldn't stand him. They said he was a disruptive student. Simply because he couldn't accept the facts they were teaching him without questioning them. Why couldn't he just conform like all the other students. He needed more information, that's all. Needed to properly understand what he was being taught, that's all. And they branded him disruptive for this. His friends... he had few. Of everyone he knew, he could count on his fingers the number he could relate to. And it wasn't very encouraging that they had problems of their own. He looked down to his other hand. The one wrapped around the grip of his father's revolver. Today could be the last day of his life. They had been getting worse. The pressure from everyone around him. And there was nothing he could do about it. He felt the weight of the weapon in his hand. He mimed a gunfighter, firing off six shots in rapid succession. Then he pressed the barrel of the weapon to the side of his head. He started squeezing the trigger... then released. No, that wasn't how he was going to do it. He put the weapon down and picked up the dice. He began shaking them. Forty seven times, he'd been in this situation. Forty seven. The dice in one hand, the pistol in the other. When he found his father's gun, three years ago, he'd almost ended himself right there and then. But then he stopped, a mere two millimetres away from annihilation. He hadn't known this, though. What had stopped him was fear. Cold, gripping fear. Was this really the best way to deal with his situation? End his life? His parents probably wouldn't even notice. They were too busy with their careers and only found out because of the notices of concern flooding the mailbox. His teachers would probably be pleased. One less disruptive student slowing down lessons. His friends... well, they'd all lost someone already, what's one more person to them? But himself... Did he care? When he thought about it, he couldn't decide. He could not decide whether he wanted to live or die. Should he? Shouldn't he? Of all the ways he could die, by self inflicted gunshot. Was that how he wanted to go? The one part that was truly him smeared all over the plaster walls of his home? He couldn't decide. He decided that he needed someone else to decide. Or something else. "Three dee six," he repeated to himself. In the end, survival instincts got their claws into his plan. Survival and three red dice just happening to be all in the one spot. He decided from the beginning he should go with the absolutes. Three and eighteen. They were the numbers he'd be concerned with. Anything else, put the dice and gun away and come back next time he felt the need to end. But the extremes, the one in twohundred and sixteen. At first, he thought three should signify "Shoot". Then he looked at eighteen in dice form. Six Six Six. He'd laughed. What would the newspapers say if a boy had been found dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound with three dice with all sides showing sixes? So that was that. Eighteen would mean he took the gun, pointed it to the side of his head and pulled the trigger. He had a thought at that moment. Would it be possible to pull it twice before he lost muscle control? Three, on the other hand. The other extreme. One One One. Well, if death was already taken, three would then mean life. If he ever rolled a three, he would destroy the gun, melt the dice and just endure until he left home. Yeah, that was fair. He shook the dice in his hands. He always spent around five minutes shaking. He raised his hands above his head, closed his eyes and released the dice. The next few moments seemed to take forever. He could hear his heart thumping slowly as the dice fell to the table. He heard each one clatter on the wood, seeming to echo off to infinity. He slowly opened his eyes. Six Six Six He lost all control of his body. His arms moved of their own will. His hand grasped the broken weapon, spun the chamber, flicking his wrist to close it, just for effect, raised it against the side of his head, just above his ear and pulled the trigger. Click He opened his eyes. He was still alive. His first reaction was to check the dice. They still read eighteen. He then looked at the gun. He was sure he'd pulled the trigger. He broke the weapon again and examined the chamber. Then he laughed. He laughed loud, he laughed long and he laughed hard. There was only five rounds in the weapon. He'd just spun the one in six veto over his three dee six

"Our next guest on Inane Interviews is a "Rogue Hollywood Director", as put by various entertainment publications and heads of several film studios. He's the man who fought hard to bring us his debut film, Blood SlaughterFest, which grossed over one hundred and twenty million on it's opening week alone in America. Let's give an inane welcome to Alex Palter." Cheering from audience as Alex makes his way to the comfortable chair onstage "Doctor Palter, welcome to the show" "Thanks, James, it's great to be here, although I must say, you've looked better in your time" Canned Laughter "Thankyou, Doctor. Actually, for my first question, what are you a doctor in, precisely?" "An excellent question, if I do say so myself, James. Well, it's an interesting story which I tired of relating to people, so I'll just cut it short. My parents insisted I go to collage, I stayed there for several years and managed to get myself a doctorate in god-knows-what. All I can remember from my collage days was the big party that signified it's end involving the lighting of various substances which cannot be named on this heavily funded by the religious right station off the doctorate itself. Some people later told me it was a waste, but the only reason I ever did the thing was so I'd have the privledge of checking the little box marked Dr on mail order forms." "A wonderful story, Doctor Alex-" "Either Dr Palter or just plain Doctor, thankyou" "Sorry, Doctor. Anyway, I'd like to now talk a little about your career prior to Blood Slaughterfest. Previously, the world had never even heard of you. What were you doing until now?" "Well James, before my directing debut, I assisted in the creation of several other action feature films, including 'Kill the Heathens 4', 'The Exterminator 4: Extermination Revenge' and 'Death to the living!'" "'Death to the Living' of course being last years winner of the AFIFF award for the most violent movie of all time" "Yes, I'm proud of that one, as it was my direct influence which increased the bodycount." "Right, onto Blood Slaughterfest. Insiders in Hollywood say that wasn't actually the film's original name, is this true?" "One hundred percent, James. Basically, this film should never have been made. Yes, there are people agreeing with me, but they're pathetic hypersensitive cow-" "Please don't insult our sponsors like that" "My apologies. Anyway, the film began it's life as one of those many scripts that should never have made it through the front gate of any film studio, office or agent in this or any other country. It may have worked as an independant arthouse film that nobody ever sees, but I don't care to speculate. The film had some stupid title like "Le Titty Grabass" or something stupid and had a whole bunch of deep, meaningful scenes involving the bonding yadda yadda yadda... But when someone who wasn't a complete fool actually read the script, they saw it for what it really was. A total, complete, steaming pile of suck," Real laughter beats canned laughter at this point "Unfortunately, by this stage, the hack who wrote the thing had already signed a contract and had recieved a sizeable wad of cash and the promise of a small cut of the profit made from the film during it's opening night in America. Obviously, the dumbass hadn't read his contract properly, otherwise he would've spotted that and other clauses that would make any sane person think twice. Or he already knew what a load of garbage his script was and was trying to offload it for anything he could get." "Which has been how much at this point?" "Don't interrupt me" "Sorry" Canned Laughter "Anyway, the script got to someone who was meant to make a decision about what should happen to it now, he read it and almost vomitted. He came running into the break room I was in, just to have a whinge about his pathetic life being made harder by more pathetic people. When I heard about the movie, I said I'd do it, if they gave me a large special effects budget. He said he'd have to run it past the finance people, but it made his job easier. After reading the script, I almost cried. In my eagerness to direct my own film, I'd volunteered for the worst piece of tripe since Gladiator" "Truely a shocking waste of time" "Then I got a hold of the contract and my eyes lit up. The idiot had signed away all rights for us to completely alter the title and content of the script in any way we saw fit. If I'd wanted to, I could've just put my own script in place and he couldn't have done a goddamn thing about it. That's when I decided to make a winner. Cut out the unnecessary story bits, shrink the necessary ones, add stupidly large and overpowered guns and fill the thing with violence and witty one liners. Hire a bunch of no-names who look ripped and can string more than 3 words together to pump more cash into effects and hype and I could already see the goldmine I was sitting on" "And what a gold mine it turned out to be. Did the writer have any objections with what you were doing to his work?" "Of course he did, I had him escorted off the lot at one point because he was getting off my nerves. Yelling something about artistic vision, some people." Light laughter "So you went ahead and made this year's most contraversial film. Tell me about the court case." "Ahh, that was the greatest moment in my career. I'll be telling my grandkids about that one. I sued the board of censorship, whatever they called themselves." "A landmark decision which has since openend the floodgates, releasing thousand of other violent films, TV shows and videogames. Some have even put you right up there next to Hitler and Hussain as destroyers of civilisation over that one" "Well, they're closeminded biggots who hate blacks, jews and women anyway. Just edit this bit out later" "Already done" "Yeah, anyway, because I flat out refused to tone down the violence in my film, I pissed off a lot of people. It flew through the test audiences, thanks to my policy of only selecting males age 16-25. But the censorship board banned the movie outright, citing 27 'Moral and Ethical Violations'" "So what happened next?" "Well, we did the only thing we really could do under the circumstances. We released it as soon as we could in every single country on earth which didn't follow in America's footsteps and ban the film. We bombarded them with hype about the controversy surrounding it for a week, then dropped it in their laps. It was like Starwars Grand Opening at every cinema on earth." "Except in america" "Except in america. But then one of our lawyers brought to our attention the ammount of internet piracy of our film. If the figures we paid the geeks at internode, internic, interwhoever the hell thos people we got our figures from are, for are truely accurate, then every computer in america downloaded Blood Slaughterfest three times each. Normally, hollywood finds someone responsible for the sharing to sue, we just took the censorshipboard to the supreme court." "The case described as the end of family cinema" "Well, I'd take my family to see Blood Slaughterfest. But it was beautiful. We won easily. I think it was because the judge was one of the people who pirated the movie, but I won't hold that against him. We were awarded the estimated gross sales since the international release date, approximately 200 million, and the ruling of the censorship board was overturned. That weekend, we released it across the country and made another hundred million." "So how many other directors are planning on having their films banned this year?" Canned Laughter "None! The censorship board are scared of us hollywood types, thanks to me." "And unfortunately, that's all the time we have. Thankyou, once again, Doctor" "Always a pleasure, James." "And now we leave you with a trailer from Doctor Alex Palter's Blood Slaughterfest" Cheering and applause as Alex leaves the stage and the shorts play

"Mrs Feldman, the doctor will see you now" Anita Feldman had been waiting an hour with her son for the good doctor to see her. His silence had been unnerving her, ever since she found the three year old next to the power junction, apparently lifeless. Not being experienced in the medical profession herself, she did what most people did these days, which was to book into a medical centre. That had been a week ago. Her son had been kept in chronostasis until now, the rules of the establishment barring all forms of temporal technology within 5 klicks of the building. She rose and made her way to the doctor, an attendant helping her move her son. "Take a seat, Mrs Feldman." the Doctor began, "So how has young David been lately?" "Thankyou, Doctor. He's been your average 3 year old, I suppose. His curiosity about the world hasn't abated just yet and I'm afraid that could be why I'm here." "So what seems to be the problem, Mrs Feldman?" "Well, a week ago, I was just realigning the communications matrix atop our home when I heard a scream. I raced down to find my son like this next to a power junction. Ooooh, I don't know what's wrong, I've never seen him like this before." "Well, let me take a look at him." The doctor lifted the boy's shirt and pressed a stethoscope to his chest and listened. He occasionally gave comments like "Breathe in", which young David ignored. Then he shone a torch into David's eyes, ears and down his throat. Finally, he took a small wand and ran it over David's scalp. "Well," began the doctor, "more testing needs to be done, but I'm fairly sure your son is suffering from an advanced case of death." "Oh no! Not death! Can anything be done?" "Relax, Mrs Feldman. just leave your boy with us, we'll do all we can. Now, due to the various cutbacks we've faced since the Human-Galgo war broke out. you may be waiting anything from a month to a year before we can fit him in for revitalising therapy, but he will be kept in perfect condition in the new cryostasis units we did manage to procure last budget. Or, if you like, you can take him home and we'll give you a call when a chamber becomes free." "Well, I think leaving him here would be the best option. Who knows? Someone may just cancel their vitalising treatment." The two adults chuckled at this. Ever since scientists had overcome human mortality, the megawealthy and powerful had monopolised the new vitalisation chambers, ensuring they never have to suffer the inconvenience of old age. Although recent laws had been passed recently on the new technology, giving preference to the deceased, no one was in any hurry to crackdown on queuejumpers and the hospitals, after facing numerous cutbacks due to the various military actions undertaken against the various sentient lifeforms mankind had encountered in it's exploration of space, medical centres were being run like corporations just to keep their highly trained doctors from enlisting and becoming field medics. But the government, in one of it's few sane decisions, voted unanimously to keep medical centres under bureaucratic control. Although this did mean having to justify new neural-reconstruction equipment purchases to mindless suits behind desks, it did also mean that the common man had access to healthcare. Of course, the term common man was commonly understood to mean one of the 8 billion common men and women who were registered on the Earth Central Databases, which cruelly excluded some 30 billion men and women, living either in poverty, in exile or independently, either on earth or on other planets colonised by mankind, from receiving the latest in medical advancements. Although, once more, it was a case of if you didn't have a 20 digit ID code, a 7 digit cheque would more than suffice. Thus, the various dictators, autocrats and madmen who, using old or stolen money, had managed to set themselves up as ruler of their own island nations, continents or, in rare cases which were kept brutally suppressed in human media, planets or entire systems. Two attendants entered the Doctor's office and carried the cadaver away. Always careful of handling the deceased in front of friends and family, most attendants who had to deal with the dead would drop the act upon reaching the restricted zones surrounding the vitality chambers. Hell, they knew no matter what they did, it would all be repaired later on. Well, anything short of total incineration. Which none would ever dream of doing to a chunk of fresh meat. No one wanted to carry a dead weight all the way over to garbage disposal, anyway. When they reached the restricted zone, the placed the former David into a long tube, where he floated a little, before slowly being sucked in. Mechanical arms removed all his clothes, depositing them in a locksafe which was encoded with the DNA of the Feldman line, then scrubbed every inch of his flesh with hard bristle brushes. After 9000 glorious years of civilisation, mankind had never topped a good scrubbing as the preferred method of cleaning flesh. Continuing down, more machines poked, prodded, scraped and jabbed the body, taking samples and assessing the damage. The entire body was then scanned with various EM rays, until a computer recreation of David's body could be formed for further study. At the end of the tube, ex-David was dropped into a coffin-esque glass chamber, which quickly filled with a blue gelatin substance. The chamber was sealed tight, then inserted into an alcove in the wall. One of the human attendants sealed the alcove closed, then entered a long string of numbers in a keypad on the door. Inside, the gelatinous substance chilled and partially solidified, dropping the temperature of the cadaver to well below freezing, but keeping it's fluids from crystallising through various shifts in pressure. Another worker entered the details about the new corpse into the databank. Name: David Luthor Feldman Height: 1.13 M Weight 48 Kg Time/Date of Birth: 18:01 21/11/3326 Time/Date of Death: 11:32 18/12/3329 Cause of Death: Severe Neural Trauma Sidenotes: Damage to respiratory system, nervous system, muscular system all conform to severe electroshock. Previous injuries include muscular sprain and light dermal trauma. Cause unknown.

C'mon man, just take an icepick to a patch of frozen ground and get yourself a nazi mate to "coach" you and you'll be set Just 'cause you'll be sterilised from the cold, doesn't mean it's a bad idea

Your problem is you're asking that question 28 years too soon On your fiftith birthday, look back at your life and ask yourself, "How did I get here?" Or you're going about life the wrong way. If you can't say for sure where "There" is, don't go there, or you might find yourself going in the wrong direction. Let life take you there. Just amble through life, doing things that you like, that interest and stimulate you. Focus more on enjoying the journey rather than powering towards the destination. The only problem with this method is if it works, before you know it, your entire life has flashed before your eyes, you're sitting in an old wooden rocking chair, relating tales of your wonderful life to your grandkids, with nothing left to do but die in your sleep, a satisfied and well earned rest after your wonderful life

NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER doubt your own work. That's rule number one. Rule number two is never put a disclaimer and rule number three is don't doubt your title choosing abilities. Especially when you choose totally appropriate titles such as this one There are many other rules, all of which can be found in the Aardvark Big Book of Bumper Fun Rules, available from all good hockshops and elusive street vendors for the low low price of only 99.95. Not bad considering you'll know all the rules while everyone else'll be trying to figure them out But just remember, I wrote the rules. And the book on the rules.

The red streetlight had been there for as long as we could remember. For years, it had cast it's crimson glow on it's little part of the road, a mere sidestreet, but still a main thoroughfare for pedestrians. It stood proud and tall, alone on it's little stretch, the surrounding streetlights being afraid of illuminating themselves anywhere near it. In actuality, vandals had taken them out and more complaints needed to be filed before anyone in the council would think about having them fixed. But no need to spoil a good myth with something as silly as the truth. My friends and I lived in Eastview. When I say friends, though, I really mean other kids on my street who let me play with them for fear their mothers would cut off their allowance if mine started complaining. This made me feel wonderful, as I was the quiet tagalong and they wouldn't let me forget it. We all lived in double income families, both parents off to work to keep the families going. Not a rich area by any standards, but a nice one. Medium density suburban housing, close enough to the city to cut down on transit times, but far enough away from both the outer and inner suburbs to escape the riffraff. The perfect neighbourhood to raise a family, really. But thanks to most people's parents working 'til late, it was usually well after dark before anyone was called in for dinner. Some nights, we would all go to the street and stare at the red light. It was scarier during new moon, when the sky was pitch black and the glow seemed to creep up slowly on us. Many speculated why the light was red and why it was isolated like it was. Most stories involved murderers, vampires, genetic monsters and all sorts of fiction. Once, I suggested it could be merely because the council workers ran out of white lights. All this got were laughs, jeers and dares to go stand in the streetlight. Something I'd never done. Something none of us would ever dare do. Occasionally, one of us would get close, but then turn and run, swearing he saw something flitting about in the air nearby. We'd all laugh and taunt whoever it was, but all of us would sleep with the covers over our heads that night. One day, I traveled down that street after school. Mother had asked I pick up a few things from the petrol station a few streets beyond it, in Westlake. I knew where the place was well enough, but I wanted to swing by the Oceanic Scene arcade. Most kids went there for the latest fighting games. I was one of the few who was addicted to pinball. This is where my pocket money usually went. Today was only an exception in that I finally earned the hundred million required for a replay. Then I hit the upper ramp 3 times on the trot and won another replay from the pick-a-box game I was rewarded with. This would've finished it for me, but on my last credit, I matched up the two numbers and got a third replay. When I'd used this one up, the sun had set. Knowing my mother would be home soon, I walked with speed and purpose. First stop was the petrol station to pick up the milk, eggs and newspaper she'd asked me to get. I had enough left over for chocolate, which I also got, thoughtfully disposing of the incriminating receipt in a convenient bin. Then I set off on my alternate route. The long route. The one that avoided the light. It was before coming to this route that I encountered trouble. Trouble came in the form of Westlake kids. All territorial bullies, they would mercilessly hound any of us in their turf alone. They'd never touch us in pairs or more, just give us deathstares from afar. But if we ever had the misfortune of crossing them solo... well, that's where our track and field prowess came from. There were three of them. Your stereotypical thug, extra chunky, was the "leader" (If you don't do what I say, I'll fump you). The other two were rather pathetic and wouldn't have given me a second glance if they'd been alone. One tall blonde kid, too skinny to be a threat, the other a fat little asian. But there were more of them than me. That was the important thing "Oooooh, looky what we have here! A little Eastview kid, crossing our turf," Spoke the ogre. "And I don't think he's paid the Westlake tax, do you?" The thug's asian companion replied, "No, I think he owes money." I kept walking, crossing the road to get away from them. "Hey, get back here, you. We're talking to you!" The words from the blonde kid caused me to quicken my pace. "GET HIM!" At this, I broke into a full run. The three kids chased me. I took turns I'd never seen before, diving into dark alleys I'd gotten good feelings about, jumping over bins in my way, smiling as I heard a crash and curse seconds behind me. I had no idea where I was going, just that I was going away from them. I didn't dare look back. They hadn't caught me yet, that was enough. I turned another corner, ran another hundred meters, then tripped. I never found out what I tripped on, but it wasn't important. Slightly more important was my grazed wrist and scraped knee. Greatly more important were the broken eggs (11 out of 12, I later discovered). Critically important were my pursuers. I turned and looked. The fat little asian was nowhere to be seen. The bin must've got him. The thug and the blonde were there. Both had stopped on the corner. Both were staring at me. Both had looks of utter horror on their faces. It was then I noticed the red glow engulfing me. I looked up. I'd never been so underwhelmed in my life. I stood, dusted myself off, picked up the bag and made my way home, ignoring the chattering of the two bullies. Mum, after noticing my blood-coated arm and leg, didn't mind the broken eggs. Infact, she hadn't thought I'd get them at all, so had gotten her own on her way home from work. The next day, everyone looked at me differently. Few people talked to me, but that was nothing unusual. What was unusual was they weren't ignoring me. Everyone I walked past stood and stared at me, whispering to their friends. I later found out from someone that one of my neighbours had seen the whole thing from the moment I turned onto the street, right to me tripping over. That night, I returned to the street. The light was gone. In it's place, a proud white light shone, it's one more illuminated neighbours joining it in bathing it's portion of the street in a warm, comfortable glow. And the Westlake kids who were standing on the opposite streetcorner turned and ran when they saw me.

Or take your brain out of your skull, belt it 'round a bit, then put it back in Best way to fix a broken brain Well, next to beer

Regular people with no creativity and a hatred of writing are successful writers You think machines came up with the scripts for all that garbage TV you yanks shovel our way?

It's posts like these that make me feel all gooey inside Well, that or that stomach flu that's been goin' 'round 'Scuse me, I gotta use the bathroom /me runs

Oh, allow me to retort It was a quiet day at the Almost Dragonic Sub-penHQ Underground Weapons Research and Fabrication Facility. The kind of quiet day people can't stand. The kind of quest day which declares loudly and proudly, "Something's about to happen. Something... interesting." The kind of quiet day you'd punch in the face, if a day could be punched or indeed had a face to punch. Touring the facility this quiet day were a number of top military officials from various rogue nations around the globe and around other globes that people didn't want to know about. People (Human or non-human, their gold's still the same) come from across the universe, multiverse and everywhere in between, real, unreal, hyperreal, surreal and just plain made up, to buy various weapons of mass destruction for educational purposes. This was the most common reason given on the written application for entry, the one that consists of the question "So why do you want weapons of mass destruction, anyway?" It was commonly assumed that the most educational purpose for anything from this bunker was to educate people in the price of... whatever transgression these intercontinental/galactic autocrats saw was justification for wiping out entire villages/planets at the push of a button. An educational experience rarely experienced twice As the group toured the facility, guided deeper onwards by everyone's favourite wyvern, Wyvern, constantly chattering away about various things, such as the average killzone in the AA-23 being worth the damage tradeoff over the AA-21, as the total power is more than enough to punch a hole in existence and out the other side and where to get the best mung beans this side of Joe's Mungbeanatorium, none noticed the lone individual slip away from the group and travel past a sign that read: "High Secret Testing Labs. Don't tell anyone about them" The hooded figure ran down the maze of corridors, all with white, featureless walls, white floors and mirrored ceilings. Left, Left, Left, Right, Left, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Lef... Arrgh! Wrong turn. He about-faced, ran back a few turns and corrected himself. After several minutes, he came to a large set of double doors marked "Caution! Use of high explosives in this area not recommended. Any and all individuals who detonate explosives in this area waive their right to continued residence in this plane and the right to sue Almost Dragonic Industries" In small writing, of course. This didn't matter, though. The individual couldn't read a word of it. Had he been able to read a word of it, he would've noted the large red button marked "Non-explosive method of entry". Instead, he pulled a box of Thermite from his cloak, set it upon the ground and attached a coil of wire to it. He unraveled the wire and moved several corridors away. Holding the plunger, he found a reasonable piece of cover, then detonated the explosives. Over the speakers in the area came a calm voice. "We asked you nicely not to detonate explosives here. For your transgressions, you shall be immediately terminated." The stranger looked around, only to find... nothing. He sighed and pressed the plunger Half a second before he ceased to live, he looked downwards to see his box of thermite on the ground, at his feet

How do you write with an eraser? Unless you dip the page in lead, then kinda erase word-resembling patterns into it...

Zool! For dishonouring my former guild, I challenge you to a duel Rules are simple. No hitting below the belt, namecalling or distorting the fabric of space/time Well, not too much, anyway And, as I'm such a nice guy, I'll let you have the first punch, so to speak

I choose thermite Thermite destroys all Except for adamantium But that doesn't really exist

I had a writing impliment that was a ballpoint pen, a pacer and a plastic pointy bit, apparently for use on palm pilots As for the poll, I would vote my long, sharpened nail, inked in fresh human blood, save for three reasons I do not possess a long, sharpened nail My handwriting is illegible I'm too lazy to keep stocked up on fresh human My second option would be some form of speechrecognition program that turns your voice into text, but my fingers are much less clumsy than my tongue for extended monologue Thusly, I choose not to vote, as I believe this to be some clever form of market research that I wish not to participate in You cunning corporate bastards will never outwile me. I am the wiley king, that's right, King Wile. I'll always be one step ahead of you, for you may know every trick in the book, but I was the one who composed the book

Lan parties, nerd gatherings, bigarse computer bashes where sad, pathetic, lifeless individuals gather to kick the crap out of eachother at Deathmatch and share pr0n (Pornography in 1337 sp33k.... don't ask). A hundred and fifty people... probably more... gathered in a hall, where power and network were provided, some using their own computers, built, upgraded, maintained and, in some cases, modded by themselves in their spare time. For the most part, the participants were kiddies. 15 year old homophobic virgins who spend most of their time shouting abuse at eachother due to small things, like someone being slightly better or luckier than them or, in rare cases, actually cheating. Their mentality less than that of a five year old, the insults consist of some variation of the word "Fag", with expletives added for spice. But today, somewhere in this hall, someone was about to snap Power had been a problem from the start. A hundred and fifty machines require quite a bit of juice to run properly and distribution had to be perfect, otherwise things would go to hell. The most common issue is always clumsy fools somehow tripping over powercables, pulling the board they're connect to out of the mains, thus killing the power to a segment of the gathering. Then, of course, some untrained individual managed to bring down the entire network just plugging a cable into a switch. These gatherings had a tendency to attract a special brand of retard. But on the odd occasion, there would be bigger problems, caused by improper setup of the networking equipment or just simple overload from too many people downloading too much stuff from other people, who were in turn downloading from others, who were... and thus the circle continued. This translated to quite a bit of network traffic, of which the network can handle only so much. His computer was his biggest problem. A machine that carried a terrible curse, one that requires 2 hours worth of attention to get working if the thing was ever shifted more than 2 feet from it's original location. This time around, he wanted to game. No leeching, due to lack of hard drive space, no socialising with likeminded losers, he just wanted to get down to the nitty gritty of picking up a rocket launcher and reducing his enemies to small piles of goo. This time, the gods were smiling upon him and the machine worked, first time. Good, he thought, time for fragging. Finding a server was his next problem. There were servers about, but not for any game he was currently in possession of. He could try inciting a game of his choice, but that would require effort. Instead, he would obtain a copy of whatever game from someone else. He turned to one of the players of this particular game, Battlegrounds 2942, and asked, "Where can I obtain a copy of this game, Good sir?" This question was repeated three times before he realised the person had his headphones on too loud, so could actually hear him. He lifted one of the ear pieces and asked again. "Oh, sorry dude, go ask Robbo2K. He's got one shared." The gamer returned to his game, only to find he'd been killed during the exchange. The resulting string of obscenity cannot be repeated here So he located Robbo2K, who was busy trying to set up speakers and asked for the game. A CD was thrust in his hand and he was shooed away. Robbo2K returned to his speaker setup. Putting the CD in the driver, he clicked install and let the installer run it's course. The progress bar got to 86%, then his computer died. As did the computers of all around him. Someone had tripped over the powercable. Screams, cries, curses and insults ensued as the administrator, a large man in a black overcoat, who went by the handle "Cango", found the offending cable and plugged it back in. Power restored, the installation was restarted. This time, it was successful. The next step was to find the patches for the game. Several were required. Updates for the game were needed, as no game is ever released perfect. Then the mod that was being played was needed. Finally, a No-CD patch was also needed, to overcome copy protection built into the game. An hour later, the game was ready to be played. About this time, the network went down. The cause was unknown, the screams deafening and the admin furiously working to isolate the problem before he had a riot of nerds on his hands. The pressure already building, he went for a walk. Nerds, like every other little social circle in existence, have their own form of "Big Ego" contests. Other people compare powerful cars, stuff in their backyards or cost of clothes. Nerds have two things. PC power and case rice. The term case rice was derived from rice on cars, but as most people here weren't old enough to drive, they modded their PCs, adding casefans, cold cathodes and other things just to make the thing look unique. He was no among them, having neither the time nor the cash to indulge in such pursuits. Some of the mods he saw while wandering around were quite impressive. He was amazed how much powersucking equipment could run off one powersupply. The insides of every case were visible, due to either windows in the sides of cases or a lack of case covers. Some cases needed separate powersupplies just to power everything stuffed inside. He shook his head and returned to his computer. The network had been restored. He proceeded to locate, download and install all required patches, cracks and mods. Another hour and a half gone and he still hadn't played anything. He fired up the game. The setup program popped up. A hundred and thirty two separate options that he had to alter from default, just because he had an amazing array of parts from differing eras, companies and countries around the world, all working haphazardly together to provide him with computer. This required a lot of effort on his part to maintain, but he was happy with the result. Once this was done, he fired up the game and tried to join the server. Success, but it was now empty. While he was getting the game, everyone had gone off to play something else. Then the final straw. Some fool running through the narrow aisles between tables tripped over someone's bag. He was carrying a jug of cola. His body hit our protagonist, his jug hit the monitor and the contents of the jug splashed all over the computer. As there was no cover on the computer at the time, the internal components were drenched. He froze. He then shook his head. He calmly removed the power cords from his computer, reached into his bag and pulled out a machete that just happened to be there.

It's like open source. Hack, carve and butcher as much as you want, just give credit and a copy of the original Well, it should be... [/nerd]