There has been a spate of gushing praise for Ang Lee’s fucking horrible Incredible Hulk movie recently, and I’m not so sure I get it. Are you just trying to indicate that people are stupid and the universally panned film was somehow brilliant? I’m here to straighten some of these delusions out.

No, he didn’t capture the tone of the original comics. No, he didn’t follow the source material more closely than this new movie. No, he didn’t generate a brilliant tension. No, he wasn’t being daring. He ignored every fucking iota of the canon storyline, even the brilliant bits, for a slow moving slog through shit. The effects meandered the full spectrum from sub-par to laughable. The entire thing smacked of someone trying to piece together a Hulk storyline from a prepared portfolio of clippings and bullet points, it had no soul, and the character moments were as real and vivid as the intro to low-budget porn. And that’s why it failed miserably in the box office, in the rentals, and moved from big screen to small screen to tiny plastic box to footnote in fucking history as quick as a wink.

One of the big things that bugs me, and takes me out of a story is when characters don’t react like real human beings. It’s part of what bugged me about Indy 4, it’s what bugged me about the Star Wars prequels, it’s what bugs me about most of the stuff Doctorow has written (Little Brother being the notable exception). And it’s what is bugging me about this Accelerando by Charlie Stross.

Let’s give some story examples and contrast with what a real human being would do.

The Setup : In the near-future, a world of almost universal surveillance, crazy quasi-dominatrix but chaste IRS agent woman tracks down wealthy man, disables him, superglues his fingers together, puts him in some kind of isolation helmet, and then rapes him. She then superglues her vagina shut so she’s sure to get pregnant. She explains her plan to extort money with this child.

The Fallout : Crazy quasi-dominatrix has a child, and then uses that child to demand child support from wealthy man. Wealthy man has to hide from this litigious bitch, using only his savvy business and political smarts to escape.

How Shit Would Really Go Down : Recently raped man goes to police. Crazy quasi dominatrix is arrested. Child is either adopted, or becomes a ward of the state.

I mean, seriously.

The Setup : Rape daughter is on a deep-space vessel performing child labor for some reason. Crazy quasi-dominatrix joins a sect of Islam, so she can force her rape-daughter to have behavior modification software installed into her brain.

The Fallout : Rape Daughter checks out the rules of the sect, carefully exploring any loopholes she might use to cleverly escape this woeful situation, oh, this will be quite a legal pickle!

How Shit Would Really Go Down : Rape Daughter “My mom joined a sect of Islam so she can control me”
Other Girl “OH, how are you going to get out of this”
Rape Daughter “She’s on Earth and I’m in deep fucking space, this doesn’t matter.”
Other Girl “Oh, right, Lol, let’s go do more child labor”

Fucking seriously. I wish I were joking that this story is about a woman who works for the IRS becoming Muslim so she can keep her daughter away from the father she raped, in order to collect taxes.

This is two things I’ve tried to read by Charlie Stross and I’m not gonna cramp anything to read a third. He doesn’t write characters, he writes preposterous and somewhat boring logistical situations, and in order for these situations to evolve in a way he finds amusing, human nature must be ignored, inverted, or subverted.

So, I’ve been slowly acquiring parts and doing work over the long, long winter, and now that the sun has come out, I’ve raced to get this done. It looks pretty awesome, and aside from having a pretty worn out Sunrace (cheapass) cassette on it (gear skipping in 4th, 6th, and 7th gears), it rides pretty great.

I had to install a bottom bracket cable guide, because it used a screwball cable-to-derailleur-stop setup on the original derailleur. And while I could have stayed with that Suntour unit, I wanted to get a more modern front (went with a Shimano RSX, which is slick as hell).

The rear is a Nexave Rapid-Rise, which is a low-normal derailleur (first time I’ve played with one, doesn’t seem to have any negative consequences for me).

These cranks were the “center of the build” in all reality, I scored them for $50 on eBay with shipping. Never had a modern two piece crank before either.

The Brooks B67 Conquest or whatever it’s called is very comfortable.

Barend shifters and non-aero levers leave a lot of swoopy cable housing on the front end.

All in all, I’m happy with it. Sourcing a new cassette soon.

From the deep archives of Shan the cock-sure and always angry words of the me of ten years ago.

Coherency and my slavery to the fiduciary system do not mix.

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But for now, I’ll be killing puppies with my hands and trying to make the man on the other end of my phone feel the psychopathia, in the hopes that he’ll just hang the fuck up and get his ass out of the DSL “revolution” for good.

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The Batmobile pops… “Hmmm, popping, that’s an odd noise for an engine to make” thinks the pilot… And then it begins to rain… “Hmmm, raining, that’s an odd thing for it to be doing, especially because it’s only on my hood, and my windshield, and no one else seems to be getting wet…

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Blah blah blah, He sits atop the beast, as it pisses and gurgles. Finally deciding it’s safe, he opens the radiator to find — STEAM! LOTS OF IT! ALL KINDS! And that his Thermostat is doing DICK! And that his overflow valve is doing DICK!

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And if nothing, he’s tenatious as all hell, willing to beat this horse until dead, and then until a fine horsey-paste… I am, to say the least, concerned.

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Not optimal, but where are you going to find a baseball stadium full of fans and a hot tub full of warm chocolate pudding that will let you do wicked things in it for the rest of all eternity? That’s what I thought.

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Keep this in mind… How many days a year do you wear underwear? Isn’t that a lot? Yeah. I don’t have that problem.

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Wasn’t that depressing? I’m a morbid motherfucker.

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I am number 1 in Q… That means anything. That means it could be 10 minutes. It could be an hour. Number 4 in Q. I wish I were number 4 in Q. That guarantees enough time to go take a break, wash your hair, bake a cake, and manually masturbate chimpanzees for scientific experiments.

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Love is very complex. It’s very intricate. It’s like a spiderweb, beautiful, delicate.

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So, ZenBoy ends up all excited and turgid and acting a lot like a child with ADHD… And then sleep hits him like a ton of bricks, and he gets his vaseline and takes care of “some business” and passes out.

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Love makes fools of us all.

But it makes some of us downright retarded.

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Yesterday afternoon, I had a nega-catharsis. The sudden overwhelming feeling that “No, this is NOT alright”

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I’ll chain him to the couch, and tape his eyes open, and make him watch The Thong Song video while I perform oral sex on him for hours on end.

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I’ll update this more later today, I’m fomenting. Fomenting, people. Let me do it.

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Tucson… A veritable cross between Phoenix and some under funded mexican prison. Appropriate, as it is equidistant from either, the bastard love child of the border towns and southwestern culture. That place where the not-quite outlaws of the Wild West said “Well, we were aimin’ for Mexico, but we figger dis here’s far enough…” and settled in.

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She could make an anal lavage of magma and mentholatum deep heating rub fun.

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I do not DO churches. I don’t go near the places. I would sooner walk into a room full of rabid kittens with a colon full of tuna and catnip on my nipples screaming “Chow TIME!” than see… pews… crosses…

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Especially early in the morning. I’m not even over my “genocide for those who created alarm clocks and schedules” anger, and suddenly I’m thrown into that place… Gah… It was like capping off a beautiful 9 course meal of everything you’ve ever liked eating, ever, with a small plate of chocolate covered cat shit and a glass of stale urine.

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Well, this was just gonna be a short “Fuck you, I have more interesting things to do than update this page, I feed!” sort of post.

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“Who broke open the Baby Jesus’s rattle to see the stars inside?”, and a voice came from me, a malevolent, raspy voice, “Bilbo Baggins”…

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Fargor! is it better in any regard? N6(netscape)?

Spooky not really

Spooky it’s kinda shitty

Spooky like neoplanet

Spooky but more gay

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You know, masturbation. I did a lot of it. I was essentially trying to squeeze the streptococcus out of my body that way. Mostly because it was more fun than piercing and sqeezing my lymph nodes.

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THe original idea was for getting a roommate to leave or breaking up with a significant other. It was to run around the house, buck naked, with an erection (or a strap on, for you ladies) with an axe in one hand and keep saying, quietly, “This is gonna be soooo sweet.”

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The truth is the _only_ thing. NO regrets. No fears. No lies. Just the truth.

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Harley cronic mastabaters unite

I’m not going to learn _that_ secret handshake.

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This is a bunch of hippie crap. I’m gonna go watch TV.

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And I’m going to take him into the first “training session”… and I’m going to shove a jalapeno juice covered dildo in his ass and my cock down his throat and scream “Yeeeeehaw! You’s my bitch now” and make whooping and hollering noises like a drunken hick.

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Then at the end, when he’s begging for death… I’m going to break out the 15″ dildo and wrap my cock in a mixture of tainted pork and peanut butter. And I’m going to whisper in his ear… “At least I contacted you. You never contacted me.”

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There’s bunnies on my Add an Entry button. There is a bunny. Just one. Just it’s head. I envision the back of that gif and I see the blood and gore dripping down the back of the “Add Entry” sign. My imagination is like that.

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some would say I needed help. But then again… Some people can SUCK MY DICK!

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I’m curious, why is it that using your [technical term], there have to be more than 4 [Choo choo trains] going to get the throughput up to [standard thingie]? Is your thoughput channelized on the [Magic Carpet]?

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I have taken Mr Bystander’s question under advisement, and as soon as I can get my grandmother to translate the bits other than what I already understand (I don’t see a question in there, but then again, I’m a moron)… I will get back to him, personally, at his house. Perhaps while he sleeps.

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I can’t believe I wrote a dick sucking apology that well in the amount of time I did it. My last job really left an impression on me.

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ZenZenZen… I’m like a hemi-criminal. The diet pepsi of criminal. Just one calorie Not evil enough.

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I slept on a bench outside the mall when my shifts were only 6 hours apart. It didn’t make sense to do the 30 minute drive/2 hour bike ride home and then back when I could look homeless RIGHT THERE!

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I’m sorry if it didn’t make sense, or didn’t live up to your expectations. But what you have to keep in mind… is that you had expectations to begin with. And that is why you’re chronically dissapointed.

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So, there I was, thinking about expanding my new cubicle, maybe taping the flaps up, so it’ll be twice as tall.

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The bitterness and hatred begin fomenting… and me without my 12 gauge.

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Heh… it’s really no wonder I have visions of dropping down on goths in alleyways and saying “I’m a jock! Thanks a lot! You people drove me to this! You drove me to this banality!” and beating the shit out of them with sporting

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Anyways, I better go. Before I kill again.

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The soundtrack of my life sounds like Stevie Ray Vaughn doing an amazing fusion solo with John Coltrane, and the entire piece is orchestrated by the Ramones. While they all take turns giving me a rimjob… some people say I’m sick…

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Asiatic blood pumps through my veins, and apparently actively combats facial hair growth, a LOT.

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“Tis better to have loved and left than to have spent a day talking to your ex.”

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“Do you want this! Do you want both these inches!?”

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ZenZenZen

- It’s what’s for dinner!

I try to be polite - In person. Despite what you might read here, I am not a phlegmatic compulsive venom machine when at work. So it’s not terribly surprising that I get a lot of points of view applied to me by coworkers. For some I’m an upright Republican. For others I’m a spiritual Christian. For some I am a closeted homosexual. For yet others I’m a slightly racist homophobe. But thanks to my unwillingness to rise to the bait and actually share a genuine opinion, every job leaves me with a trail of somewhat lonely older women who think that we are close, close friends.

Every now and again, one of these women will bemoan the woe of the life they imagine I have, and proclaim that they have a solution. One indicated that it would be to watch the television program Smallville. One suggested I quit my job and bum around europe. The list of these solutions to my woe take on sort of a fevered pitch the longer I allow the illusion of closeness.

This time, the entire mess has coagulated into a) my peripheral involvement in a weirder than average love triangle that involves a Mall Ninja Grade 1 and b) well…. it’s better if I explain it.

I came in to work last week. There were two pictures on my desk, stuffed into my keyboard. And a tiny post it note with the words “What do you think? I’ll be back.” written on it. I assumed that this was someone putting something on the wrong desk. Asked around if anyone had seen who put them there, and then discarded it. One of the lonely ladies walks up and asks… “Well? What do you think?” After stammering a bit, I realized what this was. This was a fucking setup. With her daughter.

I muttered some niceties, and endured a medium-longish… rant is too harsh, but let’s call it a harangue… about her daughter’s husband, and something about a walk out before Christmas three years ago. The takeaways from this speech were that there were two kids, and that the daughter “babysat”. I couldn’t really place her age from the pictures, but I was told to “think about it”. From the second lonely lady, I gained this additional information. The kids are 8 and 10.

I was already excited by this news. A divorcee with two school aged kids and no job? Sign me the fuck up! But in the interest of politeness, I decided it would be best to just give my phone number to her and let it play.

So, a couple days later, I notice a call on my cell phone, and a voicemail. I checked it, expecting a sort of awkward intro, and instead I heard… Well. The Lonely Lady. I will transcribe below to the best of my memory.

“Hi, Aaron. I gave your phone number to my daughter and she told me ‘Mother, I am not going to call some man.’ She’s being a little old fashioned about this, so here’s her number go ahead and give her a call.”

Since I had been having such a killer fucking week already, I chose to again, be polite, and just not call anyone. Because if I did, I would not have been polite at all. A mother of two school aged kids living off of, presumably, alimony and child support? Who is “old fashioned” in her ideas of the interaction between men and women? Listen. If I wanted to fuck someone from my grandma’s generation, I would start trolling for grannies on Craigslist.

So I’ve stopped being polite. I’m not going to let people apply their idiotic theories of who I am to me. I’m going to tell them the mother fucking truth. I will show them my teeth.