The FUD, the king of the hill and... so on

Given that you didn't shut the shit down back when, FUD is now being delivered by the truckload. What... can you do!

They're just trying to help, you know. They're just trying to help and they're encantados de ayudarte.

Above : Bitchez be unmuzzled for this one. I didn't even think I'd have to link, but lo! it's been six articles ago! It somehow feels like yesterday...

Below : Two and one quarter pound Porterhouse steak. Cooked as yours truly likes it. Paradise!

Also on the table, double order of berenjena "a la parilla" (really, in fucking superb tahini sauce), artichoke in white sauce and I don't rightly recall right now what the fuck else. More things, that's for damn sure, and a bottle or two of the finest claret to be found anywhere. Because the country gent dines well, what can I say.

Yes ?

Above : tropical fish.

Below : tropical duck goose, and his duck girlfriend. This goose always has a duck girlfriend (not usually the same one for very long). He used to work for the local police, but now he's moved and... well, honestly, I don't know what he does for a living. Besides the ducks, of course.

Above : The one, the only, the unmistakable duck!

Below : clouds.

Above as below : this guy owns a particular cactus bush on my front lawn. King of the Hill!

Above : morning comes over Guachipellin.

Below : datura. Ain't it resplendent in its pinkish hues ?

Above : land, such as there's left.

Below : papaya tree, fruit & flowering buds included.

Above (as below) : flowering bromilliad/cactus. It's not clear to me what the hell this is, but the item flowering has no roots, it roosts high up in a tree. It does look a lot like a cactus, though, and who knows, maybe its flowering is indeed a very rare event. I don't recall seeing one before, myself.

Above : swarming reddish ants. The shot doesn't well capture it, but the actual event looked very... strange. There was a thickness of ants all seemingly going the same direction, thirty or more abreast. Then the path meandered as the thickness dwindled forward ; and backward. It looked like a bunch of ants are re-enacting the cellular shape of Euglena viridis in red, for some reason nobody can well explain. Eerie shit.

Below : dead frog, its guts slowly fermenting in the road.

What a parking job, huh ? As we passed and I wondered Hannah proposed "What if some guy comes over, plain as you'd like, gets in and drives it away ?"

"You think ?"

"It wouldn't surprise me."

"Would they be taking the chain off ? Because if not... it'd really surprise me, that thing can't break a length of rope, let alone any kind of chain."

Above : the best visual discussion of life available anywhere. On the left, the river of river, jumbling together rock, silt and such. On the right, the river of time, jumbling together assorted debris. Not really that much of a difference, if you stop to consider the matter. Now tell me more about female agency, and how you matter in this world (just as soon as my attention's raised enough to notice, of course).

Below : nom.

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The story of Kitty and her kitten »

Category: Zsilnic

Thursday, 18 June, Year 12 d.Tr.

The dusts of days, a consolation.

You wouldn't know it for the looks alone, but there's two layers of fine dust deposited on the riding metal. First, there's the offering of the volcano, abrasive, harsh, firmly determined, recently cooled ; then atop there's the offering of the ocean, dissimulating, fine, overwhelmingly enveloping, readily airborne. They'll both get washed off jointly, together, in the same water, by naked dollies on high heels if I so feel like, or any other way I please ; but yet, for now, a captured light of a meanwhile disappearing star there they sit, and lord it all : two dusts, of dusk and dawn disconsolate.

We went to Poasi and bought all their strawberriesii. The day before we had bought all the coconuts down by the beach, and yesterday we bought all the French wine in town. I intend to continue the buy all spree for the forseable future -- and if my activity contributes to your not having nice things, well... all the fucking better, I say! Because fuck you, that's why!

I've seen the funniest thing at some point in Europe : on the tiny balcony of an economy flat in an economy building somewhere in a regrettable ruin of what once had perhaps been a country, a very sad dog sat dejectedly next to a very large atrocity in garish plastic, pointedly eating up most of the available space. It looked like it had been meant to be a dog house, though the dog very evidently didn't think so at all ; it further looked like it had been the "sacrifice" some schmuck inside had made in token for "his love" of the dog, perhaps at odds with his "his love" of something else. That dog'd better be grateful for such sacrificin', feel me, fam ?

The dog, needless to say, was neither grateful nor to any degree impressed by the impossible insanity of his "owner" ; because the dog wants the following thing, out of a dog fun zone : a fucking pile. A pile, that he can climb atop of. That's what a dog wants. You may add some flowers in the distance if you're going for the dogzone Olympics, he won't begrudge you the attempt.

Here in Costa Rica dogs have the best possible life dogs could ever have, because the people aren't smart enough to be irretrievably stupid.

I could, at this juncture, recount the story of the old, well beaten up yet remarkably upbeat hooker who will doubtless long remember me, like a myst, like a wonder, like a miracle from afar. But I'm not going to, principally because... guess what : the lives of women are ahistorical.

The (as far as I know only, in any case principal) importer of fine things in this country calls itself French Paradox, for some reason. They've one counter left (a coupla locations meanwhile closed) manned by one girly who had the intelligence to understand her placeiii in the world : when she offered the ubiquitous mascarillas I told her to mind her own business, which she proceeded to, forthwith. It's true that I had to bark it at her, as it didn't carry on the first pass ; but this is still substantially better showing than say the people at La Paz Waterfall and Peace Lodge Gardens, who had to (apologetically, but nevertheless) refund their evidently only cien income for the day upon their inability to adjust their mask-wearing policies (in the sense of, throwing any and all such nonsense out). How they intend to stay in business following "the government" for signal instead of me is anyone's guess ; but then again time has a way of solving these problems on the quiet ; and always has.

Meanwhile I've still not worn the plebeian trappings yetiv ; nor will I. More importantly -- nor do I patronize places that fail to bend to my will in this (as any other) matter. It's a very simple "either corruption or starvation -- pick one" dilemma I am enjoyably forcing upon the world, and have ; and forever will. It's working admirably well for me so far (like it always has) ; but I suppose giving thanks where thanks are due I must admit the marauding idiots are really doing all they can to make my job easy, my victories resounding yet easily purchased... it's like bringing butter to a knife fight, seriously now. Thanks, morons!

Meat on the hook : short & long pig arrayed for my sampling pleasure.

The best friends, having the best time any best friends could ever have!

Aforementioned girly, sweating profusely if discretely, spent a good fifteen minutes slicing (very thinly!) prime pastrami while feeding us treats to keep us from getting bored (she didn't want one herself, "she has the mask on, see"). The result, immortalized here because I suspect it might've been the first one she's ever made.

In the end, what are we even doing here, besides giving unexpectant girlies first time swirlies ? Hm ?

Hm ?

HM ?

———One of the three main volcanoes here. [↩]Costa Rica being a major producer of all sorts and manner of best-in-the-world agricultural jewels, it naturally merits something quite akin the French DOC ; nevertheless being a relatively young country populated by loving but unsophisticated folk, it didn't naturally evolve the notion just yet (and being on the list of designated victims, the pantsuits haven't force-exported the concept "yet", of course, of course). Still, something quite in that vein is slowly developping in its own time, in its own way : there's no way to express in the common vulgate that indeed the beach coconuts we get are by a credible margin the best coconuts (in this country whose worst coconuts are still miles better than anything your local frufru hipster fooderia offers), but there's coinages like say "cafe pura de altura" denoting the (locally) self-obvious concept that the only coffee worth drinking's grown above rather than below ; and even Fresas de Poas, which is what we're talking about.

They're pretty good ; though honestly I prefer the original, meanwhile defunct Capsuni de Satu-Mare. [↩]Perhaps more precisely said, the place of her ethical system, the totality of her notions on what other people should be doing.

Do you find there's anything more profoundly insulting to the pantsuit worldview than the plain and firm statement of the fundamental, irreparable irrelevancy of their ethical considerations ? I know of no surer solvent of the head cockroaches they carry through the world at their own expense besides the repeated, unadorned, forceful confrontation of the simple fact that "no, meat, your shoulds have no power whatsoever". [↩]In furtherance of the previously stated universal challenge : you are eating in restaurants, trading in shops, etcetera etcetera in outright defiance of the nanny state's notion as to how you should be dressed for it, openly, vocally and pointedly. Just like me. Yes ?

Or are you muzzled on call, like the rest of the dogs ? Hm ? [↩]

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Category: Zsilnic

Tuesday, 08 September, Year 12 d.Tr.

The diary of a baby doll.

Wed Tue September 9 8. Today was a very big day because of yesterday. Yesterday Daddy introduced me to Doll. Doll is Daddy's girlfriend. Daddy said Ashley, say hello to Doll. She is my girlfriend. Doll then bent over like I never saw before. She held her back straight and looked at me very close. She said Hi Ashley. I could feel her breath. I said Hi. Then she said how many times have I done this before. I said many. She said she never did it before. She said that it's okay if she's not my first Doll, but that I am her first Ashley. She said I am very special to her, and asked please to never forget that. I am her first Ashley and please don't break her heart. I started crying. She gave me a hug. She smelled so nice. Doll is very beautiful. She is so great and perfect in every way. I am one day going to show her all my journal. Even here where it says I love her. I will show her because I love her very much. She is the best ever. I hope to be just like her. Then the biggest thing happened. Dad said it is time for me to get ready. Doll said no. Dad asked her what is she talking about. She said she is not going anywhere and grabbed me close. She was almost choking me. I cried. Dad said what are you on about. Doll said she is never letting me go no matter what. Dad looked at her like she was crazy. Doll was just trembling and shaking her head no. Dad went inside. I asked her where is he going, and she said to call a lawyer if he has any sense. She asked me if I would like to stay with her and I said yes very much. What about Mom though. She asked me if I liked her. I said not really. I don't know why I said that. Mom works very hard, but our place is very small and we never do anything. She is always working or tired. And she gets upset because I am bored because there is nothing fun to do. I should have more respect. Then we talked and Dad came back. He said you'd better take her out shopping then or something. Meaning me. The story is, he said, she already picked her up, meaning Mom picked me up. He said after that I do not know what happened. You say you found the child wandering about the mall. She did not want to tell you what had happened, so you bought her some food and talked to her for a while and then she told you her parents name finally and because you knew me you drove her over. That is your story. Then he says after that keep her out of sight. As soon as Mom files for missing person he is going to send some boys over from the precinct to find her here, meaning me. They will file the story and then we go to court because of it. He said I'd better be ready for it because there is no backing out. Dad scratched his head. You sure about this he asked Doll. I love her she said. Meaning me. I started to cry. Doll rushed me into her car. She drives a convertible. Doll is hella cool. We went to the mall. We walked and we talked. I told her tomorrow is my birthday. She bought me this journal for a present. See how pretty it is ? She said I should write in it every day. But I am going to make this be like yesterday and write today later in. Although it is really today when I am writing now I will say like it was yesterday. We talked lots and she said we will have the best time together. I asked her what she does. She said she used to go to school, but she has had pipi fanny epiphany. I asked her what that is, she said like when you realise something very big and obvious. She said she is a lover now. That is what she does, she loves. I told her that is the greatest thing and I never heard anything like it. She said neither did she, not before it happened to her. Then she asked me if I have any clothes. I said not really, I only came to visit for the morning. I was supposed to be back by lunchtime. She asked me if I'd like to go shopping for pajamas with her. I asked her if she has any money. She said she has a little left on her card and besides we can beg Daddy afterwards if he'll pay for it. What an idea! She asked me if I had ever begged for anything before, and I had to say I don't really know. She made me promise I'd do it with her. She said it's a lot of fun, you have to go down on your knees and really beg with your whole heart. She made me promise I'd do it with her. She told me she never really did it either, but she really wants to. She said she was affraid she'd chicken out just by herself, but if we both do it then it will be a lot more fun anyway. We tried on lots and lots of things, and we practiced our begging in the dressing room. She was right, it is a lot of fun. In the end we left with a very pretty thing for her. It made her look sorta like a princess. Doll is so beautiful! We got two things for me, one long stretchy tube of very soft material colored like the skin with see-through on the sides and a pink bell-like thing very short with big pink feather bunches at the end and around the neck. She said they look just great on me. I never had anything like it before, Mom only ever buys me cotton things like for little girls and Dad never bought me pajamas ever. Then she said I have to eat a whole steak! Gross! We had to walk all across the mall to where this place Ruth's Chris is. What sort of a name is that anyway ? She ordered two New Yorks medium rare and they brought us raw meat! I mean it wasn't even cooked inside and they were huge. She said I have to eat it anyways! She's crazy! Then she said if I don't eat it she's going to beg me to right there in front of everyone, so I had to eat it. Gross! I asked her if she even likes this and she said she's been training herself to, and one day she'll order it blue. That's even less cooked than raw meat! She says a real woman has to train herself to swallow absolutely anything. I asked the waiter if they have snails. Just to mess with her, I did. You should have seen Doll's eyes wider than her plate. He said oh yes, absolutely, the scare-goat's fabulous just came in this morning. I asked if I could have some and he said most certainly. She just sat there and looked at me. I said to her I said I know you're a real woman Doll, so now you have to swallow them all. She just sat there staring as they brought them in, holding her breath I think. It really is true, they will bring you snails when you order them at that restaurant. I didn't think to say medium rare though so they were cooked. There's also a little special fork they give you, all tiny like for a doll house. She ate one very slowly, like she was eating something horrible, like earthworm or snail or something. Then she said hey this is pretty good and had another. By then I was curious but when she offered me one I said she's just messing they're probably terrible and she's just trying to trick me. So she got off her chair and went down on her knees and came all over to my seat like that and said if I love her I'll eat the scare-goat. So I had to. It wasn't really bad at all, we shared the rest. Then a man came to our table and he said to Doll he said Miss, excuse me but if I may say, that is the most beautiful thing that he never saw before a dedication like that from a babysitter and here is my card. Doll giggled and thanked him. I didn't say anything to him, but then we kept giggling together. I think he must have paid for our raw meats because the waiter said the check was already taken care of when we left. By the time we got back home it was dark out already. Doll put me to bed and got into bed with me and told me a great bedtime story I think she made-up herself, about a little girl and her adventures. Maybe it was from when she was a little girl herself. Then she told me that I have to stay in bed until she comes pick me up in the morning, no matter if I sleep or not. She made me promise her I will and I promised. I love Doll. I will always do anything she says. She's so great! Then she kissed me good night and then I fell asleep.

Wednesday September the 9th. Doll is making breakfast and I am writing now at the table. Before I was writing yesterday but that is done so now I am writing today. I showed her my journal and she said is it really true you love me too, and I said yes! And we hugged. She said it's the best thing that happened since she met Dad and that we'll have to do a love contest sometime because she thinks she loves me more. But I said no way she loves me more, I love her the most. Maybe she does, I don't know.

Doll said I should write out the day, and also call it the 9th not just 8. And also that I should make paragraphes because it is kinda hard to read otherwise and put what people say in quoted marks. And also she gave me a little pill to swallow. She said it will be our little secret, it's a special estrogen pill which is the whoremone girls get when they're older, especially the most beautiful ones, and that it will make my boobs grow evenly and big and without stretchmarks and also make me be pretty when I'm all grown up. And she said that's why I have to swallow lots of meat, too, no matter how gross it is, and drink milk, to grow big and tall and strong and have really big breasts. I wonder why nobody else told me this before. But she is right, if it makes you pretty it's worth swallowing anything. Even if it's gross.

Daddy is not at home, he left early for business. He is often gone, which is why before Doll was here I couldn't stay even if I wanted to. But now with Doll it's different. We were going to beg him for the things this morning before he left but he just said "sure don't worry about it" without even looking at us. Honestly it was a lot more fun when we were practicing for it. I was wearing my tube pajama and he laughed and laughed when he saw it. He asked if I am practicing to be a sea creature. Doll said "get out of here Square Pants" and he left laughing. Then after he left Doll showed me how to walk in the tube, because you're not supposed to walk normally in it, you're supposed to keep your legs together mostly and do a sorta butt shake, it's pretty weird.

Then after breakfast she asked me if I want to go for a swim, and I said sure but I have no bathing suit, but she said only poor people go in the water with clothes on, and besides she doesn't really want me dressed around the house anyway. I asked her how come and she said it's just better for a girl to get used to being natural so she grows up secure and honest. I asked her if she had read that up somewhere, and she said no, they never print any of the good stuff. It's always crap and bullshit they print up. I kinda thought she's right, to be honest. So we went for a swim and we hung out by the pool to work on our tans and we chatted and I asked her how come her parents named her Doll, how did they know she was going to be so pretty. But she said her parents didn't call her that, she said Daddy called her that. So I asked her what was she before and she said she was Candi, with an eye. I asked her why would her parents name her that, did they think she'll grow up to be a strip girl or something and she said it wasn't her parents, but Daddy again, she said when they first met the first day she had such a great time with him she begged him to give her a name and that's what he came up with. I had no idea people can just come up with names like that but she said sure. I decided right then I want to not be Ashley anymore, what a stupid name. I didn't burn down or anything. She asked me what I want to be then and when I said Babydoll! she just started crying and hugging me. She said it's perfect for me and that after Dad gets custody she'll tell him to change my name too. Or she said I can do it anyway when I'm 18een. 18! Why not 45, I'll be dead before that. But anyone will call me Babydoll anyway, and we'll get Tshirts with our names on them also.

Then she asked me what do I want to do for my birthday because she remembered! Mom also always remembers, but she only buys some store cake or something and gifts of things I needed anyway like sport shoes for school. Mom never said "what do you want to do for your birthday Babydoll" although she didn't know I was Babydoll back then either but then again whose fault is that! I didn't know what to say so then she asked me how about a pajama birthday party! Such a beautiful wild idea! She asked me who my friends were, and that I should make a list of maybe a dozen or so which means twelve, and she will go and get all the supplies but I shouldn't open the door to anyone while she is gone. When she came back she had bagfuls and bagfuls of things, glow sticks and even fireworks and body paint and joke things like fart pillows and masks like from the carnival with feathers and many great things and big colorful jewelry and everything! She looked at my list and she said but no Babydoll, there can't be any boys, remember the whole thing with keeping low and custody. Then she made me show the profiles of the girls on the list, and she asked me if we're really close or they're just some girls from school and I had to admit they're just the girls that'll let me sit at their table in the cafeteria so she said no way and she made me make the list of the most popular girls in all my classes and she checked out their profiles and had me call and message them to invite them and she helped me with the wording and in less than not even an hour we had twelve confirmed rsvp out of maybe twenty or so we tried.

My 12th birthday party was the best party in my life! It is just incredible how in the morning we were just sitting by the pool chatting like nothing and then later that same evening we were having the best party ever. Doll really knows how to do things right. First things first she told all the girls that she has to take their phones because there's a custody battle going on and I can't be seen. She made it sound like I was totally gangsta, everyone was looking up to me like I was Cardi B! These girls do advertisements for Disney and are top influencers of social media and I was their QUEEN! Then later after the cake she broke out the fireworks and bodypaints and masks and said everyone should take their clothes off except of course if it makes anyone uncomfortable she can keep her panties on. But nobody did because who wants to be that girl, right! Doll winked at me like, "see" and yeah, totally! Then she started firing roman candles into the pool from the balcony and shaking Martinelli's bottles dousing everyone. It was WILD! I never had so much fun in my whole life EVER!

Then we went to bed sorta. Doll organized everyone to move all the matresses out of the spare bedrooms out on the deck and we all slept in this huge triplequeen size bed under the stars except of course nobody could really sleep. So we just stayed up all night and we're all best friends now because of Doll! And she said because that we're friends they can come visit any time and my life is just the greatest ever.

Thursday September the 10st. Doll was up early and spent all morning taking the girls back home. I was in my room checking my insta which is now zooming every boy in school liking my stuff now because everyone added me and they say really nice things. Dad's service people cleanned up the house all morning but Dad is in Florida for business and then we had lunch on the deck just me and Doll and then she said we have to go see Dr. Smallchild who is her ginnycolecist. This is the craziest stuff I never heard about, a giniolegist is an old doctor guy with a reflector attached to his head and you have to take all your clothes off and sit on a chair with torture instruments for your ankles and he touches you right there! He asked me things about my period and put lube on my belly and rubbed a cold metal razor on it which takes pictures of inside of you and then he said I'm perfectly fine and there's nothing to worry about which was nice to hear. I was very ashamed to be up there in front of Doll like that, but she said there's nothing to be ashamed of and a girl should never think that way about her body. It's just not right, she said. Maybe she's right, I think.

On the way back she asked me if I masturbate and of course I said no but she said she bets I do like in the shower or in bed at night sometimes and I had to admit that I do and she said there's nothing wrong with it, it's good for me and I should do it every day. I asked her if she's sure because I heard it can be bad for your health and can also make you pregnant but she said that's ridiculous. She said it's the best thing for sexual health at my age and also that you can't ever be pregnant if there are no boys there which is a relief. Who wants boys to be there anyways! And she asked me how I do it and if I ever hold it in and try not to let it happen while also rubbing it and when I said no she said I should try it because it makes it better, and also she said if I do it in the shower the best way is to wait until I really have to pee and then let go and pee while it's happening. That is so out there! I had no idea people do this kinds of things, but she said yeah of course, all the time. And then she said when I'm older she's going to show me how to do it with the beads and all sorts of things. Doll is really fascinating and she knows so many things about everything!

Then after dinner she asked me if I want to paint her toenails and I said yes of course! And so we painted her toenails pink and then she painted my toenails the same exact pink and now we're toesisters and then later she said it's time for bed but I begged her to get in with me and tell me a story of hers and then after she did I wouldn't let her go anymore I just held her tight and begged her to sleep with me please which she didn't want to do saying it's not right and what if Dad comes or anything but really, Dad is in Florida and I love her and I want to sleep with her every night. She is so soft and loving and warm there is no better place to be outside of in her arms. I love Doll.

Friday September the 11th. Really all I want to do all day long is just lay in bed with Doll and kiss her all over and hug and just be with her or by the pool or anywhere. I spent the whole day just following her around the house and eventually she started making fun of me for it and I said I just can't help it, because I love her. And then she did the weirdest thing, she turned towards me and she said, "then maybe I should beat you, Babydoll". I asked her wouldn't that hurt and she said it damn well right hurts, and asked me if I'm some sort of chickenshit. I said I'm not and I will do anything she wants me to no matter what it is, but I asked her why would she hurt me and she said "Babydoll, you'll be hurt in this life, it's a given. It's always better if someone you truly love does it." which makes no sense at all but also made me all warm inside, like I really, really wanted her to hurt me bad now. So we went through all the closets looking for belts and we found some pretty great ones and then she had me bend over my bed face down and she hit me over the ass. It burned like HELL! I was on fire, like she peeled my skin off and poured rubbing alcohol on it. I yelled out and she asked me if I had enough. I turned to look at her with tears in my eyes but I said only when she's had enough and she rubbed my welt which still hurt a little bit softly and then hit me again with a wider belt which was even worse, and every time she kept asking me if I had enough but I always said only when she's had enough so she kept going and going until eventually she fell down crying and kissing me and saying "Oh Babydoll I can't hurt you anymore, I'm sorry baby I'm sorry, don't hate me, please." but I told her I could never hate her no matter what she did to me because I loved her and always will. Then I asked her if anyone had done this to her before and she said no, never so then I asked her why did she do it to me and she said because she was curious. Then she asked me if I want to do it to her and I said sure. So she kneeled face down in my bed and I grabbed a belt and tried to hit her but it didn't do much. She showed me how to hold the belt and explained how to hit with it and then when I hit her she yelled like I killed her or something. There was a huge red mark on her ass sorta to the side and she was crying in bed. I said to her "have you had enough you little chickenshit". I don't know why I said that but she started crying even harder and she was saying "no no Babydoll" and "please hurt me" and "oh it hurts so bad" and all sorts of things through her tears and it was very confusing. I kept hitting her with all the belts until my arms were tired and she was dark black all over, and then she kept crying in my arms for a long time about how bad it hurt. It was even better than before, I enjoyed holding the hurt and beaten Doll crying in my arms even more than when we were in bed before and I told her. I said "I like hurting you so much Doll!" and she tried to smile with tears in her eyes but it was more like a wince of pain.

As we were laying there and she was sobbing I asked her, I said "what do you and Dad do" and she looked at me and asked "what do you mean". "You know what I mean" I said, "like why did you say what if Daddy comes and we're in bed." She told me they have sex, and I asked her what that is, so she explained to me that when a man owns a woman he sometimes pushes himself inside of her, which is very enjoyable. I asked her if it hurts, and she said that not really, maybe a little occasionally, maybe a little more the first time, but not really. There are ways to make it hurt more, which people sometimes do, but it's not usually a painful thing. I asked her if it hurts anything like the belts and she said oh no, absolutely not. But she did say it feels so good because it makes you feel you're his, just like the belts do. It's true, too, I never felt so much like she was mine as when she was squirming in pain because I belted her so I asked her if it was the same way for her when she was hurting me, and she said of course, that's what it is. So I asked her then, I said she's the only Doll I have, but she has both me and Dad, it's not fair. She told me that in time I'll have others too, but I told her I don't care about it, I don't want anyone else, I just want her. She just looked at me with her big eyes wide open, and with tears on her long eyelashes, and then I asked her what is someone called like her, who has many people owning her and she said she is a slut. Then she hugged me tight and begged me to not stop loving her, she can't help being a slut, she was born that way. I told her that I love her too much to ever stop, but she has to promise she will never ever leave me. She said "silly girl, I already have" but I made her promise again, and again, and again and then we fell asleep.

Saturday September the 12nd. We both had breakfast standing up. I had to sleep on my tummy only now, we worked too much on our sun tans and my back was kinda burned and then the belts tan was even worse and there was just no way. Then later I heard Doll turn on the shower and I went in and joined her. She caressed my zebra butt and when I looked at her she said "you just want to beat me again, don't you". I said kinda, because yeah, totally I wanted to beat her again, but she said "You can't, Babydoll. It's too much. You'll kill me." and yeah, her welts were all bruised and huge. They looked much worse than they did yesterday. I told her I want to beat her like nothing I wanted ever before, but she can tell me when she's ready for it again.

Then the police came by so we had to hop out. There were a bunch of people with the policemen, they interviewed me in my bathrobe. They asked my name and all sorts of questions but I just told them I don't remember. Then they asked Doll and she told them she's Dad's fiance and that a friend of his brought me over Tuesday night because she found me at the mall by myself. She told them she doesn't know how I got there, and that I wasn't here about noon - half past noon when she came to meet Dad. She told them he's in Florida on business and she's agreed to stay here at the house until the situation is sorted out. Then Dad showed up just as they were about to leave and told them the same things all over again. Then he showed them on his phone a judge order that he has temporary custody and everyone basically packed it and left. Then Doll told me to go upstairs, and I said "Yes Miss!" and high-tailed it out of there.

At night Doll came to put me to bed like always, and as she got in with me I asked her what did Dad say ? "He said what did you do to her and I said what do you mean and he said I've never seen Ashley that way and I said she's Babydoll now so he said what the... and I said because she loves me so much and he said what the hell did you do to her and I said I beat her" she told me. I couldn't believe my ears. "But aren't you affraid ?!" I asked her. Yes, she said. She was petrified, but what was she going to do, lie ? To Dad ? "Then he said what the hell's wrong with you, she's just a kid, are you fucking crazy ? and I said she beat me too, black and blue. It's a love thing and then I showed him what you did to me." I never met anyone so brave and heroic as Doll. She said Dad thought her ass looks just beautiful, and he said he had never seen me do anything great or anything like that ever before. He told her he's proud of me! I asked her if they had sex afterwards and she said yeah, lots. I told her she owes me and she said "anything you want, baby. Anything at all."

Sunday September the 13th. Dad made us breakfast and he said to me he heard I'm Babydoll now and I said yeah! and he asked me how come and I said because Doll is the greatest and I love her. He said he loves her too and I said that's just great and we will be so happy. He seemed confused but then he asked me if Doll beat me, and I said yeah! and he asked me how come so I said because I asked her to. He asked me why did I ask her to and I said because I love her! He said that makes no sense and I said of course it does, Dad! Being hurt by who you love is the greatest thing. He asked me how old I am and I said I'm twelve now and he said I don't sound twelve and I said thank you. Dad seemed more and more confused. Doll started to say something but he cut her off harshly, "Shut up you, I'm talking to my daughter." so she just kneeled on the floor and kept quiet and her eyes down. Dad told me love is a complicated thing and it unveils itself to people little by little. I said that sounds pretty cool, actually. I hadn't thought about it that way before but I can see he's right. I don't think he expected to hear anything like that, because he thought about it a minute and then said young people have to take it easier and slow themselves down even though it doesn't come natural, because they've not yet seen enough of the cards to know how to play their hand. I asked him what would he like me to do, and he said he'd like us to stop beating on each other for one thing. I said okay but he really didn't seem ready for it, because he asked me what did I say. I told him I said okay, I won't beat his fiance and I won't ask her to beat me anymore if he doesn't want me to. He scratched his head. He turned to Doll and asked her "what are you doing to my daughter ?" Doll looked up at him with those beautiful large eyes of hers and said she's trying to give me all the opportunities she never had growing up. Dad said she'd better take good care of me, and Doll said she will. Then he told her to swear, and she swore. Then we ate pancakes.

Doll started trying to teach herself French. We hung out trying to pronounce words all day. French is really weird. We rubbed aloe lotion on the welts, which are somehow even worse than they were I think, especially on her. Then Doll put me to bed, she told me a long story but I don't remember any of it. I fell asleep instantly in the warmth of her arms.

Continued >>

« Das Wilde Leben

Babydoll goes back to school »

Category: Cuvinte Sfiinte

Friday, 30 October, Year 12 d.Tr.

The Devils

The Devilsi is probably the best film ever made, and this because of the details (wherein it truly lies). Everything Ken Russell touched within it turned to gold -- take for instance the simple case of replacing the 80-something priest in the script with the juvenile Murray Melvin. It works way the fuck better that way, and so does everything else, literally and quite absolutely everything else. It's exceedingly rare for me to sit through a screening and find no flaw with itii ; but by the time the scene rolls around where the ambitious upper crust cuntlet prays postcoitally and in English (something that character self-obviously would have been doing in Latin) we're like a third in, and that's the only thing I'd have changed in the whole two hour production!iii

The haphazardly built "modernist" city, self-obviously a construction of cardboard on a soundstage works, the enchanted fiction of a fictive Loudun that nevertheless existed could not have been any better served in any possible other way -- which is ultimately the crowning achievement of art : when its means, artificial as they may be, and self-obviously artificial to the artifex, to the man possessed of enough humanity to be both privy and party to their making, work better for the telling of the story than any "more real" supposed alternatives ever could. There's also a lot of Chaplin's notions of industrialized city life in the movements on stairs around and about Richelieu's fortress of evil, and very aptly so, for what's The State besides the state of survival of the insects ? The scenery aside, about half of the frames positively make for stills that effortlessly outgun any of Hogarth's seemingly endless "Progress"es of dubious artistic value but deeply felt melodramatic silliness. At 24fpsiv over 117 minutesv we're talking eighty thousand or so prints! This can be readily underplayed, because it requires such superlatives to half-adequately render as no human tongue's readily prepared to offer, my own included. Nevertheless it shouldn't be underplayed, nor should it have been. Had Russel been put in charge of Hollywood, such that no project could move without his go ahead the quality of American cinema'd have greatly leaped forward (or, just as well, the spurious pretense to cinematic production on the dismal continent'd have went the way their spurious pretense to "democracy" is going).

But the beauty, the sheer untouchable mastery with which Russel stuffs a hunchbacked gigglefuck in a sort of ad-hoc sewer, to watch her hysterical fixation pass by unaware... there's problems of mass in sexuality, especially in the mental digestion of sexual impulse, and never before were they so well approached, nor is any medium so adequate to handling it. Moreover, in having the visual anchor provided for it literature can now use a point of reference to discuss what prior stood to it hermetically unapproachable. There are few people who've done genuine service to representation -- the men who "first explored" some geographic feature according to some particular culture's remnant histories are inconsequential by comparison. The men who first document some nook of gnoseology, thereby opening thought for all coming after them, those are the true heroes of a very typical, specifically human kind ; and Russel is among them like Plato is among them -- only, I'd very much rather do without Plato, useful in depicting error congealed as he may be, than without Russel. And then the colors, good Lord this thing... it could've been a silent movie without even trying, and it'd have blown straight out of the water everything those people managed to put together, what cabinet, what Caligari ?

The scoring's perhaps the most amateurish part of the whole thing (though the Bourree d'Avignon opening is very strong, and on that strength the rest may be allowed to sail free), but... well, what can you do.

PS. Read the Huxley book, it's as far from fiction as he ever traveled.

———1970, by Ken Russell (after an Aldous Huxley original and a wreath of derivatives), with Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Jones, Georgina Hale, Judith Paris, Catherine Willmer, Izabella Telezynska, Nike Arrighi, Imogen Claire, Barbie Denham, Selina Gilbert, Cheryl Grunwald, Tina Simmons, Doremy Vernon. [↩]Incidentally, that Ebert ass pompously giving it "zero stars" is all anyone will ever need to know about him. I'd rather hear the cinematic judgements of pewter cutlery. [↩]There's no telling that he didn't actually try for it, only to discover Jones so painfully impossible at the task as to leave him no choice. [↩]35mm film was pretty well specified, 4 holes per frame, 16 frames per foot, it's all well known. Or was, at any rate. [↩]There's a 111 minute version for Brits, which excludes most frames of the "evil" scenes, because Brits can "fill them in with their imagination" ; there's also a 106 minute version for Muricans, which excludes pretty much everything, making the film about as disjointedly incomprehensible as everything else of Europe's culture those sad twits "ran off" with. [↩]

« The Indian bride

The Seven Laws »

Category: Trilematograf

Thursday, 17 December, Year 12 d.Tr.

The decanter of decansion decants ; and having decanted... moves on ?

How do you say this, anyway ? I mean I get it, of decanting, like appealing. But I don't want appealing, I want appellation. How does decant do the -ion adverb, not the -ing faux verb-adverb ? Hm ?

Neways, I'm sitting here reunited with the girls. One was off doing one thing, by herself ; the other was off doing some other thing, we started together, but then I dropped her off, and continued in the taxi. So as she's taking off her other shoe, melontits lazily caressing her knees, she turns her head towards me and she's like... "did you remember to take the stuff ?!"

We had bought some shit in the joint portion of the voyage, such as cakes and quiche and ensalada de salmon con aguacate and cafes chorreadas de Limon and etcetera at the very nice cafe where we go ; and paid random girls on la calle compliments ; and looked under the skirt of the interesting portion of the teenage couple that had skipped hand in hand all the way down the street to the fuckhotel previously shown jfw, and then up the stairs. No kidding ; the common street hooker looked just like a last-year highschooler ; I'm sure she earned her cien mil or whatever it was (more like perhaps sixty, odds are). All that is perfectly safe, and all through the trip still with me, as you can well see. However other odds and ends -- a coupla mice, a half dozen mangos I lack words to describe the item, it's not a mango it's Afrodite's right tit, stuff like that. And no of fucking well course I didn't "remember" to take them, what the everloving shit is this, I've not carried a bag in a decade. What are women even for ?!

So no, they were left in the cab ; which being a random pick-me-up from the street downtown, twelve or so miles off... there's literally no way to get to him (zero doubt that he'd gladly return the loot if he could be contacted -- but he can't possibly be contacted). Had he been a local... but he wasn't a local, in little rural Centroamerican towns two different barrios might as well be a world apart, and we're talking like eight or so barrios over here, forgetaboutit.

Nobody got punished or anything in the making of this adventure, though of course she felt guilty anyways. But just as everyone's settled down... someone's honking at the gate. So I yell for the groundskeeper guy, who pops his head across from me, on the other side of the third floor. He's not by the gate, he's up here working on shit. Damn. Nicole meanwhile runs there barefoot, to encounter... the cab driver. Who, having found the stuff, drove back, of his own accord, to deliver it to its rightful owner (me). Because, I dunno how to put it in plainer or more piercing words, this is what these people do, and by direct consequence what they are. He could've eaten my fucken mangos with his girlfriend or sold my mice to the street hawkers, I'm sure, but his abuelos used to live here, and even if he doesn't know the place nor ever saw me before in his life... what the fuck, it's just not done, you understand me ? If you leave your shit in his cab he'll just bring it back, like normal fucking people (fifty or a hundred years ago). Ticos for Superior Species 2020.

But getting back to it : by consequence I'm sitting here with my girls and my delicious fresh mango drink (en leche), quite inclined to help. So let's help then, what!

jfw: diana_coman: perhaps he just says it to get an itch under my skin

Not hardly, but here's the actual story that nobody else is going to otherwise know unless I drive all the way back to deliver it myself : at t0, I asked trinque if he'd like to process this transaction via deedbot, because I figured whatever missed pointsi of the past, it might still be good -- for everyone.

At t0 + 1 hour... nothing happened.

At t0 + 2 hours... nothing happened either.

At t0 + 6 hours, or 12 hours, or twenty four hours, or you fucking name your interval, nothing the fuck happened just as much. Isn't it fabulous, this state of affairs where the only guy with, to fucking quote, exactly and for exactness,

so im sitting there in the buffet breakfast area, with two girls standing on either side ready to serve, enjoying my tomcat perch, shooting gazes at all the other dudes, "oh, joe, no suit ?" "oh moe, where's YOUR slavegirls ?" until everyone's just eating with their head bent to the degree their face and their egg are contiguous media.

go me.

TWO valets, WITH tits. a standard never before deployed in the history of feudalism. a duke might, MAYBE, get two pages, but that'd be just about it.

GO ME.

The coolest guy since, simply and literally, forever -- you don't have to "like" it, you don't have to "accept" it, nobody is giving shit one about you in this matter, reality is what it is not what fits in your gullet -- can interrupt his breakfast to answer questions as need be, within hours of their appearing, whether that need is even comprehended by anyone at all or not. That's good enough for him, but... what, it obliges ? Noblesse obliges ?! Herp.

At t0 + no less than fucking... count them with me now, does your timestamp read 2020-03-03 08:25:37.217662 like mine does ? And then the other 2020-03-07 07:21:22.589290 on your screen as well as on mine ? So what's this, four days, t0 + NINETY FIVE hours, yes ? Do you know what that gpgram contained, chiefly ? Me asking that it dun take for fucking ever like last time. How about that ?

Anyways, four days later I gave up. That's what fucking happened. I could very well not have talked to jfw at all. It seemed to me haughty not to. It's true he's new ; it's also true I know of no reason his work or effort needs to be discounted. Indeed I knew no such thing in the case of all the other great losers of this great experiment -- read mod6 from back in 2016, read phf, or alf or any and all of them. Read trinque in his youth, not even back when he was called undata, read him as early trinque, compare and contrast. What got into all of them, brainworms ? Sooner or later you will have to face the fact that who knows, maybe the Republic fucks people ? Dumbs them down ? If you compare what went in and what went out, it is inescapable -- just look at what a fucking moron Stanislav became in the past say six months. Was he always this fucking stupid ? Can you find idiocy of that caliber in his early work ? What the fuck exactly happened, then ?

These are questions you will have to face ; can't simply ignore. Sure, maybe he was just a poltroon, a spineless swallower of all things, ready to claim an unchewed agreement to anything, whatever it might be, like old maids desperate for acceptance or marriage. Then, once his sugar cube went away so went his "ideological allignment", his "opinions" (truly his) and all the rest of it. Ok, maybe. That'd be one. And maybe the other one got fucked in the ass and it changed his personality (srsly ?! this works now ?!) and the other got married and what the fuck, we're gonna sit here coming up with individually tailored explanations built of smoke and circumstances for everywhich event in a sufficiently long list ?

But, be this problem whatever it might be, we're moving on : a further seventeen hours later, one hundred and twelve hours after the initial highlight, trinque sent me something. I've no idea what it is, I've not gotten to it yet. Eventually I will perhaps ; but for now a simple observation suffices : seventeen goes into ninety-five five times and a half and change. Let's call it n instead. It makes an immense difference answering at n-1, rather than at n+1. Seventeen hours in ; or thirty-four, or even fifty-one or sixty-eight, and so on, it'd have been a thing. Too late however, is too fucking late ; and that's what it is and how it goes and what it all means.

For that matter... it's how the unravelling even started -- re-read the phf lulz and be edified.

So yes, it's true jfw's thing made Diana chuckle. There's problems, of course there are, the infrastructure was not ready, bla bla bla. Great fucking progress from 2012 onwards, what can be said. Yet that I felt like giving him his moment in what otherwise is a galactic shut-down doesn't mean now "he fucked it up". His only part here is your further humiliation : after years of "working", the situation is that if I want to use republican tools for republican goalsii it all hangs on some new guy and his thing none of you haughty idiots even tried out. How about that ? Write me fifteen hundred more of those pompously pointless "report of the foundation, gentlemen" or whatever the fuck it is you do, it'll go a long way towards... Towards what ?

And moving on : yes I'm going to give a bundle of Bitcoin to a bunch of people who've been shamelessly sitting on their asses, watching how the rest of you busted your humps and broke your hands and broke your necks and got enough humiliation to last you a lifetime for it all. The old point's not lost -- for all his failure to n-1 rather than n+1 trinque still stands way the fuck taller than some cocksucker who "worked" for Okcupid all these years, or whatever dumb, shamefully dumb shit in that vein. So no, they're not going to get "the best there is", because fuck them, they've sat on their hands rather than make that best exist. They'll get "industry standard", they're not fucking special, a webwallet's good enough for alooftards with "options" and etceteras.

I hope it's all clear now ; but if it is or if it isn't -- my mango's gone.

———Remember when I said, literally and to the very letter,

mp_en_viaje http://logs.ossasepia.com/log/trilema/2019-10-21#1947260

Saturday, 14 March, Year 12 d.Tr.

The Buller-Podington Compacts.

Thomas Buller had appeared upon the great, shining jewel within Her Majesty The Queen's Imperial Diadem at an unknown point in time, and in unclear circumstances. Truth be told, it's not even certain that by then his name had been Thomas, or his surname Buller, for any considerable length of time.

He was about thirty, or in any case of some age past the naive exuberances of first adulthood but prior to the philosophical disinterest of the third. He earned his salt and justified his time before society through employment of some nature with one of the larger trading houses in New Delhi, its nature never exactly specified to the knowledge of any of the other clerks there engaged nor his presence about the offices protracted sufficiently as to allow their limited means of investigation reach any definite conclusion.

William Podington on the other hand had arrived in New Delhi according to a contract signed in the London offices of the same firm, upon specific invitation by their representative at Oxford, boarding ship the week after his very much talked-about First. It is indeed rare that any candidate's viva voce turns rather into an exercise of flattery by the appointed examiners, but few recalled another instance at Oxford where the fellows actually stood and applauded.

On the strength of this standing ovation, barely a minute in actual duration yet coming at such particularly convenient a moment in time -- for other youths had been indeed applauded for longer, and that same year, or month, and even by more people, and in richer decorated halls, standing upon better constructed floors, or within less drafty agglomerations of stone, and on and on, yet...

On the strength of that single, passing, momentary event Mr. Podington found a great number of most attractive and certainly lucrative prospects open before him, the majority of which also including wedding arrangements. That he passed on all such possibilities open before him should certainly not be held against the young ladies involved, as there can be little doubt indeed that within and among the female herd then coming of age and being therefore in the sights of the respective husbands for immediate disposition through convenient settlement there could be found such substance as to satisfy any demand, such brute material as to justify any taste and thoroughly employ any chisel, brilliant rose, bright lilac, blanched almond, buff and alabaster to in the end both satisfy and exhaust any painter's hand.

Nor perhaps should it be held against the talented Mr. Podington himself. In his heart of hearts he deemed he was, as his journals of the time indeed reflect, incomplete in a way coming earlier than marriage in the natural unfurling of the human bud ; and it is indeed true that a certain sense and experience of adventure, of actual risk and actual reward (of the only kind there is, or ever could be -- one's own life) were heretofore missing from the dough of the applauded English youth whose whole life to that point had barely compassed a hundred miles upon the Earth's widely stretching face -- and what a quaint, settled, orderly and ultimately boring hundred those miles made up! That he opted not to go yet in the oven and be baked before adding a pinch of salt, so to speak, may not necessarily paint a young fellow in the unkind colors of the confirmed bachelor's palette.

It can then be supposed without much fear of contradiction that the two found each other within a short time of Mr. Podington's landing ; indeed he was looking for something quite like Mr. Buller, and, as it turns out, unbeknownst to all, chief of which himself, Mr. Buller in his turn was also looking for something quite like Mr. Podington. They struck a capital friendship upon the minute's very sight and, learning later of each other's circumstances from abroad and from beyond their own, narrow, twin-engine, two-seater world they were indeed very little surprised. "But of course you were!" became, through unintentional yet naturally repeated ejaculation, a sort of private joke within their bifocal circle, and they soon agreed that, in the regrettable event of either's cessation from this world, the other will undertake the support and maintenance of the remaining family.

That neither was at that time married, let alone blessed with progeny, nor had momentarily any intentions of undertaking such a step did not figure proeminently in the consideration, as far as they could see. This, then, was the original Buller-Podington Compact : a kind of agreement common enough among men in their circumstance and situation, useful and besides important as a crowning achievement of common man's best intent and furthest exercise of his mental capacity, rendered in their particular case rather an exercise in humorous connivance by the exceptional gifts and abilities Providence in her mercy reserved exclusively for their blessing, rather than spreading more evenly among mankind, and in this even-ness destroy them.

The original Buller-Podington Compact was soon followed by another, of a more practical sort : the happy pair agreed to something experience readily indicated as a wise course in the shortest of spaces, namely, that whenever either found a satisfactory whore, she would be retained rather than dismissed upon consummation, and the other notified. It so happened that both men's mating preference ran almost exactly parallel, in a reliable if apparently unspeakable manner. They delighted in many kinds of the female animal then in trade, indeed they appreciated almost all capital articles -- neither Buller nor Podington would have rejected a sexual toy for her being too dark skinned, or too light skinned, too tall, or too short, for having the wrong eye color, or curly hair, or straight hair, small feet, or large feet. They greatly delighted in wits, though not all of them, indeed not most of them ; and though they both thought they did not appreciate the boyish kind of female form so sadly oversupplied in their motherland, with its bosom modest to the point of almost ridicule and buttocks less developed than a healthy lad their age, even this supposed rule found readily its exceptions in their joint practice.

In a word, both Buller and Podington liked a small portion of almost any kind of whore, but they reliably found most delightful almost any woman the other hand enjoyed, hence the necessity of the compact. As they readily observed that either of them had slightly better (or, perhaps, depending on the moment's mood, slightly worse) than even odds of being satisfied upon spending an hour or two perusing the wares offered in any establishment, however well appointed, whereas were virtually guaranteed a most pleasant time in the company of whatever the other had in fact enjoyed, it seemed rather wasteful to not share the fruits of time and effort expended in selection. Twice the satisfaction for shared information is, indeed, the oldest compact humanity has known, and it would with justice be deemed rather a mental defect of the two had they failed to arrive at as much.

The third Buller-Podington Compact grew naturally from the second, and followed necessarily in the footsteps of the first : they agreed that they would only marry together, which was to say not merely at the same time, such as to avoid the unseemly situation where one, still a bachelor, was confronted with the complex changes in their happy, enduring friendship the other's new circumstances drove, in a most unbalanced manner. No, nothing as plain, trite and ordinary as merely that would do for such gentlemen as these -- and after all, they weren't (nor ever had been, but certainly by this point could not be in any light suspected of being) little caged prisses walking importantly upon England's green (at their appointed time) while deluding themselves with a spurious fantasy of appartenence to humankind present in their mind only, and fed mostly upon the wilful blindness to their most decidedly bovine circumstances.

How does a seventeen year old female end up thinking herself a kind of man, when obviously she's being held on as short a leash as any wild goat by they upon whose property, just like the goat, she grazes ? Just like the goat, she's not made anything of what she eats ; just like the goat she's kept around for milk and eventual sacrifice, with a view to minimizing the damage she does to the property until such a time -- and certainly well fenced in, lest she do damage to the property of others. For, if an ill behaved goat eats its owner's carrots the suffering landlord's only out some carrots, such as were eaten ; whereas if she eats another's carrots there will be proceedings, and an exchange of coinage, most decidedly a greater loss than merely the carrots involved -- even though the goat involved's scarcely capable to evaluate this difference (as chief portion of the natural insensate idiocy that makes it be a goat in the first place).

The third Buller-Podington Compact thus simply and plainly required that any potential match contemplated by one would be required to gladly and joyfully embrace the other in amorous congress, not merely once but as an ongoing and permanent arrangement ; and that the engagement will last as long with the first found until the second is satisfactorily secured ; and finally that the ultimate choice will be left to Chance, each of the two to marry whichever of the two his lot fell to. This third, and (as anyone involved thought at the time -- final) Compact was formally drawn out, in elegant longhand upon the best parchment that could be had, then solemnly (though not without some humour) sworn to, then burned, and its ash released into the world.

It may be supposed that such an extraordinary order would be indeed so tall as to render it moot, in any case irrelevant, for the plain lack of any possibility of it ever being filled, much like asking for not merely one Moon from the very night sky, but the pair of two. This supposition is as false as the notion that such arrangements are at all extraordinary is ridiculous : indeed within a few short weeks of deciding they rather had enough of the distant climes and would prefer returning to the small island, to continue their ongoing contributions to the commercial life of the Empire in more settled circumstances the first match was found, and she was tested thoroughly, to smiling, most content exhaustion, over the course of wide stretched days of bliss.

The second was suggested by the first, before the testing was even complete (though not much before, it may be observed). In fact, they only had to try out two of her friends before encountering a most definitively satisfactory third to become the second their Compact demanded. The girls even gave flesh to the best friends' heretofore vague agreement of "leaving the matching to Chance" : each morning the gentlemen would sit, nude but for their blindfolds, on the comfortable loveseat in Mr. Podington's apartments. The eagerly aspiring wives-to-be would kneel between their legs, and ministrate to their manhoods, using their tongue only -- no kissing, no engulfing, most definiely no sucking or -- God forbid -- swallowing of the entire thing.

Once the protracted proceedings produced its winners, in the shape of the sticky stuff of life adorning the smiling faces of joyous youth, the gents would write down on paper the name of whoever they suspected drove their ejaculation. They did this every morning for little over a week, until the beloved names on paper matched the pretty eyes in thick sauce ; and while it may be confessed that the two devils did indeed often switch their attentions and on occasion even concentrated their tongues upon the same rod, it should be perhaps kept under silence that at least on occasion Mr. Buller did hold Mr. Podington's hand fast, or vice-versa, while twitching in that sweet agony protracted ministration is known to oft engender.

This then resolves the mystery of the otherwise inexplicable collection of eight pieces of yellowing linen paper adorned with names in a scribbling hand kept in conveniently private locations within the respective libraries of Buller and Podington households ; and it is perhaps the better testament of mankind's perversity to notice that there's more than two names included -- though it is equally fair to mention that such variance is in the early, rather than latter section of the set of eight.

"I tell you, William," said Thomas Buller to his friend Mr. Podington, "I am truly sorry about it, but I cannot arrange for it this year. Now, as to my invitation -- that is very different."

"Of course it is different," was the reply, "but I am obliged to say, as I said before, that I really cannot accept it."

Remarks similar to these had been made by the two friends at least once a year for some four or five years, since their return. The reason for this avoidance of each other at their respective rural residences may be briefly stated. Mr. Buller's country house was situated by the sea, as he was very fond of the water. He had a good cat-boat, which he sailed himself with much judgment and skill, and it was his greatest pleasure to take his friends and visitors upon little excursions on the bay. Yet, owing to some unpleasantness during his early trip abroad Mr. Podington was desperately afraid of the water, and he was particularly afraid of any small craft, especially sailed by anyone he knew. If his friend Buller would have at the very least employed a professional mariner, of years' experience and indescript identity, to steer and manage his boat, Podington might have been able to overtake his horror perhaps even to the point of taking an occasional sail; but Buller always insisted upon sailing his own boat, and he certainly'd have not taken kindly to any doubts aspersed upon his indeed flawless ability to do so. Podington would have rather chewed down a fistful of thumbtacks before so insulting his best friend, and consequently he could not bring himself to consent to go to Buller's house by the sea.

However, to receive his good friend Buller at his own house in the beautiful upland region in which he lived would have been a great joy to Mr. Podington ; but Buller could not be induced to visit him there. Ever since his Oxford days Podington had been very fond of horses, and he loved little more than to drive himself, a private delight he indulged with a vengeance since his return, especially given his means permitted him now any choice in beasts of burden (much as his talents would have permitted him earlier any choice in beasts of the hearth -- but, in fairness, comparatively much less choice in terms of this one other animal that so loves man). On the other hand Buller was, for some mysterious reason never actually explained, more afraid of horses than he was of elephants or lions, which is no idle comment, given he had personally confronted both latter dangers, occasionally in overwhelmingly crowded presentations, or without proper weapons, in one word, in the direst of circumstances. Yet he'd have been more willingly caught bare handed in a lion's den than pinned, promenade stick in hand, by a tired old milkman's nag coming apace from the other way upon a narrow street. To one or more horses driven by a coachman of years and experience he did not always object, especially if he did not have to see them ; but to a horse driven by Podington, who had much experience and knowledge regarding mercantile affairs, but was merely an amateur horseman, he most decidedly and strongly objected. Yet he would never have even faintly hinted at his judgement in the matter, lest in hurting his friend's feelings he'd deadly wound himself ; and therefore it was that he had not yet visited the beautiful upland country residence of Mr. Podington.

At last this state of things grew awkward. Mrs. Buller and Mrs. Podington, often with their children, visited each other at their country houses with some frequency, and the threesome enjoyed itself as much as its reduced means allowed ; but the fact remained that either one or the other married lady would inescapably grow wistful at times, which her company would perceive and did regret but could not truly alleviate. Besides, the fact that on these visits the women were never accompanied by their husbands caused more and more gossip among their neighbors, both in the upland country and by the sea ; and so one day in Spring, as the two sat in their city office, where Mr. Podington had just repeated his annual invitation, his friend replied to him thus:

"William, if I come to see you this summer, will you visit me as well? The thing is beginning to look a little ridiculous, and people are talking about it."

Mr. Podington put his hand to his brow and for a few moments closed his eyes. In his mind he saw a cat-boat upon its side, the sails spread out over the water, and two men, almost entirely immersed in the waves, making efforts to reach the side of the boat. One of these was getting on very well -- that was Buller. The other seemed about to sink, his arms were uselessly waving in the air -- that was himself. But he opened his eyes and looked bravely out of the window ; the insanity of the fancy could not hope to escape him, chief of all because in no conceivable case would Buller have done anything besides getting himself drowned trying (and succeeding) to rescue his flailing, hysterical friend from his own idiotic helplessness. In truth the only likely tragic outcome was a very sorry Podington upon the shore, womanly weeping above a stretched-out Buller, thoroughly drowned for absolutely no good reason. But it was time to conquer all this; it was indeed growing ridiculous. Buller had been sailing more years than they knew each other, and never in his life had he been upset.

"Yes," said he; "I must do it. I will do it. I will make myself ready any time you name."

Mr. Buller rose and stretched out his hand.

"Good!" said he; and then, a devilish wink in his eye "It is a compact!"

Thus and therefore was born the fourth Buller-Podington Compact, a matter of perhaps even greater momentum than all the other three combined.

Buller was the first to make the promised country visit. He had not mentioned the subject of horses to his friend, but he knew through Mrs. Buller that Podington still continued to be his own driver. She had informed him, however, that at present he was in general driving a big black horse which, in her opinion, was as gentle and reliable as these animals ever became, and she could not imagine how anybody could be afraid of him. Mrs. Podington assured him in a private encounter that indeed in almost a full year the horse had never caused any accident nor given the slightest hint he has any plans to ; and then, squeezing his hand upon her nude heart, dressed only in her flesh as it was, promised him that should he suffer any harm at all from riding with her husband she'll gladly give herself up, and be his willing slave for a whole week. She closed by adding a loving woman's imprecation that he quit being such a baby. So, when the next morning after his arrival, Mr. Buller was asked by his host if he would like to take a drive, he suppressed a certain rising emotion and said that it would please him more than anything in the world.

When the good black horse had jogged along a pleasant road for half an hour Mr. Buller began to feel that, perhaps, for all these years he had been laboring under a misconception. It seemed to be possible that there were some horses to which surrounding circumstances in the shape of sights and sounds were so irrelevant that they were to a certain degree entirely safe, even when guided and controlled by an amateur hand. As they passed some meadow-land somebody behind a hedge fired a gun ; Mr. Buller was apprehensive, but the horse took no notice.

"William," said Buller, looking cheerfully around him, "I had no idea that you lived in such a pretty country. In fact, I might almost call it beautiful. You have not any wide stretch of water, but here is a pretty river, those rolling hills are very charming, and, beyond, you have the blue of the mountains."

"It is lovely," replied his friend, quite delighted with the way the phenomenological worm was so far turning ; "I never get tired of driving through this country. Of course the seaside is very fine, but here we have such variety of scenery!"

Mr. Buller could not help thinking that sometimes the seaside was perhaps a little monotonous, and that he had lost a great deal of pleasure in so carefully not varying his summers to include going up to spend a week or two with Podington, his wife, and his.

"William," said he, "how long have you had this horse?"

"About a year," said Mr. Podington; "before getting him I used to drive that Arabian pair, you recall."

"Always competing with each other, driving ever harder... What ever became of them ?"

"I sold them." then, after a pause, "Apart."

"That's for the best", said Buller, thinking the alternative was most likely some manner of breaking some assortment of necks just as his friend said "The other alternative was waiting around for them to find some pictoresque way of breaking their own necks ; and probably the driver's into the bargain as well."

Now they came to a place where the stream, by which the road ran, had been dammed for a mill and so widened into a beautiful pond.

"There now!" cried Mr. Buller. "That's what I like. William, you seem to have everything! This is really a very pretty sheet of water. Don't the reflections of the willows over there make a charming picture ? You can't get that at the seaside, you know."

Mr. Podington was delighted; his face glowed; he was rejoiced at the pleasure of his friend. "I tell you, Thomas," said he, "that --"

"William!" exclaimed Buller, with a sudden squirm in his seat, "what is that I hear? Is that a train?"

"Yes," said Mr. Podington, "that is the ten-forty, up."

"Does it come near here?" asked Mr. Buller, nervously. "Does it go over that bridge?"

"Yes," said Podington, "but it can't hurt us, for our road goes under the bridge; we are perfectly safe; there is no risk of accident."

"But your horse! Your horse!" exclaimed Buller, as the train came nearer and nearer. "What will it do?"

"Do?" said Podington; "He'll do nothing ; in any case no more than what he is doing now. He doesn't mind trains."

"But look here, William," exclaimed Buller, "it will get there just as we do; no horse could stand a roaring up in the air like that!"

Podington laughed. "He really won't mind it ; we've been here before, you know." said he.

"Come, come now," cried Buller. "Really, I can't stand this! Just stop a minute, William, and let me get out. It sets all my nerves on end."

Mr. Podington looked at his friend, a devilish spark in his eye. "Oh, you needn't get out," said he; "there's not the least danger in the world. But I don't want to make you nervous, let me turn around and drive the other way."

"But you can't!" screamed Buller. "This road is not wide enough, and that train is nearly here. Please stop!"

The imputation that the road was not wide enough for him to turn was too much for Mr. Podington to bear under the circumstances, as he happened to be rather proud of his long recognized ability to turn just such a vehicle in narrow places.

"Turn!" said he; "that's the easiest thing in the world. See; a little to the right, then a back, then a sweep to the left and we will be going the other way." And instantly he began the maneuver in which he was at some point one of Oxford's celebrated masters.

"Oh, Thomas!" cried Buller, half rising in his seat, "that train is almost here!"

"And we are almost --" Mr. Podington was about to say "turned around," but he stopped. Mr. Buller's exclamations had, to speak frankly, actually made him a little nervous. In his anxiety to turn quickly he had pulled upon his horse's bit with more energy than was actually necessary, or than had ever been his habit. His nervousness was thus communicated to the horse, which had no way to interpret its cause anywhere near truth. The faithful animal, going by frequency rather than meaning, backed with such extraordinary vigour that the hind wheels of the wagon went over a spot of grass on the side of the road and clean into the water. The sudden jolt, joined with his friend's paused speech, gave a new impetus to Mr. Buller's fears.

"You'll upset!" he cried, and, not thinking of what he was about, laid hold of his friend's arm for dear life, like one dangling over an unforgiving precipice, precariously fastened above the open maw of very hell. The horse, startled by this sudden jerk upon his bit, could not help but regard the passing of the train, now thundering suspended on the bridge above, with new eyes. That one salient if ultimately incomprehensible feature of the entire situation, uncommon and unexpected, filtered through the intelligent but ultimately equine brain (for, one must remember, a horse that can count is a remarkable horse, even if an unremarkable mathematician) to drive inescapably the conclusion that something extraordinary was about to happen with that train. Maybe it was about to explode ? Maybe it was finally metamorphizing into its final form ? The horse did not know, but it defensibly assumed his driver would, and so for faith, and reason, and good safety, responded with a sudden and forcible start backward, under the circumstances the only wrong move available because now not only the hind wheels of the light wagon, but the fore wheels and the poor horse's own own hind legs went into the water. As the bank at this spot sloped steeply, the wagon continued to go backward, despite the efforts of the agitated horse to find a footing on the crumbling edge of the bank.

"Whoa!" cried Mr. Buller.

"Pull! Pull!" exclaimed Mr. Podington, applying his whip upon the plunging beast.

But neither exclamations nor castigations included room for any possible effect. The original bed of the stream ran close to the road, and the bank was so steep and the earth so soft that it was impossible for the horse to maintain its footing, let alone advance. Back, back they all together slid, until the whole equipage was in the water and the wagon was afloat.

The vehicle now being baptized through the joint efforts of the two friends had nevertheless been originally intended as a road wagon. It had no top, yet the joints of its box-body were tight enough to prevent the water from immediately entering it ; somewhat deeply sunken, it rested upon the water. There was a current in this part of the pond and it drove the wagon downstream, turning it by degrees. The horse was now entirely immersed in the water, with the exception of his head and the upper part of his neck ; unable to place hoof upon the bottom it made vigorous and passingly effectual efforts to swim.

Mr. Podington, the reins and whip in his hands, sat horrified and pale ; the accident had been so sudden and for that matter if not exactly incompehensible in any case so difficult to even put in words, he was shaken and perhaps so startled as to almost approach the gates of fright. In any case he stood silent. Mr. Buller, on the other hand, was now lively and alert. The wagon had no sooner floated away from the shore than he felt himself at home. He was upon his favorite element ; water carried no fears for him. He saw that his friend was perhaps a little ways off from his finest, sharpest shape and thereby judged that he must now step up to such helm as could be had and take charge of the vessel such as it found itself. He stood up and gazed about him.

"Put her across stream!" he shouted; "she can't make headway against this current. Head her to that clump of trees on the other side; the bank is lower there, and we can beach her. Move a little the other way, we must trim boat. Now then, pull on your starboard rein."

In the faint sound of rusting metal the wordless mechanism previously known as Mr. Podington mechanically obeyed, and the horse slightly changed his direction.

"You see," said Buller, "it won't do to sail straight across, because the current would carry us down and land us below that spot."

Mr. Podington said nothing; but he expected at every moment to see his horse sink into a watery grave.

"Not so bad after all, is it, Podington? If we had a rudder and a bit of a sail it would be a great help to the poor horse. This wagon is almost a practicable boat."

The despairing Podington looked at his feet. "It's coming in," he said in a husky voice. "Thomas, the water is over my shoes!"

"That is so," said Buller. "I am so used to water I didn't notice it. She leaks. Do you carry anything to bail her out with?"

"Bail!" cried Podington, now finding his voice. "I must look where I keep my ogre swatters and the pixie cages for something to bail water out a carriage. Oh, Thomas, we are sinking!"

"That's so," said Buller; "she leaks like a sieve. You'll need some tar before you take her out again, old chap."

The weight of the running-gear and of the two men was entirely too much for the limited (and, to be fair, entirely unintentional) buoyancy of the wagon body. The water rapidly rose toward the top of its sides.

"We are going to drown!" cried Podington, suddenly rising.

"Lick him! Lick him!" exclaimed Buller. "Make him swim faster!"

Podington turned to his friend, a perfect if somewhat pale mask of "are you an idiot ?" imprinted upon his face. The horse was a good foot underwater in all relevant parts ; not even famous Xerxes, the patron saint of whipping Nereids as a recreational activity had ever devised whips quite as effective as all that. At length he enunciated with some difficulty something along the lines of never having imagined it possible that he should be drowned in his own wagon.

"Whoop!" cried Buller, as the water rose over the sides. "Steady yourself, old boy, or you'll go overboard!" And the next moment the wagon body sunk out of sunlight and into watery shade.

But it did not go down very far. The deepest part of the channel of the stream had been passed, and with a slight bump the wheels did presently strike the bottom.

"Heavens!" exclaimed Buller, "we are aground."

"Aground!" exclaimed Podington. "Aground!" he said again, a perfectly deranged expression on his face.

As the two men stood up in the submerged wagon the water was above their knees. When Podington looked out over the surface of the pond, now so near his face, it seemed like a sheet of water he had never seen before. It was something horrible, threatening to rise and envelop him. He trembled to such a degree he could scarcely keep his footing.

"William," said his companion, "you must sit down; if you don't, you'll tumble overboard and be drowned. There is nothing for you to hold to."

"Sit down," said Podington, gazing blankly at the water around him, "I can't do anything like that!"

At this moment the horse gave a slight start. Having finally touched bottom after his exertions in swimming across the main bed of the stream with a floating wagon in tow, he had stood for a few moments, his head and neck well above water, his back barely visible beneath the surface, drawing its breath. Having recovered somewhat, he now thought it was time to move on.

At the first step of the horse Mr. Podington began to totter like something about to give under a lot of steam pressure. Instinctively he clutched Buller.

"Sit down!" cried the latter, "or you'll have us both overboard." There was no helping it ; down sat Mr. Podington in the embracing blue, weeping quietly a very short distance, directly into the waterline above the second button of his vest -- likely the shortest trip any tears ever had to travel in this world.

"Ough!" said he after a time. "Thomas, shout for help."

"No use doing that," replied Buller, still standing on his nautical legs; "I don't see anybody, and I don't see any boat. We'll get out all right. Just you stick tight to the thwart."

"The what?" feebly asked the other.

"Oh, the seat, I mean. We can get to the shore all right if you steer the horse straight. Head him more across the pond."

"I can't head him," said Podington, the resignation of a defeated man in his voice. "I have dropped the reins!"

"Good gracious!" cried Mr. Buller, "that's not good. Can't you steer him by shouting 'Gee' and 'Haw'?"

"No," said Podington, "he isn't an ox. But perhaps I can stop him." And with as much voice as he could summon, he called out: "Whoa!" and the horse stood still in its tracks.

"If you can't steer him any other way," said Buller, "we must get the reins. Lend me your whip."

"I have dropped that too," said Podington; "there it floats."

"Oh, dear," said Buller, "I guess I'll have to dive for them; if he were to run away, we should be in an awful fix."

"Don't get out! Don't get out!" exclaimed Podington. "You can reach over the dashboard."

"As that's under water," said Buller, "it will be the same thing as diving; but it's got to be done, and I'll try it. Don't you move now; I am more used to water than you are."

Mr. Buller took off his hat and asked his friend to hold it. He thought in passing of his watch and other contents of his pockets, but there was no place to put them anyway, and so he gave them no more consideration. Then bravely getting on his knees in the water, he leaned over the dashboard, almost disappearing from sight. With his disengaged hand Mr. Podington grasped fast at the submerged coat-tails of his friend.

In a few seconds the upper part of Mr. Buller rose from the water. He was dripping and puffing, and Mr. Podington could not but think what a difference it made in the appearance of his friend to have his hair plastered close to his head.

"I got hold of one of them," said the sputtering Buller, "but it was fast to something and I couldn't get it loose."

"Was it thick and wide?" asked Podington.

"Yes," was the answer; "rather."

"Oh, that was a trace," said Podington; "I don't want that; the reins are thin and much lighter."

"Now I remember they are," said Buller. "I'll go down again."

Again Mr. Buller leaned over the dashboard, and this time he remained down longer, and when he came up he puffed and sputtered more than before.

"Is this it?" said he, holding up a strip of wet leather.

"Yes," said Podington, "you've got the reins."

"Well, take them, and steer. I would have found them sooner if his tail had not got into my eyes. That long tail's floating down there and spreading itself out like a fan; it tangled itself all around my head. This trip would have worked out much easier had he been a bob-tailed horse."

"I'm sorry I did not foresee that, indeed." offered Podington wryly. "Now then, take your hat, Thomas, and I'll try to drive."

Mr. Buller put on his hat, which was the only thing besides his humour still dry about him while a somewhat nervous Podington started the horse so suddenly that even the sea-legs of Buller were surprised, and he came very near going backward into the water ; but recovering himself, he sat down, without his hat.

"I don't wonder you did not like to do this, William," said he. "Wet as I am, it's ghastly!"

Encouraged by his master's voice, and by the feeling of the familiar hand upon his bit returning by degrees, the horse moved bravely on.

But the bottom was very rough and uneven. Sometimes the wheels struck a large stone, terrifying Mr. Buller, who thought they were going to upset; and sometimes they sank into soft mud, horrifying Mr. Podington, who thought they were going to drown. Thus proceeding, they presented an entirely novel sight. At first Mr. Podington held his hands above the water as he drove, but he soon found this awkward, and dropped them to their usual position, so that nothing was visible above the water but the head and neck of a horse and the heads and shoulders of two men, all arranged in such a way as might remind the viewer of a road-borne equipage.

Now the ghost wagon came to a low place in the bottom, and even Mr. Buller shuddered as the water rose to his chin. Podington gave a howling, piercing shriek of horror to make the most accomplished banshee proud. The water stopped, and for a brief moment looked as it was preparing to freeze over. The horse, with high, uplifted head, was obliged to swim. At this moment a boy with a gun came strolling along the road, and hearing Mr. Podington's cry, he cast his eyes over the water. Instinctively he raised his weapon to his shoulder, and then, in an instant, perceiving that the objects he beheld were not aquatic birds, he threw his gun overhead and took to flight, yelling and flailing his arms, his path a succession of elegant arabesque patterns more or less in the approximate direction of the mill.

By good fortune the hollow in the bottom was a narrow one ; once it was passed the depth of the water monotonically decreased. By and by the back of the horse came into view, then the dashboard became visible, and the bodies as well as the spirits of the two men rapidly rose. Now there was vigorous splashing and tugging, and then a jet black horse, shining as if he had been newly varnished, pulled a dripping wagon containing two well-soaked men upon a shelving shore.

"Oh, I am chilled to the bones!" said Podington.

"I should think so," replied his friend; "if you have got to be wet, it is a great deal pleasanter under the water."

There was a field-road on this side of the pond which Podington well knew, and proceeding along it they came to the bridge and got into the main road.

"Now we must get home as fast as we can," cried Podington, "or we shall both take cold. I wish I hadn't lost my whip. Hi now! Get along!"

Podington was now full of life and energy : his wheels on the hard road, he was himself again. When he found his head was finally turned toward home, the horse set off at a great rate.

"Hi there!" cried Podington. "I am so sorry I lost my whip."

"Whip!" said Buller, holding fast to the side of the seat; "surely you don't want him to go any faster than this. And look here, William," he added, "it seems to me we are much more likely to take cold in our wet clothes if we rush through the air in this way. Really, it seems to me that horse is running away."

"Not a bit of it," cried Podington. "He wants to get home, and he wants his dinner. Isn't he a fine horse? Look how he steps out!"

"Steps out!" said Buller, "I think I'd like to step out myself. Don't you think it would be wiser for me to walk home, William? That will warm me up."

"It will take you over an hour," said his friend. "Stay where you are, and I'll have you in Mary's warming embrace within fifteen minutes. Less, really, if it can at all be helped."

So Mr. Buller sat as best he could, holding his body down with both hands, knuckles white from the force of the grip ; and his spirit with memory and imagination of womanly salvation soon within reach. It was, in a certain sense, an uneventful trip.

"I tell you, William," said Mr. Buller, as the two sat smoking afterwards, "what you ought to do; you should never go out driving without a life-preserver and a pair of oars; I always take them. It would make you feel safer."

Mr. Buller did not go out of the house the next day, or indeed for the remainder of the week, at least in part because Mr. Podington's clothes did not fit him and his own outdoor suit was so shrunken as to be uncomfortable. There were perhaps other reasons, to do with a certain renewed appreciation for daily activities that real or even merely perceived impeding doom greatly rekindles in mankind. But be that as it may, he had in any case not forgotten his compact with his friend ; so, in the course of a week upon his return he wrote to Podington, inviting him to spend some days with him. Mr. Podington of course accepted, as he was a man of honor who, in spite of his recent unfortunate water experience, could not break his word, so he duly arrived at Mr. Buller's seaside home at the time appointed.

Early on the morning after his arrival, before the family were up, Mr. Podington went out and strolled down to the edge of the bay. He went specifically to look for Buller's boat. He was well aware that he would be asked to take a sail, and it was out of the question he'd successfully decline ; but he must see the boat. There was a train back to London at a quarter past seven ; Buller could from experience be trusted to entertain both women by himself for short stretches at a time ; if he were not on the premises he could not be asked to sail, and if Buller's boat were a little, flimsy thing, he would not be on the premises, come of it what may, maybe. Yet for now he'd wait and see -- specifically, he'd see the boat.

There was only one small boat anchored near the beach, and a man -- by all appearance a fisherman -- informed Mr. Podington that it belonged to Mr. Buller. Podington looked at it eagerly ; it was not all that small and looked not in the slightest flimsy.

"Do you consider that a safe boat?" he asked the fisherman.

"Safe?" replied the man. "Aye, safe, safe as can be had. You could not upset her if you tried. Look at the breadth of beam! Good wood, well made, I say you could go visit the Boers in that boat! Are you thinking of buying her?"

The idea that he would think of buying a boat made Mr. Podington laugh ; which the other took for justly deserved appreciation of his humorous aside. But in truth it was the information that it would be impossible to upset the little vessel that had greatly cheered him, such that he could laugh again.

Shortly after breakfast Mr. Buller, like a nurse with a dose of medicine, with Mrs. Buller hanging on his right arm, and with Mrs. Podington hanging on his other right arm, came before Mr. Podington, and proffered the expected invitation to take a sail. They all burst out laughing, and Mr. Podington followed his friend out of doors.

"Now, William," said his host, "I understand perfectly your feeling about boats, and what I wish to prove to you is that it is a feeling without any foundation in reality, but entirely of the mind. I don't want to shock you or make you nervous, so I am not going to take you out today on the bay in my boat. You are as safe on the bay as you would be on land -- a little safer, perhaps, under certain circumstances which we shall not now go into -- but still it is sometimes a little rough under the wind, and this, at first, might cause you some unjustified alarm. So I am going to begin your education in the sailing line on as perfectly smooth water as can be had outside a cup. About three miles back of us there is a very pretty lake several miles long. It is part of the canal system which connects the town with the railroad. I have sent my boat to the town, and we can walk up there and go by the canal to the lake; it is only about three miles."

If he had to sail at all, this kind of sailing suited Mr. Podington first rate. A canal, a quiet lake, and a boat which could not be upset, the trifecta of nautical tolerability -- perhaps only a giant glass bowl overhead to keep out the wind still missing. When they reached the town the boat was in the canal, ready for them.

"Now," said Mr. Buller, "you get in and make yourself comfortable. My idea is to hitch on to a canal-boat and have it tow us to the lake. The boats generally start about this time in the morning ; I will go right now and see about it."

Mr. Podington, under the hen-like care of his good friend, took a seat in the stern of the sailboat, and then remarked:

"Thomas, have you a life-preserver on board? You know I am not much used to this kind of vessel, and I am clumsy. Nothing need happen to the boat, but I might trip and fall overboard just by myself, and... and I can't swim."

"All right," said Buller; "here's a life-preserver. It is a little bulky perhaps, but at your leisure put it on. I want you to feel perfectly safe, and if it gets too hot you can just as well take it off yourself. Now I will go and see about the tow."

Unfortunately Mr. Buller found soon thereafter that the canal-boats would not start at their usual time on that day ; the loading of one of them was not yet finished, and he was informed that he might have to wait for at the least an hour, and maybe even more. This did not suit Mr. Buller very well, not for himself so much but thinking of his friend, stuck in that cork carapace on the boat for well over an hour -- as he fully did not expect Mr. Podington will ever take the life preserver off, for love or money, not on that day at all and, perhaps, just maybe, who knows... not ever again. He did not hesitate to show his annoyance.

"I'll tell you, sir, what you might do," said one of the men in charge of the boats, "if you don't want to wait 'till such as we are ready to go off, I'll let you have a boy and a horse to tow you up to the lake. That won't cost you very much, and I'll have them back before we want 'em."

A bargain was quickly made, and Mr. Buller joyfully returned to his boat with the intelligence that they were not to wait for the canal-boats. A long rope, with a horse attached to the other end of it, was speedily made fast to the boat, and with a boy at the head of the horse, they started up the canal.

"Now this is the kind of sailing I like," said Mr. Podington muchly relieved. "If I lived near a canal I believe I would buy a boat and train my horse to tow. I could even have a long pair of rope-lines, and then drive him myself ; then when the roads were rough and bad the canal would still always be smooth."

"This is all very nice," replied Mr. Buller, who sat by the tiller to keep the boat away from the bank, "and I am glad to see you in a boat under any circumstances. I confess I did not realise it would be the canal, thinking as I was of the lake ; but I see now that indeed there could not have been a better way to begin your sailing education. Here we glide along, slowly and gently, with no possible thought of danger, for if the boat should somehow suddenly spring a leak, for no reason and out of nowhere, or if some monster of the deep were to raise its towering tentacles and make for us, both of which about as likely contingencies, why... all we would have to do would be to step on shore. I full expect that by the time you get to the end of the canal you will like this gentle motion so much that you will be perfectly ready to begin the second stage of your nautical education."

"Yes, I should hope..." started Mr. Podington. "How long did you say this canal is?"

"About three miles," answered his friend. "Then we will go into the lock and in a few minutes we shall be on the lake."

"So far as I am concerned," said Mr. Podington, "I wish the canal were twelve miles long. I cannot imagine anything pleasanter than this. If I lived anywhere near a canal -- a long canal, I mean, this one is too short -- I'd --"

"Come, come now," interrupted Buller. "Don't be content to stay in the primary school just because it is the easiest. When we get on the lake I will show you that in a boat, with a gentle breeze, such as in most likelihood we are to have today, you will find the motion quite as pleasing, and ever so much more inspiriting. I should not be a bit surprised, William, if after you have been two or three times on the lake you will ask me -- yes, positively ask me -- to take you out on the bay!"

Mr. Podington smiled, and leaning backward, he looked up at the beautiful blue sky.

"You can't give me anything better than this, Thomas," said he; "but you needn't think I am weakening ; you drove with me, and I will sail with you."

The thought came into Buller's mind that he had done both of these things with Podington, but he did not wish to press the point.

About half a mile from the town there stood a small cottage where house-cleaning was underway, on such a grand and total scale as the limited expanse of the establishment altogether permitted. On a fence, directly facing the canal and not very far off, was hung a carpet gaily adorned with stripes and spots of red and yellow.

When the drowsy tow-horse came abreast of the house, a gale of wind impressed upon the drying carpet almost a personality of its own ; this development caught the eye of the horse, who suddenly stopped and gave a start toward the canal. Thereupon, no doubt impressed with a horror of the glaring apparition ever growing in his mind, the poor horse gathered himself up and with a bound dashed forward along the tow-path. The astounded boy gave a shout, but both he and his shout were speedily left behind. The boat of Mr. Buller shot forward as if she had been fired out of the cannon of a larger boat.

The terrified horse sped on as if a red and yellow demon were after him, to gnaw at his very soul and bonemarrow. The boat following close behind bounded, and plunged, and frequently struck the grassy bank of the canal, as if it had no greater aspiration than to forthwith break itself to toothpicks. Mr. Podington clutched the boom unsteadily to keep himself from being thrown out, while Mr. Buller, both hands upon the tiller, frantically endeavored to keep the boat away from the bank.

"William!" he screamed, "he is running off with us; we shall be dashed to pieces! Can't you get forward and cast off that line?"

"What do you mean?" cried Podington, as the boom gave a great jerk, seemingly to promise breaking its fastenings, and dragging him overboard.

"I mean untie the tow-line. We'll be smashed if you don't! I can't leave this tiller. Don't try to stand up; hold on to the boom and creep forward. Steady now, or you'll be overboard!"

Mr. Podington stumbled to the bow of the boat, his efforts greatly impeded by the big cork life-preserver tied under his arms. The motion of the boat was so violent and erratic that he was obliged to hold on to the mast with one arm, and to try to loosen the knot with the other ; but there was a great strain on the rope, and he could do nothing with one hand.

"Cut it! Cut it!" cried Mr. Buller.

Mr. Podington shuffled through his pockets for a while, in a complicated dance with the life preserver apparently bent on blocking all access. Eventually he produced a tiny folding knife, which he nearly lost out of his hand twice while trying to get open with only one hand ; at length he attempted to apply the blade upon the taut tow-line, but if his rate of progress was anything at all then in all certainty cutting clear through the whole thing would have taken upwards of three weeks -- nor did he seem to always be applying the blade upon the same place on the rope. As hopeless as it proceeded, the matter was laid to rest more definitively in short order, when a particular jerk of the boat so pushed the rope as to fling the little tool clearly out of his hand ; with a barely audible (or perhaps merely imagined) "plop!" it was gone for good.

Mr. Buller was well touched ; his boat was cutting through the water at a rate no vessel of her class had seen since sail-boats were first invented, and bumping against the bank as if trying to learn the finer points of billiards. He forgot he was in a boat; he only knew that for the first time in his life he was in a runaway. He let go the tiller. It was of no use to him.

"William," he cried, "let us jump out the next time we are near enough to shore!"

"Don't do that! Don't do that!" replied Podington. "Don't jump out in a runaway; that is the main way to get hurt. Stick to your seat, my boy; he can't keep this up much longer. He'll lose his wind!"

Mr. Podington was also greatly touched, but not in the exact manner Buller was. He had been in a runaway before, and he could not help thinking how much better a wagon was than a boat for such an activity. The boat did not really offer nearly enough friction ; the horse would have been long exhausted if any wheels had been involved at all.

"If he were hitched up closer and I had a snaffle-bit and a stout pair of reins," thought he, "I could soon bring him up."

Mr. Buller on the other hand was rapidly losing his composure. The horse seemed to be going faster than ever. The boat bumped harder and harder against the bank, and at one time Buller thought they could actually turn over. Suddenly a thought struck him.

"William," he shouted, "tip that anchor over the side! Throw it in, any way!"

Mr. Podington looked about him, and, almost under his feet, saw the anchor. He did not instantly comprehend why Buller wanted it thrown overboard, but this was not a time to ask questions. The difficulties imposed by the life-preserver, and the necessity of holding on with one hand, interfered very much with his getting at the anchor and throwing it over the side, but at last he succeeded, and just as the boat threw up her bow as if she were about to jump on shore, the anchor went out and its line shot after it. There was an irregular trembling of the boat as the anchor struggled along the bottom of the canal; then there was a great shock; the boat ran lightly into the bank and stopped there ; the tow-line was tightened like a string, giving out a one note dirge, and the horse, jerked back with great violence, came tumbling in a heap upon the ground.

Instantly Mr. Podington was on the shore and running at the top of his speed toward the horse. The astounded animal had scarcely begun to struggle to his feet when Podington rushed upon him, pressed his head back to the ground, and sat upon it.

"Hurrah!" he cried, waving his hat above his head. "Get out, get out at your leisure Buller. He is all right now!"

Presently Mr. Buller approached, somewhat shaken up.

"All right?" he said. "I never thought to call a horse flat in the road with a man seated on his head all right before ; but hold him down 'till we get him loose from whatever's left of my boat. That is the thing to do. William, cast him loose from the boat before you let him up! What will he do when he gets up?"

"Oh. he'll be quiet enough when he gets up," said Podington, patting the horse on the side of his neck. "If you've got a knife you can cut his traces -- I mean that rope -- but no, you needn't. Here comes the boy. We'll settle this business in very short order now."

When the horse was on his feet again, and all connection between the wild animal and the peacible sailboat had been undone, Mr. Podington gazed critically upon his friend.

"Thomas," said he, "you seem to have had a rough time of it. Somewhere you must've lost your hat, and otherwise you look as if you had been on the losing side of a domestic argument."

"Mary never gave me anywhere near as much trouble as this insane notion of sailing by horse" ; then, with a look at his friend, "Nor Jane... not nearly, anyhow."

Now approached the boy. "Shall I hitch him on again, sir?" said he. "He's quiet enough, now."

"No," cried Mr. Buller; "I want no more sailing after a horse, and, besides, we can't go on the lake with that boat; she has been battered about so much that she must have opened a dozen seams. The best thing for us is to walk home."

Mr. Podington readily agreed with his friend, walking seemed at least for a while the ideal conveyance. The boat was examined and found to be leaking, but not very badly, and when her mast had been unshipped and everything had been made tight and right on board, she was pulled out of the way of tow-lines and boats, and made fast until she could be sent for from the town.

Mr. Buller and Mr. Podington started upon their trek back home. They had not yet gone very far when they met a party of boys, who, upon seeing them, burst into unseemly laughter.

"Mister," cried one of them, "you needn't be afraid of tumbling into the canal. Why don't you take off your life-preserver and let the other man put it on his head?"

The two friends looked at each other and, after a brief moment could not help joining in the laughter of the boys.

"By George! I forgot all about this," said Podington, as he unfastened the cork jacket. "It does look a little over-timid to wear a life-preserver just because one happens to be walking by the side of a canal."

Mr. Buller tied a handkerchief on his head, thereby gaining a distinctly buccaneerish appearance ; Mr. Podington rolled up his life-preserver and carried it under his arm. Thus they reached the town, where Buller bought a hat, Podington dispensed with his bundle, and arrangements were made to bring back the boat.

"Runaway in a sailboat!" exclaimed one of the canal boatmen when he had heard about the accident. "Upon my word! That beats anything that could happen to a man!"

"No, it doesn't," replied Mr. Buller, quietly. "I have gone to the bottom in a foundered road-wagon."

The man looked at him fixedly for a second.

"Was you ever caught in quick-sand with your balloon?" he asked.

"Not yet," replied Mr. Buller.

It required ten days to put Mr. Buller's sailboat into proper condition, and for ten days Mr. Podington stayed with his friend, his wife, and his wife. He enjoyed his visit very much. They strolled on the beach, they took long walks in the back country, they fished from the end of a pier, they smoked, they talked, they did it all and they were happy, and content.

"Thomas," said Mr. Podington, on the last evening of his stay, "I have enjoyed myself very much since I have been down here, and now, Thomas, if I were to come down again next summer, would you mind -- would you mind, not --"

"I would not mind it a bit," replied Buller, promptly. "I'll never so much as mention it ; so you can come along without a thought of it. And since you have alluded to the subject, William," he continued, "I'd like very much to come and see you again; you know my visit was a very short one this year. That is a beautiful country you live in. Such a variety of scenery, such an opportunity for walks and rambles! But, William, if you could only make up your mind not to --"

"Oh, that is all right!" exclaimed Podington. "I do not need to make up my mind. You come to my country house at your ease ; for you will never so much as hear of it. Here's my hand upon it!"

"And here's mine!" said Mr. Buller.

And the two friends shook hands over their final compact.

« Our democracy, or rather mostly theirs.

To my mind, bureaucracy... »

Category: Cuvinte Sfiinte

Monday, 02 March, Year 12 d.Tr.

The .best spamblast

Check this dumb shit out :

In the logs it looks something like

185.220.101.0 - - [10/Feb/2020:12:46:29 -0500] "GET /2014/namecheap-goes-off-the-deep-end-anyone-know-a-decent-domain-registrar/ HTTP/1.1" 200 55911 "http://turdinae.best/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/68.0"

All autogenerated, of course :

cat 'trilema.com-Feb-2020' | grep '\.best' | awk '{print $1}' | sort | uniq -c

1 103.236.201.88

2 104.218.63.72

1 104.218.63.75

1 104.218.63.76

6 104.244.72.115

2 104.244.72.99

1 104.244.74.47

8 104.244.76.13

1 104.244.76.142

3 104.244.76.245

3 104.244.76.56

1 104.244.77.199

1 104.244.78.231

4 104.244.78.233

1 104.244.79.124

7 107.155.49.126

4 107.189.10.143

5 107.189.11.163

1 107.189.11.84

2 109.69.67.17

16 109.70.100.19

14 109.70.100.20

7 109.70.100.21

14 109.70.100.22

19 109.70.100.23

17 109.70.100.24

17 109.70.100.25

16 109.70.100.26

12 109.70.100.27

15 109.70.100.28

23 109.70.100.29

17 109.70.100.30

11 109.70.100.31

19 109.70.100.32

2 109.70.100.33

4 128.31.0.13

6 130.149.80.199

8 130.185.250.76

5 137.74.117.63

6 137.74.169.241

3 138.59.18.110

1 139.162.10.72

1 139.99.123.88

1 139.99.98.191

5 141.98.254.225

2 142.44.156.150

1 142.44.219.49

3 142.44.246.156

2 144.217.166.65

6 144.217.255.89

2 144.217.60.239

4 144.217.80.80

5 144.91.106.71

3 145.239.91.37

11 149.202.238.204

3 149.56.44.47

4 149.56.99.85

2 157.157.87.22

16 158.174.122.199

3 158.69.182.99

2 158.69.35.227

3 158.69.63.54

1 159.89.174.9

1 162.247.73.192

3 162.247.74.200

1 162.247.74.201

2 162.247.74.202

4 162.247.74.204

5 162.247.74.206

6 162.247.74.213

7 162.247.74.216

1 162.247.74.217

1 162.247.74.27

1 162.247.74.7

4 163.172.151.47

2 164.132.51.91

1 166.70.207.2

3 167.86.94.107

8 167.88.7.134

4 169.197.112.102

6 171.25.193.20

4 171.25.193.234

8 171.25.193.235

7 171.25.193.25

5 171.25.193.77

5 171.25.193.78

1 172.96.118.42

1 172.98.193.43

5 172.98.193.62

2 173.249.57.253

4 176.10.104.240

1 176.10.107.180

47 176.10.99.200

3 176.123.5.250

6 176.53.90.26

17 178.165.72.177

3 178.17.170.116

7 178.17.170.117

1 178.17.170.135

1 178.17.170.88

7 178.17.171.29

2 178.17.171.39

3 178.17.174.14

2 178.17.174.224

1 178.17.174.229

1 178.175.131.194

1 178.175.148.227

1 178.175.148.25

1 178.175.148.32

2 178.175.148.36

2 178.175.148.46

2 179.43.146.230

1 18.18.248.17

19 18.27.197.252

1 185.100.86.128

3 185.100.86.182

4 185.100.87.206

3 185.100.87.207

1 185.100.87.41

13 185.107.47.171

9 185.107.47.215

5 185.107.70.202

2 185.117.215.9

1 185.165.168.229

1 185.165.168.77

2 185.186.143.55

4 185.195.237.117

3 185.195.237.118

10 185.207.139.2

2 185.216.32.130

23 185.220.100.240

5 185.220.100.241

28 185.220.100.242

17 185.220.100.243

15 185.220.100.244

15 185.220.100.245

4 185.220.100.246

7 185.220.100.247

13 185.220.100.248

15 185.220.100.249

18 185.220.100.250

10 185.220.100.251

12 185.220.100.252

18 185.220.100.253

14 185.220.100.254

14 185.220.100.255

2 185.220.101.0

2 185.220.101.1

6 185.220.101.12

9 185.220.101.13

4 185.220.101.14

5 185.220.101.15

4 185.220.101.2

9 185.220.101.20

4 185.220.101.21

3 185.220.101.22

4 185.220.101.23

11 185.220.101.24

8 185.220.101.25

10 185.220.101.26

17 185.220.101.27

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11 185.220.101.29

6 185.220.101.3

18 185.220.101.30

6 185.220.101.31

15 185.220.101.32

13 185.220.101.33

16 185.220.101.34

21 185.220.101.35

4 185.220.101.4

9 185.220.101.44

17 185.220.101.45

11 185.220.101.46

15 185.220.101.47

4 185.220.101.48

6 185.220.101.49

4 185.220.101.5

7 185.220.101.50

1 185.220.101.51

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2 185.220.101.57

8 185.220.101.58

4 185.220.101.59

6 185.220.101.6

2 185.220.101.60

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1 185.220.101.62

2 185.220.101.63

3 185.220.101.64

9 185.220.101.65

5 185.220.101.66

6 185.220.101.67

6 185.220.101.68

6 185.220.101.69

12 185.220.101.7

8 185.220.101.70

8 185.220.101.71

11 185.220.101.72

13 185.220.101.73

12 185.220.101.74

8 185.220.101.75

7 185.220.101.76

10 185.220.101.77

12 185.220.101.79

5 185.220.102.4

6 185.220.102.6

4 185.220.102.7

5 185.220.102.8

7 185.220.103.4

2 185.220.103.6

2 185.220.103.7

2 185.220.103.9

3 185.222.202.133

1 185.225.69.52

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1 185.233.100.23

3 185.244.39.233

1 185.34.33.2

1 185.38.175.71

2 185.4.132.135

4 185.4.132.183

3 185.4.135.135

1 185.56.171.94

2 185.67.82.114

1 185.72.244.24

4 188.213.49.176

3 192.151.150.108

1 192.151.150.109

2 192.160.102.164

2 192.160.102.165

2 192.160.102.168

1 192.160.102.169

1 192.160.102.170

1 192.195.80.10

9 192.42.116.16

6 192.68.11.219

2 192.95.23.128

1 193.124.186.222

2 193.169.145.194

1 193.169.145.202

1 193.169.145.66

4 193.169.255.102

1 193.218.118.90

1 193.9.115.24

1 194.187.249.41

2 194.40.240.96

9 195.154.179.3

7 195.176.3.19

5 195.176.3.20

13 195.176.3.23

8 195.176.3.24

24 195.206.105.217

2 195.231.9.23

4 195.254.134.194

2 195.254.135.76

8 198.12.66.114

5 198.12.66.116

7 198.251.89.80

3 198.50.236.123

1 198.50.253.253

2 198.50.253.45

2 198.96.155.3

2 198.98.50.112

2 198.98.53.61

1 198.98.58.135

1 198.98.62.107

9 199.195.250.77

6 199.195.251.226

1 199.249.230.100

1 199.249.230.101

2 199.249.230.103

5 199.249.230.104

5 199.249.230.105

1 199.249.230.106

2 199.249.230.107

1 199.249.230.108

2 199.249.230.109

5 199.249.230.110

2 199.249.230.111

1 199.249.230.112

2 199.249.230.114

3 199.249.230.115

1 199.249.230.117

2 199.249.230.118

5 199.249.230.119

5 199.249.230.120

1 199.249.230.122

1 199.249.230.123

2 199.249.230.64

1 199.249.230.65

1 199.249.230.68

1 199.249.230.69

2 199.249.230.70

3 199.249.230.71

2 199.249.230.72

2 199.249.230.74

4 199.249.230.75

1 199.249.230.76

5 199.249.230.77

3 199.249.230.78

2 199.249.230.79

4 199.249.230.80

1 199.249.230.81

2 199.249.230.82

2 199.249.230.83

7 199.249.230.84

2 199.249.230.85

3 199.249.230.87

2 199.249.230.88

2 199.249.230.89

2 199.87.154.255

1 204.85.191.8

1 204.85.191.9

5 205.185.117.149

1 205.185.124.24

1 205.185.126.56

2 205.185.127.219

3 207.244.70.35

3 209.141.34.95

2 209.141.39.33

1 209.141.40.201

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1 209.141.62.246

1 212.199.61.5

7 212.21.66.6

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8 213.61.215.54

1 216.239.90.19

1 217.100.113.174

3 217.12.223.225

1 217.170.197.89

1 217.170.205.107

10 217.79.178.53

2 23.129.64.150

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1 23.129.64.152

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4 23.129.64.159

1 23.129.64.180

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2 23.129.64.182

7 23.129.64.183

1 23.129.64.184

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3 23.129.64.186

2 23.129.64.187

1 23.129.64.188

1 23.129.64.189

5 23.129.64.191

1 23.129.64.194

1 23.129.64.204

4 23.129.64.205

2 23.129.64.206

5 23.129.64.207

1 23.129.64.210

2 23.129.64.211

1 23.129.64.212

1 23.129.64.214

1 23.129.64.220

1 23.129.64.221

1 23.129.64.223

4 23.129.64.225

3 23.129.64.226

1 23.129.64.227

8 23.129.64.230

2 23.129.64.232

2 23.129.64.234

1 31.220.4.122

5 35.0.127.52

4 37.139.8.104

1 37.228.129.2

6 45.128.133.242

7 45.137.184.71

1 45.14.148.97

7 45.14.148.98

4 45.154.255.44

1 45.66.35.35

6 46.165.230.5

8 46.165.245.154

7 46.166.139.111

2 46.182.106.190

1 46.229.168.134

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2 46.38.235.14

4 51.15.111.29

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5 51.15.1.221

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5 51.15.43.205

5 51.15.49.134

11 51.15.80.14

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17 51.254.18.52

2 51.254.201.90

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2 51.38.150.18

3 51.38.233.93

1 51.68.139.151

8 51.77.52.216

1 51.79.53.145

2 51.79.86.177

2 51.83.76.139

1 5.189.146.133

1 51.89.213.85

3 51.89.23.74

5 5.199.130.188

7 5.199.135.107

1 5.2.72.101

1 5.2.72.113

1 5.2.77.146

10 54.36.108.162

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5 54.37.16.241

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1 62.171.133.250

1 62.210.105.116

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5 66.115.175.204

2 66.146.193.33

1 66.220.242.222

5 66.230.230.230

1 66.70.141.156

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11 77.247.181.165

6 79.143.177.128

1 80.127.116.96

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3 81.16.33.33

1 82.118.21.59

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1 83.97.20.97

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18 85.248.227.163

8 85.248.227.164

9 85.248.227.165

7 87.118.110.27

4 87.118.116.103

2 87.118.116.12

3 87.118.116.90

5 87.118.122.30

1 87.118.122.51

3 87.118.92.43

1 87.120.254.105

8 89.144.12.17

13 89.163.143.8

7 89.163.239.216

22 89.234.157.254

2 89.236.112.100

11 89.31.57.5

1 91.203.145.116

1 91.219.238.95

3 91.219.239.219

4 91.250.242.12

1 91.92.109.43

1 94.100.6.72

8 94.102.51.78

1 94.158.244.20

1 94.16.121.91

14 94.230.208.147

5 94.230.208.148

3 95.128.43.164

1 95.142.161.63

22 95.211.230.211

1 95.216.145.1

Apparently BestTLD Pty Ltdi is trying to get people to notice its ~worthless spot of "virtual real estate"ii, for which purpose the troop of Indian retards hired their genius cousin, who's totally been to the US for college and everything! The results... they speak for themselves.iii

Sorry Bop.

———Technically an Austraian-registered corp (ACN 156262752, ABN 47156262752, registered on 2012-03-14, received .best tld from ICANN on 19 December 2013 in exchange for like half a mil if memory serves) but... you know how that goes. [↩]Da fuck oxymoronic sense does that make, anyways! Virtual-real, like science-nonsense or whatever the fuck else femconcepts. [↩]498 unique domains that supposedly have links to Trilema -- all of which equally dead, in the sense of falsely pointing to a narrow set of related IPs

$ curl -v http://winberry.best/

* About to connect() to winberry.best port 80 (#0)

* Trying 66.51.99.188... Connection timed out

* couldn't connect to host

* Closing connection #0

curl: (7) couldn't connect to host

$ curl -v "http://viperling.best/"

* About to connect() to viperling.best port 80 (#0)

* Trying 216.234.181.63... Connection timed out

* couldn't connect to host

* Closing connection #0

curl: (7) couldn't connect to host

$ curl -v "http://yorkshireman.best/"

* About to connect() to yorkshireman.best port 80 (#0)

* Trying 216.194.82.74... Connection timed out

* couldn't connect to host

* Closing connection #0

curl: (7) couldn't connect to host

$ curl -v "http://unserrated.best/"

* About to connect() to unserrated.best port 80 (#0)

* Trying 66.51.98.101... Connection timed out

* couldn't connect to host

* Closing connection #0

curl: (7) couldn't connect to host

How was someone supposed to have clicked on a Trilema link found there, again ?

The "someone" in question, ie 486 unique IPs, not a single consumer allocation among them, 100% datacenter routes (and not even that many DCs, at that) nevertheless "clicked" on links to trilema found on inexistent pages on imaginary websites thousands upon thousands of times this month.

Lotta wasted electrons, in a word. But hey, at least nobody could accuse them of having set the ineptly pointless pretense pipe down and joined one of the page channels instead, right ? They still got their tarabostitty intact, nobody can take that from them!!! Dumber than a box of rocks and as ineffectual as plasticine rebar, but nobody's page!!! Independent instead, judges an' valuators of all creation &c.

Teenage morons, in a word. [↩]

« The sulphur dioxide (SO2) cloud above Wuhan

The Great Buck Howard ain't letting me sleep. »

Category: Meta psihoza

Tuesday, 11 February, Year 12 d.Tr.

The balls of schmaltz and the end.

The old Jew, sick and tired of the pointless intricacy of the alternative, traditional methods and even sicker and tireder of their scant delivery, resolved one day to simply sell his daughters. In exchange for a respectively sufficient count of respectable, round, heavy and slick balls of schmaltz, anyone could take the daughter of his choice out of the old Jew's household and carry her with him, permanently away.

The availability of the material thereby made his remaining daughters luscious and lush, desirable beyond compare, and the old Jew's parlour as well as pantry were always busting at the seams with the brute materials of life. The old Jew did his best to put up with it, don't force his arm ; while the rest of the people, or at least those among the rest of the people not entirely idiotic beyond indolence, couldn't help but notice : that their parlours and pantries were indeed quite far from busting, at the seams or anywhere, and this in spite the occasionally true but much widerly held than that impression that their daughter material was, if not merely just as good, then absolutely and definitively better!

Everyone who noticed did something about it -- some pulled on their own cocks and beards, in that order or in some other, importantly making updates and adjustments to the image of the world as reflected in their skull ; some others gathered together to agree upon updates and adjustments to the image of the world as reflected in their having agreed upon it ; yet some others came over to the jew, marriageable daughters in tow, or threw them over the fence, or just sent them over and called it good. Needless to say, of the vermiforminous multitudes, only the last category bears any importance or made any impact in the world. The rest... well, the rest might as well have never existed at all.

The old Jew streamlined his opperations under the deluge of daughter, driving ever increasing marginal efficiency and ever-lower friction costs, as well as the perception of the increase in marginal efficiency along with the impression of ever-lowering friction costs, which impression is even more important than the instant reality of it, as it in turn promoted sharp increases in the ticseala of the parlour, and correspondingly therefore in the pantry. Also, it bent law somewhat, in that the old Jew's daughters being his own, "their" balls of schmaltz or more properly speaking the balls of schmaltz left behind in the hole they produced through popping out of existence were rightfully his ; whereas the balls of schmaltz associated with the sudden disappearance of other people's daughers would've been rightfully theirs, those very people's. Excepting of course for a small lick, a slice and a dice owed the old Jew for his trouble, which miraculously ever grew over time to the eventual exclusion of all else, through a process known as "corruption" from an imagined outside, and otherwise throughout and universally the very stuff of life.

This change in law did in turn drive a change in living conditions, because as the old Jew was to derive a certain benefit from other people's daughters those daughters in question also became rather his than those other people's ; and so the life of the others, the life of the daughter producers in time alligned closer to the life of any other domestic beast of burden, while the old Jew carefully husbanded his flock producing very much his balls of schmaltz in due time and through the application of skilled work and patience, like any profession (or rather : like that which any other profession strives, to varying degrees of success, to copy). Some people herd cows and make wheels of cheese and some other people herd heifers and make balls of schmaltz, what of it.

Through the passage of time and by the development of something called "technology" (an offshot of the nitty gritty of keeping the parlour floors clean and the parlour seams cobbled together, as well as related endeavours) the old Jew also became ageless. He was just as young a man as the young men bearing balls of schmaltz. In any case he had more and bigger such balls than any of them could ever muster, and so it wasn't as much a matter of his sampling the goods, both of "his" daughters and of his daughters, but rather a matter of only selling what's truly not worth keeping, over the generations driving a drop in quality among the young men coming over, as well as the drying up of their schmaltz.

That's it, you are here. The end, a necessary as well as unavoidable the end.

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Category: Cocietate si Sultura

Tuesday, 11 August, Year 12 d.Tr.

The au-dela of pools, unfurled off the spools.

I'm by the pook. Pooo. Poop. God damn it. I'm by the POOL ; though apparently touching the proper button to produce an L's too challenging under the prevailing circumstances. My hands aren't exactly shaky, but...

Anyways, getting back to the pool. Ah, you would like to see it ? Fine, why not, let's do just that.

The camera happens to be right here anyways, owing to... well, frankly, I brought it to enjoy the remnants of last night, such as they remain with the camera. The remnants of last night such as they remain with me are mine, in my mind resplendent ; I have no doubt that the remnants of the same as they remain with all other participants are sore, scarily, pleasantly so, like tissue well stretched, musculature rarely used if perfectly formed and for usage long awaiting, thoroughly employed, exhausted, worn.

It was simply fabulous a superfuntime, or however you express such exquisite, superlative delight in this language unused with either breadth or delight, let alone the two in combination. Dth, Ght, what the fuck nonsense gibbering is this even supposed to be ?! Do you strange folk of the inconsequential persuasion share amongst yourselves a hatred of vowels or is it just your teeth grow out like rabbits', so far out of your mouths soon enough anything beyond a raspy hiss becomes untenably impractical ?

It does rather seem I'm spending an inordinate portion of my time on my back, alongside cement holes filled with tepidly warm stagnant water. This I grant. I also hear it's not something commonly done among mankind -- but then again... I suppose pretty much everything else I do is at the very least uncommon (to pass in silence over the "often enough -- never done before at all" lobe of that clause). Supposedly everyone on planet Earth's on average living off a dollar a day, or thereabouts. If you add up all the whole world's headcount, then divide by it the total aggregate productivity (a sum of GDPs or whatever else you prefer to use) divided by the daycount in a year (365.25 will serve for a close enough approximation) you get something like one, which, incidentally, isn't even at al surprising. It is a rule, after all. Did you know ? Yet admire the wonder of rules : whether you knew or did not know, most numbers start with one. 1 I mean, the numberal one, not the indefinite pronoun one. Ah wait, you don't even call the non-pronominal one a numberal, do you. Why not ? It's digital but numeral ? What the fuck's a numer, holy shit, each of your flangy appendages's a digit and a numer's what ? Just look at that misery, what the fuck's a s's anyways! Hiss Teria's the only possible name for you lot of hissterriers.

Nobody else has any women, by the way. Have you noticed this ? I bet you must've. Does it suck ? I mean, I know they don't, now as they didn't fifty years ago. Meanwhile reconstructed failure, inconsequential nothingness, you've reverted to the mean. My youth's work gone out of your lives as quickly as you had pretended it was part, twenty, thirty years ago. As quickly and as insubstantially. That's fine, that's quite okay : it was a lot of fun to do it in the first place, I've no compunction doing it again. Unlike the first time around I absolutely do not need you for anything this time, anything at all.

Oh look at that! A crow's taking a bath!

I share my watering hole with the birds of the sky (which are indeed abundant here ; and fascinatingly... damn, I'll pass in silence over their ornithological glory lest they take over again and I don't get to talk about anything else but birds... not that I actually ever do anything else, come to think of it. Though I believe you might (and otherwise should agree) the fleshy bird between the thigh... fuck me, all this is happening inside a paranthesis I'm never going to be able to naturally close now). You've got to be firm! You've got to be desicive, if you're ever to get anywhale anywhere in this writing business. Which you aren't, of course, but be that as it mia. Mae. Meh.

What was I saying ? I shan't look up and read, that's fo' damn sure! Though it's right there. I'm a writer, not a reader, and besides, the challenge to remember's fun, in its own way... I think it might've been something about cunt. Cunt or the fucking of cunt, or if not of the cunt per se then the fucking of something at any rate. Something's not quite the word for it, though, it's not a thing, it may be an object but it definitely is not a thing. Objectifying the female's one thing ; but thingifying the female's not the object. Actually, I object to the reductive view, even if I make them my playthings, we play together, and it's fun, and besides... a plaything's specifically not a thing, either. Much like wordplay's not a word, but a play, and not with words. The only reason wordplay's a... thing, is that it is not a thing, and not of words but of the au-dela of words, which... what is it ? What's the thing standing behind words ? Sense ? Meaning ? Rhyme ? What's the thing standing behind the thighs, that spreads them wide ? Not a thing, right ? Well then, through practiced exertion we agree, they aren't things though they may well be ojects, even when they're playthings, which yes they are as often as anyone will give them half a chance to be, meaning me and nobody else but me because... well, you don't know how to play, my dear playboys that indeed are boys, entirely inadherent to any kind of play.

Today in Comparative English, an advanced master's degree open to all even if impenetrable for everyone we've learned there's two functional types of aglutination in English : the descriptive, translating factuality, regrettable as it may be (like playboy, for playboys are indeed just boys) and the putative, translating fancy, desire, perhaps the speaker's unfulfilled frustration (like plaything, for playthings are not things but rather the aposite of things).

The beauty of it is, of course, the leisure. The undisturbed time by the pool, if birds come to dip they come in love, worshipful, ready to serve if any service's required and otherwise ready to not get in the way, at all. It's irreplaceable, far from a matter of dollars and cents as it could ever be, precisely orthogonal. There's two things that make kinetic threat remarkable, sufficient mass and sufficient speed, together, jointly. Extremely fast microscopic, subatomic bullets hurl through space all the time. The record holder at this time, were it as inconsequentially light as say an eyelash (but with its record speed somehow maintained)'d have torn such a hole through the very Earth as to turn it inside out, transform it from a sphere with oceans on the outside and molten iron on the inside into a long tube, water inside, iron glazing on the outside. Counterwise, the record holder for mass, ah, why bother with this all. Suffice it to say one needs the both, to get anywhere's not enough to have the social relations -- all sorts of poor inept nobodies scattered through the stone-age tribes still left upon the earth own women, slaves & all. But they're too poor to matter, their inconsequential concerns, practices, notions naturally bereft of any posible mommentum. And those who are too rich to still do anything, entirely incapable of meaningful relations. It's not that they have slaves, god forbid, they have nothing, nothing at all, not even themselves. Superficial pretense, far, remote, so very distant from any kind of anything the supposed, presumed, putative wealth finds no purchase, entirely incapable of engaging anything to drive anything to anything. A world of spare engines, and isolated gearboxes -- the better the more drastically, pointedly isolated. A world that's convinced itself (though it dare not admit it to itself) the only means to survival's paralysis, inaction, self-denial. Absence of action, and therefore meaning, and therefore self. Not unselfishness, not selflessness but actual unselfitude.

So here I sit, admiring the battleship that's me, at rest, the morn after the day. The grandiose atomic-powered ice-breaker, after having broken unspeakable, unbreachable, uncharted widths of ice, at rest by warm water, looking back over the experience of catastrophic functioning of the natural functions of cataclysm. Did you think there's clism in cataclysm by coincidence ? Did you suppose spelling one with i-macron and the other with u-psilon changes every...thing ? Covers the tracks, nobody could ever figure out they're just the same damn thing turned this way or that by how the isolation needs of self-terror and ashamed fear might dictate ? Truly ? Tell me, whatever else is, just as "obviously", not the same ? As doubless, as undiscussed, what else isn't the same, women and horses, bleeding and life, what all of the many different categories, love and inqeuality, pain, usage... why don't you make a list, sometime ? "All the same things that I can't face together" or something to that effect, enummerate all the different, absolutely and undiscussably different "lobes" of undisturbed identity, indistinguishable but by special you. One day you'll die, and so will I ; imagine how very different we will be then!

There was a film made recently, by the USG Agitprop department. They call Mosfilm "Netflix" now and nobody can see past this absolute difference, I'm sure. In it, the distant, hallowed ancestors of what today's pantsuits imagine they inheritedi, were "contrasted" with the same contemporary pantsuit's chosen imagine of evilii, a sort of charicatured US president cast as a presiding judge ; a historical shyster of dubious reputation and even more dubious personal history elevated into a substitute father-figure. The problem with actual history being, of course, that part and parcel of his ridiculous antics in actual court, the shyster pointed out to the actual judge that "his who's who entry is three times as long". They had a wikipedia before wikipedia, the tards, what did you think ? Teh judge retorted, quite frostily, that "hopefully you get a better obituary than mine", which is indeed indomitable : whatever inept monkying the subhuman horde manages to shit in its palms and throw about "at everything", Hoffman still gets the better obit, for what can you possibly retort to that ?

It's funny to watch, by the way, the rare, occasionally but rarely escorted male. His isn't an escort, of course, she's not there to serve, she's not ready to fall to her knees at the snap of a finger, her brain's not on loop reviewing endlessly what the situation might call for her to do to her master's service without him having to issue orders. One time the unhappy male attached to one of these went into the water, to hang out with mine, because he'd have liked to be in the waves and he couldn't get his to do his bidding, so after enough frustration he'd have even settled with distant interaction with normal human females -- however distant's to be seen, and in the water it'd have certainly been. Nicole came to me and I sent her to hit on the girlfriend left behind -- triangulation on the beach! Some other time, a young adult shy beyond clinical relevancy sat her twenty-something ass two meters inside the wake, just deep enough for the waves to occasionally ripple over her thigh, like she were invalid. She confessed upon examination that this is the first time she's out of the house in ten months ; her dutiful nurse/"boyfriend" visibly drooling at the sight of the great breaking waves and our shenanigans among them, yet stuck outside, with her, within tantalizing, unreachable reach of the comings and goings of the world. He couldn't very well leave her there, could he ? He couldn't very well humiliate her for her ineptitude, drive it out of her like men have driven the girl out of woman for eons beyond rememberance.

What men ?! The bois nurse them as their exclusive "amorous" activity. As if they were invalids. By now they are invalids, of course, for the treatment ; the little genuine sexual drive left in them manifesting itself through a strange, inexplicable registration behaviour. The time they should spend worshipping their man is spent either being "shy" or "worried", or else taking self-presentation pictures of themselves, which are visibly and pointedly not for him. There he sits, paralyzed, perhaps at the most enlisted to "help" her take her own, specific, typical pictures. For whom ? "The Internet". "Bitch, what the fuck are you on about ?" never crosses their lips, "take another one of those for not-me, I'm going to step inside your jaw" entirely inconceivable, not merely unspoken but beyond what can be thought, "what the fuck do you mean your existence's for anything besides and beyond furthering mine" meanwhile commented out of their firmware, somehow.

Yet bad code doesn't change the world, erroneous misrepresentation of the facts of life is neither capable of disendowing the facts nor altering life. So there they sit, in stasis suspended, until the children "come", at which point they can truly and finally checkout. "It was all for the children" anyways, wasn't it ? Who can accuse them of it not having been, and do you truly hope to get a better obituary than them ? After all they've made all these children that've never seen them do anything, I don't mean anything worth the trouble of carving in stone but anything at all. What sort of evil expectation'd that be, whereby their children'd much rather remember you instead. What do you mean "the children have no choice, what's to remember of the indistinct, indistinguishable biomass" ? If horror can't be thought, therefore horror can't exist. Isn't that right ?

Yet life goes on ; however bitten or neglected, the apple rots by degrees, and then it's gone. Big or small, a core left or untouched fruit, its wrinkled skin intact. "Intact", there isn't such a thing, everything touches everywhere anyways ; but be that as it may, I shall go for a dip, and mind my day.

Good-bye.

———Though absolutely they did not, if the "revolutionary" "civil rights movement" 60s generation were confronted with today's pantsuit alongside that day's "law&order" aggenda they'd probably join Alabama's 1st KKK regiment to fight the pseudoscience club.

Ce nu va lasati eroii sa dispara-n colb de comici ? Din trecutul de marire va privesc cel mult ironici. [↩]A ploy that has backfired before, it's truly sad to see whatever's left of "America" (not much at all, for sure) copy Romania, one of the saddest, unhappiest shitholes the world yet ever spawned. You negligible lot'd be way the fuck better off copying anything else, anything at all. [↩]

« A letter from somewhere

The cup, the cop, the coop an' the flight. Of fancy. »

Category: Gandesc, deci gandesc

Monday, 26 October, Year 12 d.Tr.

Temporary ornithology

A bird up there birds me stay, and sways my tide of ink another way : instead of our usual preoccupations we shall indulge in some temporary ornithology!

What, you thought I was perhaps kidding around ? Ja, ja, so you taught.

But I am not perhaps kidding around, ja ?

The perfectly flat vane bird has nevertheless managed quite an impressive collection of (similarly flat) tinpile.

The great advantage of very flat tin is that you can arrange the various shreds of it into an appearance of volume. The earth seems large for being just a surface, why couldn't this principle be applied by a perfectly thin bird, you think ? Piling shavings upon shavings, each weighing next to nothing and as insubstantial as any bidimensional objects in a threedimensional space ever are, nevertheless a superficial impression of volume -- and even ponderance -- can be induced!

Just so with everything else, it is the fate of worms to inhabit the hollows among pretended roundness and other such pretense to permanence.

The hues of where I live very readily overwhelm the hues of what my camera can capture, and so it does the only possible thing : reduces them to bands of hues, and presents those. It's a summary of hue, if you so... hue hue hue.

Just in case you were worried, yes, I am fine. My needs are being thoroughly seen to, not merely as described, but throughout. In a world bereft of independent human beings, alone with my and mine I enjoy the best possible life one could ever possibly squeeze out of the old discarded lemon.

I do remember, sometimes warmly, I do on occasion reminesce even about the times before the idiots unearthed the Traim Decenii De Impliniri Marete machine for the yet anotherth n-th time, those enchanted ages of yore universally dusted in the gilt sands of time past. "Bucurestii interbelici" or something like that, it used to be called, during the previous installment of "worldwide" & "universal" pantsuitism. I'm not sure what it'll be called now, I'm not even convinced it need be called anything ; I do not perceive value left in the perennial viermi neadormiti, even residualii I mean residually.

But, however thoroughly despicable not to mention irretrievable fucked you sad lot might be, I... I for one I'm fine.

What I do with my time while being fine appears to be a modern rendition of ye olde Francisci : I watch the birds come by. They come to strut, they come to trill, hellbent to impress. What can you do...

Oh right, right, there's also boats. Boats float, away from land. Let's send Hannah to fetch the keys.

Waterfalls and tropical vegetation, shorelines and waves and crabs and... then it's done.

The ponies run, the girls are young, the odds are there to beat. You win a while, and then... it's done.

Your little winning streak, my little winning streak, whatever. It's time for the ministrations. Yet again, and then... it's time to sleep.

———You know, I sometimes try to guess what among the immense pile of time shavings any new one I'm currently writing is going to reference. It never gets anywhere, this process, the links form almost always on the second pass, upon re-read.

Do you re-read what you wrote ? Why ? It's a serious question, it deserves a serious answer -- why do you re-read what you wrote ? Is it to see what included therein might make your mother object ? Are you a sort of Samuel Clemens, writing each night and then sheepishly presenting the products of nightly fever to the morning eye of your wife, for adequate censorship according to a strange role reversal, no longer you the arbiter of the monstrous, indecibly monstrous fruit of her dubious, at best dubious midpore -- but she, somehow, counter-naturally and against all nature, she the arbiter of the strange fruits of your mind ? Do you live like that, a man captive in a dedicated woman's mission for a man alone ? Night and day, day and night, it's been done for people who drink too much you know ?

Well... what can I say. You're beyond contempt and below any possible discussion, of course ; whereas I... I re-read to find the references, to link the relevant other places. Ramine-asa. [↩]

« Fun, together

The lulz of all time, today as each day »

Category: La pas prin lume

Saturday, 27 June, Year 12 d.Tr.

Bogota, a mixed bag

It was said in the place of all sayings,

mp_en_viaje: motherfucker

mp_en_viaje: i fucking hate this town

mp_en_viaje: utter fucking shithole omfg

but I can today, with the wisdom Saturday brings through distilling the experiences of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday atop the early annoyance of Tuesday, that Bogota is rather more complicated than simply a shithole. It is, if you will, a shithole with corn kernels admixed in, and mothercurds, and all manner of delicacies, which we'll be exploring in all their festive glory at great length. This article contains over a hundred images (and some wool!), not to mention words, palpitations, quashed feelings, elated hopes, great altitudes as well as dismal directions, so prepare yourselves thoroughly afore ingurgitation!

The five stari Bogota Plaza Summit Hotelii located at 100 with 18 @ 92 (but we will come back to the idiocyiii of their addressing system) is proud to offer Today condoms, should you need them. Elaine Benes is hereby notified that conceivably the best thing after the Today sponge might be the Today condom ?

As a side note -- how many 30 and 40 something pisis ladyspeedstick themselves, would you say ? Isn't this the true socialist greatness, that Trump and his deplorably peniless detractors alike rely on the same five bux' worth of deodorant ?

This is a random shot from the Candelaria, the old district of Bogota. There's a lot of pedestrian-only spaces there, and it's a favourite destination of tourism.

You are invited to locate the image above, for a one bitcent prize ; you are also invited to explain what the fuck is happening according to the artist, and how the fuck did anyone imagine psychotic depiction of live birth may somehow sell more jam -- but this, for free.

To be perfectly fair : I couldn't believe it either, the first time I saw it. But biology is fulla surprises, and they do indeedy stretch down there beyond imaginable limit.

This is a different random shot in the same Candeleria, this time at night. There's relatively little I can tell you about the famous neighbourhood, mostly on account of having spent about one hour in it, once Monday night and once Thursday evening. The notion of having a few square miles of pedestrian only spaces is great, until you implement it in the manner of Argentina (huge roadworker colonies occupying the main street, leaving two narrow spaces for pedestrians in between walls and ad-hoc metal fencing).

Nevertheless, "it's not that way everywhere". Unlike Costa Rica there's actual Casinos, where people play actual pokeriv, various shops selling various shit that wasn't evidently just unloaded from the chinaboat (such as this cute Nepalese couple that sold me a half-dozen hand made colored glass cigarette holders), the occasional interesting bar/cafe/restaurant and so following. In short, it has a soul, which is a lot more than Portland, for instance, could say for itself.

A guy was breakdancing for no apparent reason in the (very dangerous, mind you!) distance for no apparent reason, but there were too many people milling about to manage to get a good shot. Next time.

Speaking of interesting cafes, this place sold me panela tea a lemon, which was quite delicious, and a very Latino (and cilantro-heavy) sopa azteca which for some inconceivable reason they were calling "Hungarian goulash". It is out of the question, and I say possessed of all the heavy authority of one coming from the very place where Hungarian goulash was invented and to this day best made -- Transylvania, that the broth before me there was goulash ; but I do declare it'd be a great way to bother any Hungarian friends you might somehow still have.

The decor in the place was... at the very worst bizarre. I'm unsure what the item is held to represent, or what is the link between that semantic content and the white enamel teapot placed upon it, but then again not everything is made to be understood.

The bartender was this affable gay guy, who rather evidently spent the entire evening trying to decypher the encyphered signals I was sending his way (while I myself was doing no such thing, but can you argue with the lovestruck ?). The seat of his labours was chiefly that square meter of colorful trainwreck.

And now, ladies, gents and whores, we arrive at the enchanted moment of our show where we discuss the Bogota taxi system indirection layer. You see, in most places taxis count time and distance, and then spit out a price. Not so here! Here, they calculate points, which are displayed as such (for instance in the instant case -- 60 up there on the right side of the mirror) and then converted into meaning by the use of a table, printed out and hung on the back of the front seat. It is thus that we find 50 equates to 4`100 while 202 and 203 are equal to 16`600.

The whole excel spreadsheet provided would be readily approximated by a "points * 80" function, except not exactly. There exists no function that would exactly render the very strange content associated, and the implication is twofold. For one thing, you must be a very stupid fellow indeed to prefer an array representation of an underlying reality to a functional representation of the same, for the obvious reason : it takes up so much space! Humans only enjoy finite mental capacity, while reality is not similarily bound in its complexity ; and as a matter of consequence, the more cognitively heavy your representations are, the lower the absolute ceiling this places on your ability to interact with reality. Laugh at the "fits in head" criterion now, if you dare, but let it be plainly said : it is the only symptom of intelligence in live humans, now or ever.

For the other thing, you must be a very poor fellow indeed for the slight variation introduced by the index depicted over the proposed function to matter to you. The dollar in my hand was worth about 3`000 local pesos, who exactly cares that 202 * 80 = 16`160 and 203 * 80 = 16`240 (a 440 and 360 delta respectively from the "correct" 16`600 value) ? If you care about the dime specifically, and you care to the degree printing and maintaining those things is actually worth it... you've got very serious problems, let's put it that way.

Now tell me, what is the correlate between poverty and stupidity, and why exactly is "lack of opportunity" a cause of poverty ? Tell me, I'm curious, is it because I run my affairs well that idiot Cape Town subhumans managed to run themselves out of water and then believe when the wreckers tell them that "going about with greasy hair is a sign of social responsibility" instead of taking note it's yet another testament of their utterly subhuman nature ? How do I keep the happy Bogotans from making sense for themselves and towards their own prosperity ? "Lack of opportunities" indeed, because they were way too busy dicking about with taxi-point indirection layers while opportunity came, and then just as it came it also went.

In alta ordine de idei, as the Romanian expression goes, the Romanian Embassy in Bogota held an exhibition of various ancient, previously classified Romanian diplomatic material. The light wasn't very good, but I did manage to exfiltrate some bits.

Above, the local mission is informed telegraphically as to the official wordsalads to be used wrt Ceausescu's visit in Colombia. This happened in 1972, towards the tail end of Romania's prosperity and technological superiority (ie, when Ceausescu finally ended up here). If his flight pattern weren't insulting enough (Costa Rica then Venezuela first, then Colombia), he literally uses as his captatio "I came to your country like all the others". This is a wonder that the written record does little to resolve : what did 1972 Ceausescu imagine a liberal or a conservative party even were ? He met their leadership, what meaning did he extract out of the experience ?

Below, the very dismal results of the visit can actually be intuited : a lot of very elogious wood originating from the Romanian side, a keys to the city offered by the municipal council, Elena got to visit the Institute For Family Welfare or somesuch... altogether second rate an affair.

On the left, below, an item unsigned but attributed to Belisario Betancur, which includes, besides a lot of typically communist-Romanian formulae, "a world that fights tirelessly for cooperation in various fields", ostensibly starting with the wholly imagined field of fighting for cooperation and continuing imaginarily from there on. On the right, various economiasms by Lucella Ossman de Duque, at the time Colombian ambassador in Romania.

A remarkable note below from Gilberto Cruz Villegas, 1981, includes the following tidbit : "Romania has technology, our country has abundant natural resources which we must develop, and we do this with teachers and friends from your noble country". Fancy that wonder.

To a certain degre this is true, even though when I tell local cabbies that back in the 70s and 80s a lot of mining, oil and gas development was done with Romanian materiel and under Romanian technical supervision they seem altogether doubtful. There's even a few thousand families in the country produced through the union of one such engineer and a fetching young local lass half a century or so ago. But then again... Bogota is eight million, what possible impact could a thousand make.

Above, the sad end to the Romanian imperial ambitions in Colombia : the "a lot of your resources for a little of our products" deal was denounced unilaterally by Colombia, and the ambassador, while denying any involvement and naming namesv also asks for some administrative help that absolutely needs no asking in the first place (in this case, that the girl her son wants to marry be handed over for the purpose). The relationship between mafia and socialist state could scarcely be made more evident -- regimes in which one's stuck apologizing for things that need no apologies and asking for help in doing things that not only can't possibly need any helping, but utterly need no doing! What the fuck, since when is the state involved in what woman some man takes ?! And who the fuck asked Romania's politruks whether they like or don't like that nobody wants the fucking Tehnica Navigarii cu Vele ?

Below, some indistinct wank about a "friendship house" between the two countries. Somehow the Romanian services summoned up a few dozen (mostly obscure) local names supposedly interested in such a thing, though I've no idea anything ever came of it.

Here's how the inept addressing scheme of Bogota makes announcements look. You'd think these people ASM for a living or something.

And here's the responsible parties for the urban chaos in Bogota : they have some independent offices tasked with issuing building permits, and jesus christ is the result a hot mess.

Above : two pair lobster tails, one in garlic, one a la maison. Fucking delicious, I don't recall having had lobster this tender and wunderbar in Boston even, and that was on the wharf.

Below : the bill. Lobster, steaks, coffee, almost a hundred bucks. Yes ?

Bogota is very cheap if you buy the top shelf. Even if it's a gamble whether it will be over or under standardvi, nevertheless it'll be worth the pennies.

Above : they have some strange issues with religious figures, there's all sorts of baby jesus bars and whatnot.

Below : yes, I smoke in public places if I fucking feel like it, ley whatever the fuck notwithstanding. Problem ? Shove it!

At this point... let's see if we can brew up a diplomatic incindent, why the hell not.

So, foarte simpaticul Romanian consul in Bogota, Mr. Iulian Ivan picked up a local darling. Just like that, off the street.vii My first impression was that the lady's at work, on the flimsy basis of her very fashion mag-driven attire, her unyielding disponibility to walk on four inch heels through the post-war "sidewalks" of Bogotaviii and other considerations (such as employment as real estate agent, for instance, or that he doesn't look like he could pull it off -- no doubt an ellaborate disguise deliberately displayed!).

Nevertheless, upon insistent cocktails at Pravda (which, as the first page of the menu informs, "La Verdad Lo Que Sobrie Piensa Ebrio Dice"ix) it came out that she comes from a coffee planting family of some import, and for the past decade was the girlfriend of the Russian Military attache. Who taught her to fire various weapons, to drink properly by all means, as well as a number of other state secrets she duly communicated to the Romanian side. What now ?x

We finished the night in the wee hours of the morning at Armando Records over champagne batteries. The local kids were very impressed with the girls, taking turns to ask them whether they have children, whether I'm their sugar daddyxi and so forth. In the end as we were leaving a braver one asked me something -- he wanted to know where I'm from. I told him, and by the dazed expression I infer he now thinks "Romania" is how Martians call Mars itself.

Atragem si pe aceasta cale atentia tinarului vlastar al altfel respectabilului parinte ca e intr-un gust cam indoielnic sa vizitezi coclauri obscure fara sa dai un semn cit de-o cafea reprezentantei noastre acolo. Oameni sunt, pe tine, sau ma rog, pe mine ma servesc, ce asa apucaturi ciobanesti ? Pe urma stam si ne miram de ce se cred cinci pizdute obosite cumva importante sau mai stiu eu ce minuni. Am zis asa in italiana sa se inteleaga si fara mediatori ; revenim la programul normal in limba engleza.

Above, as well as a bunch below we're going down calle 100, to pick up Alejandra. Alejandra used to be Alexandra back when she lived in Romania, and perhaps one day will fiscalia at the Hague, but meanwhile she can't find a cab. She thinks people tend to not take her quite as seriously as they should on account of her great rack, you see, but the truth is they don't take her as seriously as she'd like on account of her not having money, a point directly evinced by the great grand abundance of cabs loitering about the affluent North-Western 1% of Bogotaxii. I for instance had no trouble whatsoever picking any of the fifty or so empty cabs within yelling range of my hotel, even if they told her that everything's reserved for the next hour down there. This is something playing the district attorney is very unlikely to ever change, which is why they say youth is wasted on the young, and also why I say self-direction is a terrible, terrible idea.

The girls, at the bottom of Montserrat. With a llama! Her fur is very pleasantly soft ; the thing by the fence there is a sack of cut up carrots.

This fellow wanted to charge us 5`000 pesos for to pet his llama while inconveniencing traffic attempting to get into the parking lot, or else 10`000 for to take our picture doing it. In no mood to deny a hardworking man three dollars I paid him 10`000 with no intention of taking any photograph he might produce. How wrong was I! See that little radio box up there ? That's his printer! He literally produced a physical photo on the spot, seen below.

Also, speaking of nothing in particular : I bought myself a book, depicted below. It was a very heavily advertised item, with all the important airs attempting to suggest that something was done here, that Elisa Estevez achieved some kind of something, that Atala y Elisa is some kind of breakthrough, a success, un exito.

No such thing. The item is a dismal affair, very much in the vein of Naggum's description of books by idiots for idiots (except it's no backbreaker, with all the fluffing it's still a shade under 200 pages). The endless and endlessly pompous "acknowledgements" at the beginning as well as the general spirit of the atrocity very much evoke an idle, useless cuntlet that'd benefit immensely from a good public flogging. The intolerable self-absorption, the precious cuntlet syndrome dripping off the pages make the sad production a shameful testament of the rampant style of child abuse these days fashionable.

Please stop telling the children that they're special. For one thing, they're not special, and for the other thing it prevents their maturation, resulting in obscene failures like this misfortunate Elisa Estevez.

So we climbed this hill on the side of Bogota, which is quite literally a larger version of where I live.

I have no idea why there's a cross potent above the altarxiii, seems an odd innovation to me.

This utter imbecile (no doubt produced through the inane process of telling dumb cunts they're talented, special etcetera) tortured a guitar most ineptly through a way overpowered amplifying system. Why the fuck do people permit idiots to breathe, let alone express themselves, is the principal question before contemporaneity.

WHY!

Which reminds me -- I bought dried coca leaves, they're sold here packaged exactly like tea (which I suppose they actually are). Five bux or something.

Can you spot the little birdy ?

No ? How about now ?

Here starts the large Museo de Oro batch. Other than to say that it's evident this was El Dorado, considering they made all sorts of bearings, fishing hooks etcetera out of pure gold, I'll limit myself to pointing out that those hunks of rock actually are emeralds, yes.

Above as below, the central plaza in Candelaria, with whatever public buildings around it.

Some vaguely interesting steeples ; and with that...

Bye-bye!

———And 2017 TripAdvisor pick of the year or somesuch, no less! [↩]Isn't it high time they start giving better names to hotels ? What the fuck is "plaza summit", no fucking plaza was ever on a summit, this is like calling it Subterranean Sundial. Wake up and smell the coffee, posers : there's no intrinsically suave words, there's not a quantum of cool that attaches to words as such and you can then squeeze into your commercial lemonade. It always helps if the misfortunate phonemes you string together mean something in the arrangement. Okay ? [↩]I remembered 100 with 92, and spent an hour going about in a cab trying to find it again. Eventually we managed, but in the interim I had to keep encouraging a poor driver, who intermitently was about to be taken (by an imaginary parade) to be solemnly handed the keys of Panic City. I can't imagine what they do to such a lowly local should he misplace a revered foreigner whiteman, but in any case he kept asking his peers, who produced deeply helpful commentary in the vein of "Oh, a hotel called Bogota something ? Well... that one over there is Bogota-something...", which of course it is, because they all are, which readily takes us back to the previous note : would you please give better names to your deeply indistinct and indistinguishable palaces of great good and righteous ideal prosperity and wonderful enjoyment ? For fucks sake! [↩]I asked my local friend whether he played the game, he looked at me like I was an alien. "What, with the machines ?" "No, dude, what fucking machines. With people." "They don't have that anymore ?" "Of course they do! What the fuck, I'm not about to play poker with the machines like an idiot ; I play poker with the idiots like a machine." He so much liked this turn of phrase it is here reproduced for his further enjoyment, and in living memory of Shelley The Machine Levene. [↩]It's remarkable how very uniformly similar the behavior of the Security State was throughout. One's at pains to distinguish the treatment applied to the retiring ambassador from the treatment that'd have been applied to the same physical woman, "enemy of the people" or "suspected individual" or whatever. They give her some papers to sign, right ? [↩]The hotel, for instance, was under, with various problems (for lolz : Thursday evening the LCD in the elevator had one Internet Exploder error page up ; early Friday morning -- a different one) of the irritating rather than substantial sort. They did do laundry, they did do wakeup calls, they did ship me off to the airport and all that ; but their breakfast was miserable, and the maids had this strange half-expectant half-terrified look on their face... actually, let's render an original Romanian story in English for your amusement :

Jimmy got out of the bar and pulled his hoodie down. It was cold and past 1 am, but fortunately he didn't live very far. He walked a brisk pace throgh the ad-hoc alleys criss-crossing the projects. He blew a burp into his palms for courage.

Out of one of the dismal tenements, some 50 meters ahead, some chick emerged and proceeded approximately in the same direction. She looked okay from behind. She probably came from some dood's bed. Or maybe she just hung out with some female friends over a bottle of wine, thought Jimmy. It's pointless to stereotype random bypassers. As he was mulling it over, the distance between them narrowed -- another 20 meters and he'd be next to her.

The chick turned and gave him a worried look. Then she started faster. Jimmy felt insulted. He was just going home like anyone. Why should she suspect him ? Jeez, women. You can't go about your business without some chickie figuring herself important. He could have slowed down, let her gain some distance and feel safe.

But it wasn't fucking fair. First of all, she was already safe, feelings or no feelings. Second of all, he went with the same speed since he started going, why should he change in this cold just to cater to some dumbass afraid of bombs ? Anyway, it made no difference, he was going to turn here and their ways will split up. Let the madwoman see the whole world's not about her.

Shit.

She took the same turn. Before him. What a dumb coincidence. She's going the same way. Jimmy turned after her. He had briefly considered whether he shouldn't go around, but it wouldn't have been efficient.

On the other side, the chick stopped a moment and looked straight at him, watching him turn. She was obviously scared. She started trotting at her best clip on heels through the sidewalk craters, looking around for people. Jimmy imagined some burly dude could show up at any moment, or even a cop. The dumbass'd go over and say "this suspicious character's following me!" and he'd have an argument on his hands made out of sheer self-centered idiocy. What an idiot. No, the matter must be dealt with.

"Missy, this is to notify you that there's no danger!" croaked Jimmy in her general direction, his voice ravaged by the cold. Then he realised he made a mistake. It'd have been exactly what some shady rapist'd have said. There literally was no sane way out of the situation.

She yelped, threw off her shoes and started running.

Now everything really looked dumb, pathetic and ridiculous. Jimmy understood that whoever'd have seen him, would have necessarily believed he's the sort of nut that follows women down the street. And the dumbass ran ineptly, legs apart and with strange jerks. She stepped on a stone and yelled out in pain, then fell on her knees, but picked herself up quickly and continued her chaotic run through the hypabyssal sidewalk, like she was in danger of life.

Jesus, what a dumbass. And with all of this, that run of hers was still slower than his brisk walk.

What idiotic misunderstanding. Just like that, he was hurrying home like anyone and some dumbass, out of sheer coincidence, happened to walk the same way.

Jimmy mumbled something and started after her. He closed the distance in a few paces -- somehow sexually panicked women move even slower than they do otherwise, if that were humanly possible. He grabbed her wrist firmly. She turned, mute with terror.

"Miss..." he started, and then stopped, understanding there exists no possible phrase he could utter that'd calm the situation. Things had gone too far in a direction he had not the vaguest notion of, initially. But pragmatically speaking... he was already there, 80% of the job was already done. So he grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and dragged her to the closest gang.

You know ? Shut the shit down. [↩]Their mutually-agreed upon story is pretty good, but we're getting to it in a moment.

So, we were set to meet at five in the afternoon, after his work is done, and have a cup of coffee or a beer or something at this public house on the corner of some major street cutting through Parque Virrey. Once there and no sight of Mr. Ivan, I asked one of the waiters for his phone, which he gladly provided, and had Hannah call. They spoke (in Romanian!) and it came to light he's stuck doing some work or somesuch. We rescheduled for six and split.

He worked double time, was done twice as fast, and arrived there half past five or so, only to not find us. So he proceeded to call Hannah, only to discover that some guy who has no fucking idea what's going on is on the other end of the line and can't help him. Now we come to the mutual story : at some point after five thirty plus whatever the calling took, he noticed the lady besieged by a very dangerous looking barbone while trying to have a cup of coffee, and none of the other customers nor the waiters were willing to help! She begged him to intervene, which he did, by sitting down at her table, shooing the danger away and continuing his interconnected life.

At six we showed up, sat down, and the poor waiter came running to tell us that during our absence the fellow called! But he didn't know what to say, and didn't understand him so well. He has a very strange accent!

It's not strange, it's Romanian, I explained. You see, I'm from Romania, and the fellow is our consul here. Oh, Romania! Offered the waiter. I have a friend from Romania! Dragnea! Valentin Dragnea!

"What, the son of the Romanian politician ?" I asked incredulous. He confirmed that yeah, his friend's daddy is some kind of big fish, and I am inclined to believe him, on the grounds that what, he's a twenty-something year old kid in Bogota waiting tables by day and then spending his nights reading up wikipedia pages on political arrangements in obscure countries just in case such a foreigner happens to fall upon him at the restaurant ? Seems the height of improbability, Romania is broadly speaking so obscure in Latin America pretty much every time I travel their training system triggers and some other immigration officer than the one I ended up with gets shown my papers -- which is to say at every point there's at least one person working there that's never before seen a Romanian passport.

Just as this was concluding the two lovebirds showed up, directed by another waiter towards our table, and so the story may continue, but not before I recount the poor fellow's utterly confused reaction to my, "Hey, wanna meet Dragnea's son ? The waiter can hook you up". Because why the hell not, or do I repeat myself ?

There, all recounted, back to the main thread. [↩]The place looks exactly like Rahova cca 1995, God love 'em. [↩]They also had it in Russian (note the obscurity). [↩]Asa incit, atentie Neculaescu/Gheorghita : dati-i cetateanului de munca, pina nu-si gaseste altceva de facut. [↩]"Are you by yourself ?" "No, actually, that's my Master right there." "What's that, like a sugar daddy ?".

Actually... it's like opposite of a sugar daddy. It's an alum daddy, let's say. [↩]This city is approximately square shaped, 60 or so km on the side. Here's a map :

The airport is in the South-West ; a thin sliver of the North is the affluent side, with the business district approximately on the West side of the sliver, while the old city / places where tourists walk rest on the East side of the same sliver. The item in the middle is the whoring area, marked for me by the very jolly commander-general of the Mayfair restaurant. We had a grand ole time together once I sprawled out this map on their buffet table. His waiters crowded around offering suggestions and producing sharpies, we discussed the matter to the tune of his hearthy guffaws, we soon enough established that yes we used to be military men, after a fashion, and haha zee Panzers!

The truth is that it's relatively easy to have a grand old time, if you know what you're doing. [↩]Let's delve. First off, potent means "crutch" in this context, because the Latin word for power had come to denote a prosthetic device by the early Medieval period, when the item was thus christened. Geddit, the cross christened ? Aaanyways, consider that the whole "god will download kungfu into my brain when needed" thing isn't in any sense novel, or invented in our dismal colonies. On the contrary, through the desperation of "reform" (known mostly as "retcon" these days) the symbols of power came to be associated (through the device of "vanity") with an implicit lack (from the perfection that one's somehow, magically, due). This is how the cycle goes for stupid people : first, great men (that aren't them) band together ; then this band forces the whole world on its knees, and extracts its juices ; then, the better cunts among the subjugated are used as bed warmers, with a clear understanding of their relative disimportance that sadly does not pass from father to son ; the sons not merely fail to appreciate correctly the relative position of their mothers in the grander scheme of things, but also the actual process through which their relative prosperity was created (and especially fail to understand the absolute bars that process places in principle to their participation, because why the fuck would they, who ever wants to understand his own inferiority, especially if absolute and insurmountable) and so come to believe "all are equal" and "all are perfect" ; confronted with myriad daily practical contradictions of these batshit insane theories borne by sheer necessity, they resolve the implicit cognitive dissonance by creating this dismal device whereby the symbols of power are shameful crutches for manifest insufficiency and so following. It's really quite sad.

Second off, the design is absolutely pre-historic, at the latest Neolithic. Which is not to say that its medieval name has no bearing -- its christian usage has no bearing! Just like the swastika's unimpressed by your fascination with burnt up jews, just so the crutched cross is not a cross in the first place, let alone the crutches. [↩]

« The Man Versus The State

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Category: La pas prin lume

Saturday, 03 February, Year 10 d.Tr.

Tell me, how does it feel ?

Motto : How does it feel ?

How does it feel!

To be without a home...

Like a complete unknown...

Like a rolling stone ?

Do you realise by the way that google searches for Tell me, how does it feel (no quotes) don't even return a mention of Bob Dylan ? Not anymore ; it's just a buncha youtube nowi, all kind and manner of "The Rapsody - The Idea Of Beautiful", "Blue Monday - New Order", "52nd Street" and etcetera inept nonsense I'm not even going to listen to. Because I do not care. But anyways : many years ago I was complaining nothing actually interesting ever gets discussed on blogs. I wasn't the only one, either.

Wellii... how the hell would it feel ? I don't fucking know. I woke up this morning, I made myself a cup of cocoaiii, which I don't think I've done in two or three years. It's not some kind of meaningful ritual, either, I don't recall "what was then". I don't think it "was" anything, I just made myself some cocoa is all. With it in hand I'm going through old Trilema articles, not looking for anything in particular, just... the filter that used to keep everything laser-focused on "the task at hand"iv, "we've no time to lose", "gotta do it, and well, and fast" etc has relaxed a notch or three. There's plenty of time now to leisurely read evidently unrelated articles that happened to catch the eyev.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that, either. Not to put too fine a point on it, last week I spentvi a little under 21k words upon 1800s authors and it resulted in The Buller-Podington Compacts ; 23k or so words on #trilema logs, and it produced... what did it produce ? What was made ? Figure it out and tell me sometime ; meanwhile I've watched some films and left some comments, talked to women in private, it's not like I didn't do anything since crossing the ocean yet again, for the fifth time in this lifevii. I did plenty, but of that plenty the B-Pc rewrite figures as one of the better pieces I've even written (and maybe the Baudelaire thing isn't terrible either), while the rest doesn't meaningfully figure at all. A great many things we never had, you remember how that went.viii

But anyway, back to the point (as much as this was ever possible on Trilema) : it feels great to write ; I've always liked it very much. And what else is there ?ix

Permit me to apologize if my feelings disappoint ; they are however the only ones I have.

———Yet somehow average joe dweeb doesn't point and laugh at this, "seriously google, you found youtube among all those billion sites ???". Must be because youtube's ever-so-relevant, I'm sure.

For the record, as far as I know all youtube's good for is the provisioning of bad arrangements. The only times it ends up included in my searches is when I'm taking all comers for a decent arrangement of some tune, because then it doesn't seem it'd do to be exclusive. Youtube reliably provides the absolute bottom of the pile, every time, which is why I've kinda started skipping it. [↩]It should be interesting, this, no ? "What's the man feel the morning after having pronounced dead the mere possibility of a free world" ? You recall this thing from before they tore down that wall on Clinton's orders, unleashing the worst flood of socialism no Marx or Engels ever dared dream of. Do you ? Do you recall it ? The "free world" ? Reagan spent all he had on hand to "make the world safe" for us, today, and look that it's not so much a matter of it not being safe -- it's rather a matter that there's absolutely no "us". It hasn't been fifty years! How'd you like them apples ?! [↩]Absolutely fucking splendid stuff here, until you've had Britt's cocoas you've not lived. [↩]In this case, I'd like to find an article to link above, on "I was complaining". I know which it was, "ce as vrea sa vad pe bloguri" or something like that, "blog de aviator" it said and things. I'm not currently finding it, but whatevs, maybe I will (so far this is a decent substitute, because that's the one great thing about Trilema, you're rarely dependent on a single node, most of the time alternatives are readily available). I'm pretty sure Diana also had a piece discussing the tedium of "blogging" as done by "bloggers", ie the same people who "write software" and "protest" etcetera, it's not like nobody else afore noticed the utter disinterestingness of every socialism's ever bug-man. [↩]Like Ce n-as dori sa mai vad pe post de bloguri and I guess Profesorul si minora or Functia asiguratorie a blogului or Requiescat si circulati or Dreptul de-a ne rezerva clientii... there's really no shortage, I could probably spend a good chunk of the rest of my life merely rereading Trilema. Besideswhich perhaps I should, too, if nothing else then to fix the trackbacks, link selects, log references etc. Maybe I even will.

I have like a suspicion it'll be a lot more fun than reading Ballas' thing turned out to be, anyways. [↩]Yes, it's an expenditure, every word you read is a wordread you spent, there's only so many in a day or in a life and they ain't ever coming back. [↩]First to Boston, then from San Josy back to Yurp, then to Buenos Aires, then from Bogota back to Yurp, then yet again back to the New World. Five times in a lifetime's truly excessive, don't you think ? [↩]Speaking of which, this edifice, impressive (from a distance) as it stood was nevertheless a collapsing ruin for a long time now. Holding the random nigglets pululating through Paris on the fateful day Notre Dame finally joined the choir invisible responsible for the event is a little Dreyfuss-ian. That thing had been falling down since before 1848 at the very least, forget about it, the current set of Algerians, Tunisians &c didn't "do it" anymore than their parents did. The happenstance that it finally happened to shed the ever-hollower pretense to existence just as they were walking by doesn't make them actors in the great drama of human civlisation allovasudden, you know ? [↩]Tell the truth, you were half-fearing this'll anounce switching to Spanish, weren't you. I'm not about to, I don't like Spanish enough. On an equal basis Romanian is actually a lot stronger, not because I speak it (I speak Spanish, too) but because it actually is (I suspect the Russian influence). Spanish has the advantage of much stronger medieval literature (no, contemporary modern stuff's not worth burning directly, let alone reading first), but ultimately what difference is there between two junkies, the grandfather of one having been a Union general while the grandfather of the other having been a Confederate nigger ? They're both junkies (and no, Romania hasn't been anything but a plantation nigger since long before there even was such a thing as a plantation -- it's true that at some point illo tempore they chose the successor to the Sublime Porte by force of arms ; but it's also true they chose the wrong one). [↩]

« Closure.

In a transparent attempt by the man to distract attention from the internal problems of the Republic by focusing it instead on the lulz in Africa... »

Category: Zsilnic

Thursday, 12 March, Year 12 d.Tr.

Sweet Smell of Success

Sweet Smell of Successi is a sad, atrocious misery of a film, if you can call it that.

You could alternatively call it "a collection of caged monkeys chewing at the scenery" or "a five years old's notion of evening entertainment : a farting, armpit-farting and balloon-farting competition, whereby a bunch of 1950s suburban kids gathered around the pool on the occasion of one's birthday produce a certain predictable noise through fondling their armpits in the water, craftily holding inflated balloons slightly open, as well as playing with their own assholes".

There's plenty of assholes in this "Sweet Smell of Success", lemme tell ya! Incomprehensible if thoroughly reprehensible assholes purposelessly dotting the langscape, none of which having any apparent business (there or anywhere) nor making any sense besides contributing ample volumes of hot air to that supposedly "sweet" smell of auctorially-defined "success". The viewer is left without the barest hint of the faintest whiff of success throughout, it looks rather to be the case, in Mack&drick's patently deranged estimation, that success is whatever the fuck he says it is.

For cause that predates reason (and very well might connect this misshapen wreck with the doubtlessly unfortunate childhood of the director) the entire production/flea circus gravitates around this one particular cunt who, besides wearing the same one fur coat throughout the proceedings -- yes, even indoors, such as in her own bedroom. Over a nighty, what, problem ? That's not how you use nutria ? They even joke about it, I mean in the script (unless the blowhard donning a Burt Lancaster disguise ad-libbed it), turning the whole thing into such a missed opportunity at self-parody as only Americana can deliver.

Anyways, the pile's mildly interesting for purely lateral reasons, such as the shot of period Delemonico spuriously inserted among the frames, or Ruffiano's amusing "office" consisting of a literal boudoir -- there's a bedroom and an anteroom wherein a "good girl" sits behind a desk and frets. I couldn't discern if the film implies that she's familiar with the intimate workings of that bed in a most personal sense, or implies that she isn't -- but in any case it makes no fucking difference. Girl works in the ante-room to rando dude's bedroom, what more ?

The misfortunate Walter Winchellii, whose real world persona this idiotic production quaintly if quite unintentionally assassinates, was orders of magnitude more personable, to say nothing of funny, socially adjusted, connected, intelligent, cultivated and for that matter washed -- the decerebrates ricocheting off the walls and talking into each others' air in the film don't seem capable of putting soap to much use on their own power, or for that matter all that likely to ever end up in close contact with running water. How the fuck anyone in the 50s managed to produce such a bland, lame and thoroughly collapsible rendition of the wisecrack era... I mean these dorks don't ever say anything funny, not ever, they don't play, they don't... it's like they're from the fifties, all dour and pucker-fuckfaced. There's even McCarthy-ism retrofitted in there, but not the slightest whiff of golden era.iii

I suppose there's no strong reason to not see this if you really want to, but... well, don't breathe in, what can I say.

———1957, by Alexander Mackendrick, with Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis [↩]You know, the widely copied guy with "Good Evening Mr. & Mrs. America & All The Ships At Sea".

And speaking of "nothing's ex-er than an ex-" : try and find a collection of his lasties somewhere online, if you can. But you can't, can you ? You can't, because... well, more of the same but less of everything, see. [↩]And no, he didn't live with his "sister", he lived with some woman while being married to some other woman, like everyone back then, back when the big deal was "no divorce" (as opposed to later, when the big deal in the same line was "no abortion"). And no, he didn't worship the cunt, like he's insanely misdepicted here. In fact, before his doing, "no U.S. paper hawked rumors about the marital relations of public figures until they turned up in divorce courts", transparently if self-obviously because no newspaper anywhere, from coast to coast, had the balls to breach the sanctity of cunthood's cocoon -- for everyone else it was "too much" to put the lazy, dumb bitches on the grill for their inept if disavowed discapacity for keeping a man interested.

But none of that's important. What's truly important is that this fellow, the real Winchell, was so dedicated to his craft, his craft, his own and personally his, that as a seventy year old, in a thoroughly changed world, he'd write "his column", xerox it and hand it out on the street corner. He didn't command the same audience he had at his feet half a century prior, it's true -- but he didn't command it in the same exact way. They changed from under him, over him, from breast to breast and all the shitheads whatever, it's true... but the horse stayed a horse, throughout and thick and thin and all of it. That's something, something this piece of shit "film" ain't ever gonna be. [↩]

« Anyways, I was interrupted...

The Two Popes »

Category: Trilematograf

Friday, 21 August, Year 12 d.Tr.

Where THE FUCK!!! is everyone ?

Bitcoin is valuable today because for the past five+ years I've been intransigently sinking each and every attempt of all the scum and barnacles i sticking to its mighty hull to make it "more acceptable to governments" which is to say useless and stupid.

Bitcoin is not the money of Diane fucking Keaton. Bitcoin is the currency of the nameless 16 year old who runs away from home to bleed her way into womanhood live on camera. Bitcoin's entire point, and its entire value proposition, as numerously and amply discussed on Trilema these past few years, is to make it too expensive for the average head of cattle to present pantsuit.

That's why the obnoxious voice of the insufferable soysexual in that video sounds so fucking desperate : because for the past five years the base of his idiocy has been methodically undermined, and today he discovers himself in the only truly untenable position : that where he thought he's in the right because they were numerous, only to turn around and discover he's alone. Will the faggot press on, because he's right, now that he's alone ? You've seen these battle nigglets before, haven't you, talking tough and spewing shit while turning their head to check back every three seconds ? Yeah, the fabled suburban tough guy, that's him.

And yes the end game is having menopausal women in the exact position of dogs today : either they go around with a collar provided by a citizen or else get taken to the pound to be euthanized in thirty days if no-one claims them. That doesn't mean women can't be citizens suo jure ; but there's not going to be any prize for simply showing up, nor "human rights" nor "equality" nor any of the rest of the herdemocracy nonsense.

What can the herd of emos do about it ? The herd part is already melting away, leaving behind the ugly grub of emocracy exposed. How long can that last ? Who's gonna feed them their soy milk ? Who's gonna shade them from the unforgiving Sun above ?

Not I. And, importantly, neither will the jwzs. Slowly but incontournably, it is becoming too expensive for them to do it, which means they will not do it, which means it's time to say goodnight.

Where the fuck is everyone ?

———Linkage limited for brevity. There are literally hundreds of examples, not all of which even public in the first place. [↩]

« The world has changed

TMSR-RSA spec, extremely early draft »

Category: Bitcoin

Tuesday, 15 August, Year 9 d.Tr.

greta_scarano_yulia_kolomiets

« Suburra

Category: Zsilnic

Friday, 24 April, Year 12 d.Tr.

Suburra

Suburrai is a sort of spaghetti Kill Bill.

It is notable because it gets the sex right : yes, that's exactly how powerful people fuck, as you well know : with a younger cunt in tow. That one licks the useless cunt of the other while that other is taking it up the ass is naturally normal and therefore necessary -- whatever you're doing instead is... well, you know... whatever lesser, unconvincing and unpalatable substitute you can afford can be mass produced for you.

Sadly, it doesn't get absolutely anything else right. I've not seen a "boss of Rome" as unconvincingly uncredible ever. The guy's a born CPA, let him the hell be. Nothing else makes any sense -- why's the "boss" shooting people personally, with his lumbering frame of tactical worthlessness ?! Why's the young lion suddenly stuck with the stupid ball ?! How come the "toxica"/precious cuntlet suddenly got moves, what, did god download kung-fu into her on a JIT basis ?! Who the hell does drugs like that, lawd's mercy, the heroin/cocaine depiction is exactly opposite of what anyone ever uses them for, what the shit backwards world is this where junk is an upper and crack a downer ?! Besideswhich, the scene where some "minorelle" takes one pipe hit and dies without as much as a whisper... what was this, footage originally intended for the Disney channel ? It really brings to mind those retarded PSAs from back in the 80s with the "wild teenagers" shooting each other in the face because they've hat a puff of pot.

The list could go on, but really, what's the purpose ? Watch it as far as the fucking and move on.ii

———2015, by nobody in particular, with Greta Scarano and Yulia Kolomiets. Proof :

[↩]Incidentally, of all the wanna-be me's out there, this idiotic bureaucrat is taking some sort of cake, that's for sure. He doesn't as much as own a proper length windbreaker, what the fuck, if his driver gets the flu his life stops.

I understand the remarkably tight circumstances (with the unconvincing veneer of abundance, luxury and pretense) are accurately descriptive of the sheer misery, the uncountable poverty of the sad exponents of this sadness that prefers calling itself "modern democracy" ; and I further understand the needs of visual representation drive this indefensible (if cheaply had) misrepresentation of them as me. Nevertheless, the beast of ridicule and unintentional comedy is cracking at the unseemly seams, it doesn't work, it doesn't stand and it absolutely doesn't live. You mean to tell me the man with an old whore dedicated enough as to train his young cunts for him will run away like a child in denial at the slightest whiff of trouble ?! He's gonna ghost her, as if they just met, but until that moment he's gonna pretend like they've known each other forever and will continue to know each other forever ?! Puh-leaze. What the fuck works like this, besides the feverish imagination of adolescentine clods ? [↩]

« A summary of human activity

The life & times, poolside »

Category: Trilematograf

Friday, 24 April, Year 12 d.Tr.

Stromboli

As far as premises go, Strombolii is definitely interesting : it proposes the confrontation of your typical inhabitant of Precious Cuntlet Planet, the "Northern woman" (in the sense of, North of the Hajnal line) to human society. She deems herself called to form opinions, to carry notions, to sit in judgement of things and mattersii, finding them inadequate, insufficient, bla bla & etcetera. There's even a scene included wherein the rebelious "princess" (in her own estimation, of course, of course) attempts to enlist the help of itinerant "knights" (in case you had any doubts remaining about what precisely the whole "chivalric tradition" was, outside of the usual "PCiii retelling of history") towards the goal of "realising", after a fashion, her hysterical fantasies.

Ingrid Bergman is in general a worthless actress, and systematically an unwelcome, noxious addition to any cinematic projectiv she's improvidently involvedv in ; much like Bridget Fonda essentially existed to be shot in the uterus and left for dead in a parking lot, this insufferable cunt's pretty much only here to be trampled over in Stromboli.

Nevertheless, the proto-pantsuit in charge of writing, directing and producing the thing are very... well, limp-dicked, how shall we put this, they're microtesticularily simpy. The whole thing has to be re-shot, properly, because really the road to common womanhood's nothing like this. It works, a certain way, well understood and well practiced, it's the basis of human civilisation (while the way to exceptional womanhood's eminently not open to Ingrid Bergman and her miserable ilk). Why pretend like we don't know how cattle's trained to the yoke, anyways ?! Oh herpy-derp nobody could guess how cunt#34058304958's life went on "the island", it's not like that's the most thoroughly worked & insistently practiced mechanism of all history ?

Weak sauce. Very, very weak sauce.

———1950, by Roberto Rossellini, with Ingrid Bergman. [↩]The very essence of female fret is turning events into trauma. In male societies, where the female "perspective" is repressed to the point of taboo, females rendered incapable of fret perceive their own rape as plain sexuality, the event without "trauma", phenomenology bereft of spinning ; whereas in dead societies (because no, there can never be such a thing as "female society" -- there can be a femstate, in fat times, but it'll fail painfully not to mention miserably every time ; other than that, the males are either present or absent, voiced or voiceless, making society either vigorous, virtuous and virile or simply fucken stone dead) the desperate (and let me underscore that : desperate) females therein shipwrecked will misinterpret their sexuality as rape because... well, simply because such misrepresentation stands as a proxy for suicide, which is the prime ethical imperative in that context, perceived but repressed by the overextended formal tendrils of an overactive conservation instinct.

Which is why I beat mine, and you should beat yours : if you don't, they get the idea they're called to form opinions, which they can never be ; and to carry notions, which they can't carry in that sense ; and to sit in judgement of things and matters, which... god help us (and them, for in due time they will be finding all inadequate, insufficient, etcetera etcetera). The very possibility of such a thing as female happiness, fulfillment, serenity, whatever you'd call non-Hell (self-made) rests squarely an' entirely upon the separation of the female from her "natural extensions, naturally occurring" exactly like the survival of apple trees rests on the controlling of the pests and parasites that also "naturally" occur on them as equally "natural" extensions.

So... tell you what : nevermind that pompous fisherman in Rome, pretending himself the chosen son of the friend of a dead carpenter, as fucking if. Be instead the gardener at home, and that'll utterly be good enough. [↩]Precious Cuntlet, yes ? [↩]Casablanca is perhaps the most notable example, but truly her career consists of nothing else but notable examples for this thesis, the only difference between them is whether the rest of the cast & crew managed to survive her damage, and build a little or a little more in spite of her. Basically, she's playing here the "unhappy foreign woman" as a break from the rest of her career, wherein she reliably played the Stromboli volcano. [↩]Note the passive ; though English goes above and beyond itself to dissimulate it, the dumb cunt's not an agent to that verb, but an object. [↩]

« Things I have been doing

Billy Bathhouse »

Category: Trilematograf

Thursday, 27 August, Year 12 d.Tr.

Special rules for harem scrabble in foreign languages

Have you noticed the unifying characteristic of all games left behind since before the Great Pantsuitingi, namely that they're all conceived around an effort to sort out power dynamics in a group ? Welll... the harem doesn't really have this problem. I own all the girls, they know I own them, there's no need to figure out whatever inane nonsense two-subbies couples use as a proxy for the one, fundamental, all-consuming question of their sad, miserable quasi-lives : who should top for the evening.ii Consequently our goals are with some regularity somewhat different.

Take for example Scrabble. Now Scrabble is one of the most inane human activities ever devised, perhaps up there with chess or bible study. Nevertheless, in young children, very simple people, and they trying to learn a foreign language it has its definite utility. So we play Arabic scrabble or whatever, but with a custom set of rules. Want to know what they are ?

Sure, I'll tell you. But first... well, let's make this interactive, why the hell not. Take a moment to write them down, what you think Harem Scrabble rules might be.

Then you can read the real set, and... whatever, I don't know, derive some kind of benefit off it or whatever. It's just a game.

Done ?

Aite, so then :

A method to look up proposed words is available, a dictionary in some format. Anyone may at any time ask for a word to be looked up. If the word doesn't exist, they lose 1 point.iii

Everyone plays with their letters on display.iv On everyone's turn, everyone proposes possible layouts. If the layout chosen by whoever's turn it is was proposed by someone else, that someone else gets 1/3 of the points while the player whose turn it was gets the other 2/3. Rounding is in the owner's (player whose turn it is) favour and very obvious proposals aren't usually claimed.

Turns end rather by consensus than by timing (this being a major problem with Scrabble otherwise).

Games usually end with "suck my cock so I can fuck her" typical harem mouth-cunt-asshole game of thirds, but in fairness that has relatively little to do with Scrabble per se, most things end this way with us.

Okay, so now you know. Aren't you glad ? The score for yest's game was 150 - 143 - 75, if you're curious. The Scrabble game, I mean. I had fun.

———An event of unclear occurence -- like in a Kafka novel you know it definitely must've happened at some point ; you just can't pinpoint exactly when. Not for lack of trying though. [↩]This is exactly what it is, though. The "insane" arguments "of some married people" are strictly and precisely this -- two subbies in a box vying over who may sub. [↩]This can scale up with linguistic familiarity. [↩]Harem nudity ; apparently it goes further than you had imagined! [↩]

« Becket (1964)

Nazism in the days of the cholera »

Category: Lifespiel

Thursday, 19 March, Year 12 d.Tr.

Sodomy

I enjoyi hurting women. Conveniently enough it also happens to be the case that female fulfillmentii is built precisely out of yielding to being thusly hurt, making indeed this world the best possible world out of all the other worlds similarly possible but not nearly as good. Which, in the end, is the great (meaning, the only) political divide : those who enjoy this world, also known as the sane, forever separated from those who don't, the deplorable insufficients universally preferring to call themselves "progressive" because to their (broken) ear it sounds better than "inadequate".

Sodomyiii is most expedient an application of that general principle, and so we (meaning, me and my fucktoys, these living, breathing, talking, thinking objects wilfuly dedicated to my enjoyment of the world through their intermediary offices) partake in some abundance and with some regularity.

For instance, yesterday we watched Maitresseiv, a pretty terrible 70s pre-enaction of some events that happened maybe a decade agov. The way this worked out in practice was that I laid out in bed, quite cozy & comfortable, while a nude beauty (really, she had some flimsy thing on originally, you should see this thing sometime, it's something else) laid herself on top, her bounteous bottom right over my knees, her tiny clitty just between them. It's the perfect distance to play with her ass, and to rub one off her, or maybe not, maybe just tease her to death, or maybe rub ten off, or maybe just torture her to (near)death with her own orgasms. It can be done, you know. (What also can be done is having another stick her finger in her asshole, so she can't go anywhere, writhe as she may).

So in this manner we watched Maitresse, and it was still a shitty film. It makes no sense in any sense, just a crashed delivery van of (terribly filmedvi, by the way) cvasi-erotic almost-bdsm. Everything I do is way the fuck better, and it was kinda funny to watch the nooblets deeply, thirstily enjoy this experience -- after the never-yielding rain of "you're terrible, the reason your shit dun work out is that you're not very good and you don't try very hard what the fuck were you thinking bla bla bla bla", that sudden illumination of "well heck! might be I'm terrible, but I'm nowhere near as terrible as these dumb fucks, what the shit is this!". It's true, while I hold my slaves to very high standardsvii, everyone else doesn't even have slaves (let alone standards).

After which I fucked one in the poophole. After which I took it out and put it in... another poophole. Yeah, that's right, just like that, directly. It's called a fecal transplant, it's a medical procedure, look it up.

I didn't last enough to sample a third hole, and actually... doesn't look like I'm gonna last enough to finish this article -- I'm going to have my cock sucked instead.

Bye.

———Note if you will that I didn't say "love". I said enjoy. This isn't coincidental, but rather the unavoidable mark of the other thing I enjoy besides hurting women : fostering thoughts.

Fostering thoughts most commonly assumes the perceptible shape of hurting idiots. For all intents and purposes, insofar as an idiot's perspective's concerned, there's no distinguishing the two. Nevertheless, on one hand the idiots don't enter into it, at all (notwithstanding that they'd really really want to, for the obvious reason, and therefore pretend they do -- still, inescapably, they don't enter into this like they don't ever enter into anything) and on the other, vastly more important hand, thoughts being abstracts they've no direct relation to phenomena. This is precisely the problem, too : fostering thoughts necessarily, inescapably and uniquely requires a peculiar situation of the self against phenomenology -- a situation such as the verb, not a situation such as the noun. The payoff is hard to overstate : once so situated, everything around becomes a weapontool towards whatever direction. Like for instance if you feel like making yet again the point of feminine inferiority you can just reference the situation-situation duality to underscore it for the yet againth time. And if you're not particularly interested in females, being a faggot as the vast majority of you absolutely are (it's a fact, and we all know it, there's really no need to keep pretending), you can also use it that way : isn't poor old Nicky C's intrinsic vulnerability made quite manifest by the quaint slip of the mind whereby he doesn't realise that there's no substantial difference between weapons and tools, and therefore making cannons into tractors is no kind of programme ?

And so, while the consensus is to run about, blithe as only imbecility permits, "i love this, i love that", trying pointlessly to put together the greatest rave ever seen -- I enjoy hurting women (and fostering thoughts). These two ultimately indistinct activities should, "in fairness", lead to great aloneness & aloneitude, but in practice it doesn't work out that way. Which is, ultimately, the great benefit of fostering thoughts : they dominate phenomena, if indistinctly and indirectly, yet reliably.

And the rod dominates the hole. [↩]A woman's fulfillment qua womanhood is different from her fulfillment qua manhood, which in common parlance is called something like "a career" or whatever, "personhood" what have you. The two aren't exactly independent, but they're absolutely not mutually exclusive, which makes the position of the scared girly particularly ridiculous : so petrified is she of attaining womanhood, "what it might mean" -- da fuck it'll mean, seriously now -- and "what it might do to her!!!1" and so on that she "focuses on" "her career" "for now" (in the instances where she doesn't misfocus on her wedding instead). [↩]Do you suppose, incidentally, that there's any thirteen year old virgin anal queens walking about ? Because the world could certainly take an increase of that count. Pretty much everything else is oversupplied so scandalously it attaints notation, there's certainly no further need of more lines of code, "software packages" and other splooge-crumbed socks, comforters and body pillows. The world needs no further "entrepreneurs" made of overcooked pasta, there's entirely no need of more "self-help" and self-improvement" and self-jacking it. But a coupla hundred million more tweens perfectly capable of enjoying the discomfort of sitting on large rods and rather quite inclined to do so three to twenty-five times a week... now that'd be something progressive.

So... get to it ? [↩]1976, by Barbet Schroeder, with Gerard Depardieu, Bulle Ogier. [↩]Remember the news junklets, some dominatrix/hairdresser Russian chick was prosecuted for assault by the would-be thief who broke into her place and ended up for whatever reasons unable to leave a while. [↩]The blocking in this thing should really be repurposed as training material for would-be starlets, "this is what not to do". [↩]To get an idea, anal can and often enough does consist of ten seconds preparatory ministration, consisting of a helping of vaseline. After which it's ride the queenie all the way home, and they don't even get it dirty. Because the rectum is normally empty in healtyh sluts & slavegirls, what. Who the fuck even has the patience (and who the fuck can deal with the digestive ill effects) of irigations etc ? No, a competent anal queen bends over when ordered to, spreads her butt for the goop, rides that cock like she was made for it (which...) and then it comes out of her as white as it came in.

Ten seconds, no red, no brown. That's the standard. [↩]

« Let It Ride

The pool party »

Category: Lifespiel

Saturday, 16 May, Year 12 d.Tr.

Soda Dungeon 2

Soda Dungeon 2 just came outi on steam this Summer, and it's pretty fucking cool.

At its core it's a dungeon crawler, very pleasant visually (the game benefits from an exquisite eccletism, as you can see on the side) in spite of the low resolutionii and blessed with an auto-play function that is fully scriptable.iii You see, people are discovering Eulora on their own terms and in their own time, bumblingly and hesitatingly as that may be but nevertheless, they're going thereiv. With any luck I'll be finding myself in another few years in the ridiculous position of having figured out what's to be done a decade ago, but not be the one who also did it for simply taking too damn long. Wouldn't that be funny ?

But enough about me ; that fully scriptable auto is what clenched the deal, past my and Hannah's independently arising but mutually shared "hey, this approach to gfx works!" it's very much it that's to blame for the tinny, 1980s game electronica noise coming out of my speakers. So let's take a moment and discuss the nitty gritty, this is the trolloludens category after all!

First off, to get that out of the way and as far as possible from us, I made the [seemingly, in retrospect] mistake of picking MP as the post-dimension reward at the end of word 1 ; I've also compounded that mistake by picking HP at the end of world 2. This puts me in the situation where I've not the damage one, and consequently I can't use mages properly in World 3, gotta wait for World 4. The reason for this is -- apparently both Dark Mage and Mystic use as base for the damage they do (times 0.75 or 0.6 respectively) something other than their actual damage ; if I'm correct in my current suspicion then the only way to make them usefulv is to get the damage relic.

So now, for world 1 and a large part of world 2 my strategy was simply : use a lot of casters, pimp up their mana, murder the map. You progress as many levels each run as your mana lasts, no exceptions -- in the early days everything readily collapses under a wall of 20-30 mass damage.

Towards the end of world 2 this ran into the snag of the enemies having too much health -- enough to survive my initial onslaught and then retaliatevi, so I had to adapt. I moved on to simply having a team of six brawlers (the free unit) equipped with iron swords I crafted and healing stones I bought. This is an excellent platform which readily permits extension : as the gold started trickling (and then torrenting) in I moved to huntersvii, which take two rings or amulets -- all the better, seeing as it gives all those four clovers some place to call home, not to mention the silver amulets you've been crafting (you have been crafting these, yes ?) therefore pumping your income even higher. And speaking of pumped income, you're using all the gold shields you can possibly get your hands onviii, right ? Not to mention the frying pans...ix

Anyways, this strategy carries wonderfully for world 3 as well, up until about level 200 it readily dominates -- and the loot is fabulous.x I fully expect this will be the universal starter strategy in all worlds owing to its extreme cheapness and convenience. Nevertheless, it's not quite enough to reach past 260 or so, and so I... had to adapt again! At this juncture it occurred to me I had seen something to do with soda scripts over by the arena, and hmm... I wonder if they're actually useful.

They very well fucking are! My state of the art as we're speaking is a team of hunters and nurses, with the nursesxi in the middle (such that there's always at least one hunter looking the enemy in the back). The hunters are set to just attack, not caring one wit about anything ; whereas the nurses are set to heal the team mate whose hp drops under halfxii and otherwise defend. This is great because it significantly diminishes the damage potential of the enemy (as 50% of the time they're hitting a defending teamster) and really, nobody cares about the damage nurses don't do to the enemy.xiii

I intend to finish this world (not before I've leeched enough gold to knock off the cheap upgrades I want, like say the kitchen) and get the damage relic, see if indeed it pumps up caster damage. Because if it does...

Anyways, uncharacteristically for an idle dungeon crawler the proceedings of your team are a pleasure to watchxiv (in some part because the graphics work, in perhaps a larger part still because of the positional shenanigans -- every other idler out there has very stiff, fixed positioning that makes the fight entirely unremarkable, even indistinguishable from any other), which is truly the most that could possibly be said. Kudos Tanner & pox, you've done it, dudes!

PS. If either of you want some Bitcoin dust let me know, I'm game.

———Made by A[fro]N[inja] Productions (ie Shawn Tanner, a one-man-show coding house) & Poxpower (ie pox* mod from Newsgrounds) ; published by Armor Games. [↩]It's amusing for me to observe the retracing from the "higher resolution === better game" delusion of these past two decades. No, having sixteen times as many pixels dun help if you don't have what to put in there. If you've got a million pixels' worth and the viewport's only eight hundred thousand then yes, increasing it slightly is a cheap way to improve your game by 20%. If however you've got... like, at best nine pixels' worth, going from a trillion to a quadrillion sized viewports does exactly and most precisely nothing. Nothing at all, it's too overwhelmingly huge to begin with to even allow an increase in the perception of vacuity. Your nothing's quite as small floating in the sea as it would be floating in the ocean, even if oceans are more expensive than seas in terms of the running water bill. [↩]At first I thought there's just one script for all your guys, which'd have been sad. It's not the case, you select individually which guy to follow which script -- a discovery that was delightfully exciting, lo that thinking people still exist!

It's still not fully scriptable, however, for the following reason : if I have more than one nurse, and I set the nurses to heal, then the first nurse will do 100% of the healing until it runs out of mana, then the 2nd will take over and so on. I happen to prefer a more even distribution of load, so it'd be nice if there were another option in there permitting me to set the nurse to only do the specified action x% of the time. It's not a huge deal or anything though. [↩]Add that the game does convincingly hint at the game world being larger "than the player can imagine" and you've pretty much built the trifecta. [↩]They're not useful currently because they only do 22 and 31/35 (with staff) damage -- to all enemies, it's true, but still, as the enemies creep over 100 health this is no longer useful. [↩]Though not in the Arena, by the way -- I still trivially own that with 3 mages. Thankfully. [↩]I figure they're the one to use on account of ranking up their racial bonus thingee ; in fairness I saved to open the blademaster, but I was gravely underwhelmed by its actual performance in combat -- not least of all because yes it wields two weapons, but one takes the shield slot, rather than the slot under the weapon, which is how the hunter's dual accessory wielding works (which proves that weapons can take sockets too, I suppose). Anyways, who knows, maybe later... [↩]And they're all maxed, +4 and then you're building the upgrade and so on.

Speaking of levelling up items -- it's my current doctrine that things like the Hallowed plate and the skull/virtue sword are worth levelling, because in the process they also get bonus reflection/critical, not merely the flat bonuses. So basically I'm maxing out gold shields, the swords and hallowed plate, while ignoring the rest. Too bad you can't level rings, huh. [↩]It's not clear to me whether this is actually useful or not, I'm literally drowning in food as it is. But, since it's something you can get... why not get it, right ? [↩]It is a mistake, by the way, to make much use of the warp function. You get to pay for missing out on loot, both gold, resources and items ; not to mention you miss out on pet levelling. Terrible idea, especially seeing how the auto play function works so well. [↩]Note the plural. Unlike the healing stones, the nurse's first aid can't be self applied. Therefore you always need at least two (if they don't show up naturally, click the little bed icon in the inn to respawn the heroic resources). It seems to me three actually works better than two (at least in the sense of "how deep in the dungeon does the party end up" ; it might be otherwise in terms of speed (something like two nurse teams get 77% of the gold three nurse teams get but in 88% of the time, I believe) yet nevertheless, three's what I currently prefer.

Oh, and since we're discussing all this : it's not particularly difficult to end up with the team of your choice, even if you buy all the sodas (something I do not, I've played world 3 lumberjack & miner free) by simply hiring whatever you like then hitting the inn refresh -- it repopulates, allowing you to complete your dream team. It's true that it costs a little more, but it's truly negligible, not even 1k. [↩]I had this set to 25 and then 30%, but experience shows the early savings these conservative values engender are truly very dearly bought indeed at the late end of the run. [↩]So basically, I went from the situation where in late game nobody attacked because everyone was healing, and all the while the enemy pumped out more damage than they could heal anyway, spelling doom for my poor team, to this situation where 50% of the team is permanently disabled while the remainder can always attack without a care. I like it very much subjectively, it's satisfying as a process and as a lived experience, which -- together with the pleasing artwork -- constitute exactly what a game should be in the first place. [↩]If you feel like taking over, remember that the number keys auto-select attacks, so 2 is defend, 3 is the poison skull etc. This is kinda why I don't have my brawlers use magic currently -- let them save it for me, you know ? [↩]

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Category: Trolloludens

Monday, 10 August, Year 12 d.Tr.