Mark A. Rayner's Blog: Mark A. Rayner's Goodreads Blog, page 106

The tragedy of Internet addiction

Once again, my apologies to long-time readers of The Skwib. I've been "recycling" some older material to keep things fresh, but still, there's a whiff of mold on some of these posts. (However, to those who haven't been around for nearly six years, it will be new stuff.)

As I mentioned before, I've been hard at work on a new novel. One of the main themes examines the nature of Internet addiction. I have my own struggles — and Tumblr is my current online drug of choice:

Alltop – the cause of, and solution to, all our problems.

The Lost PowerPoint Slides (Letter from Wolfers Edition)

On names (slide one)

Baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Gottlieb) Mozart

That fourth name variously translated to:

Amadeus (Latin)
Gottlieb (German)
Amadeo (Italian)
Amadè(French)

On names (slide four)

All-in-all, prefer Amadè
Close friends and family can call me "Wolfers"
YOU can lick my arse!
'Till it's clean!

Papa was a pimp (slide two)

And I was the boy mawke, as they say in London.
A famous pianist, as you know.
Pianist, pianist, pianist!

Papa was a pimp (slide three)

And my sister Nannerl, she was a bunter too.
A prodigious player of pianii.

Johann Christian Bach (slide four)

shown me how to put a lovely surface texture on piano sonata in B-flat
plus it sounds good with dramatic farts!

Constanze (slide twelve)

Light of my life
Puts up with long nights, expense of candles
Did I mention her cunny?

Prague (slide two)

My Praguers understand me.
They liked Don Giovani.
And my pizzle-fizzle!

Composing (slide six)

Difficult work.
Requires rewriting.
And a place to shit!

Death (slide two)

Would have lived longer without all the bleeding.
Oh, and the piss!

Alltop is marginally more foul-mouthed. Inspired by Mozart's 255th birthday (yesterday). Originally published in January, 2006. Brought to you by The Amadeus Net, which features our caca-mouthed composer .

Gout that Out!

Ask General Kang: Total strangers keep offering me a "free hug". What should I do?

Clearly, you're uncomfortable with the idea of a "free hug", or you wouldn't be asking about it. There is a powerful element of society who would force this "free hug" upon you, using nothing more than persuasion and good looks.

What, exactly, are they up to?

My theory is they're trying to undermine basic primate behaviour. Hugs are an intimate form of communication that release either good chemicals or bad, depending on the huger and the huggee. Back on Planet Neecknaw, instead of hugs we have grooming — checking our close friends and family for fleas and other fur foibles. (Of course, we rarely find them now that we've relaxed our harsh Anti-Bathing Laws, instituted in the Stinky Ages.) Now, would I let a total stranger grope through my luxuriant back hair on the street? I think not. That would generate some bad chemicals — the kind that make Kang angry!

Perhaps these "free huggers" are trying to extend the warm blanket of close friends and family to everyone. If everyone becomes a friend, this would make warfare rather difficult to pursue. As a former interstellar warlord, I cannot condone this subversive movement.

The best solution: if you want the hug, I'd insert the crass note of commerce to it, and give them some money.

Next time: I've been doing some thought experiments, but I think there may some flaws in my equipment. What do it do?
Alltop would willingly PAY for a free hug. It's that weird. Originally published in January, 2007.

The Infographic Explained

Yep. Potato.

Alltop loves these things! They're so informative. And graphic-y. "Critical data, originally uploaded by lunchbreath.

Pirates, Vikings and The Lost Boys

As he watched the proceedings unfold in court, Dr. Maximillian Tundra was starting to understand how Mohammed or Jesus might feel if they could see what had happened to their teachings.

Of course, all great prophets someday have their ideas formalized and turned into religions, but Dr. Tundra had just not been thinking about that when he formed his own sect of Pastafarianism, the First Church of the Noodly Norsemen.

Like other Pastafarians, they believed that the universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But while other worshipers thought it was the declining number of pirates that has caused the increase in global warming, hurricanes and earthquakes, Dr. Tundra had been preaching that, in truth, it was a lack of Vikings.

And now a radical sect of his very church (popularly known as the Norse Pastafarians) had been arrested for planning an extensive terror campaign against the misguided pirate-based version.

They called themselves the Lost Boys and planned to eradicate the pirate-believers. And they had been caught, because of Dr. Tundra.

He'd really had no other choice. The lead terrorist, who called himself "The Peter", had been unwilling to listen to Dr. Tundra's arguments.

"Peter –" he had started.

"THE Peter," The Peter had interrupted.

"Sorry, The Peter, The First Church of the Noodly Norsemen is a religion of peace. It's about loose morals and having Fridays off, not buying several tons of ammonium nitrate and dressing up in tights."

"Your faith is weak old man," The Peter had laughed at him. "You will see when the Righteous Rigatoni places me at his noodly side over you."

And as he'd called the RCMP, Dr. Tundra couldn't help but reflect that maybe his fake religion wasn't such a good joke after all. As he watched the charges read in court, now he was sure.

Previous Pasta-riffic Episodes:

An Interview with Dr. Tundra | Original Reutars Story | Dr. Tundra Forsakes the FSM | Dr. Tundra Hits His Peak

Alltop thinks it's the lack of robots causing global warming. Originally published in June, 2006.

Humans: Not As Complicated As You'd Think

Alltop doesn't even need the photons.

Alternate History Fridays: The Consolation of Victory

It didn't matter what our politics were. Each member of Faculty was expected to attend the ceremony.

After I cleared security, the University's Protocol Officer grabbed me by the elbow, and asked me to join the presentation party on the stage. He registered my shock, and said, "well, we have to include our only Nobel winner in the honor party, or it would look strange. Don't worry, the Krigveder's people approved it, Professor Flannigan."

Great. I was going to have to hide my disgust with the whole affair. I took my seat, thankfully in the back row.

When everyone was seated the President of Hellmuth University, a windbag at the least auspicious of times, took the opportunity to really wow us with his wooden presence. Then without fanfare a troop of soldiers took up positions in Convocation Hall, looking quite sinister in their polished black Impact Armor and toting long autopistols. The Protocol Officer announced: "Please stand for The Great Leader, Jans Midren, Krigveder of the Afrikaner Empire."

People shuffled to their feet and Midren walked into the room. For a man in his late seventies, he looked surprisingly vital and alert. He strode purposefully to the podium, and pointedly ignored our president. Midren launched into his speech without preamble or style.

Read the rest of this story…>

Alltop is the Krigveder of humor aggregators. This short story originally appeared in Paradox, January 2004.

Ask General Kang: How do I keep my New Year's resolutions?

We had a similar custom on my homeworld, Neecknaw, but there we called them Slorg Wishes.

Slorg was once the Overlord of our planet, back in the Taupe Ages — he was known colloquially as the Beige Lord, but he was actually quite a colorful character.

Every year, he would Wish that he could make something better about the people who worked for him. For Bluknark the Compulsive Eater (Minister of Celebrations and Public Executions), Slorg required that he lose some of his massive monkey gut. For the Minister of War and Love, Lord Prangdong, Slorg required fewer paternity suits. And so on.

And then the next year, Slorg would review their progress during his Annual Performance Evaluation Festival. (Known amongst the commoners as the APE-fest.) If you did not keep to your goals, then Slorg exacted some kind of punishment, depending on how badly you missed the mark. The aforementioned Bluknark actually gained weight one year, and he was fed to the Almighty Cram-Beast, and is presumably still being digested. Though Ministers were held to a higher standard, everyone was terrified of not meetings Slorg's Wishes.

If you succeeded, that was called "Meeting Expectations" and you were only lightly tasered, right before the Breakfast After APE-fest. (This kept costs down because people were usually not too hungry then.) Naturally, the following year's Slorg Wishes were quite a bit more onerous, because if a tool like you could meet your goals, then clearly, they weren't challenging enough.

My suggestion is that you engage me as your Slorg. I have my own taser and everything.

Next Time: Has anyone ever told you, that for a diminutive simian, you're dead sexy?
Alltop always exceeds expectations. Originally published, January 2007. Wild.

On the ground

The Phrase Freak is all about examining the phrases that we hear on a regular basis through the media, but somehow never question. "On the ground" is one such construction that make me mental.

My theory is this dates back to the first Gulf War, when anchors started asking reporters about the state of affairs "on the ground". The reason they did this was because so much of that first war — and the journalism around it — was about the air war. Even back then, I'm not sure the phrase made a lot of sense, but I accepted it, because there was really little information about what said air war was doing to people "on the ground". Now, I regret not having stepped in sooner with a big stick of shame-whammy.

Flash forward twenty years, and still, anchors and reporters use this phrase, but now it is totally disconnected from its original context. Anchors regularly ask about the state of things "on the ground". Except for the occasional airline hijacking and submarine accident, the vast majority of news stories actually take place on the ground, to ask about the ground specifically is kind of redundant, if not outright silly.

Just once I'd like to hear a reporter say, "well Bill, there are a few ants milling around what appears to be a crumb of bread … no, no strike that, it's a piece of donut. Next to this frenzied activity, I can see a few dead leaves and Oh My God — there is a crack in the sidewalk! We can't tell if this crack is growing or the result of some kind of seismic activity, but we'll check into it for you Bill."

Then maybe it would stop.

Freak level on this phrase: 8 gobsmacks out of 10.

Alltop is an aerial war aggregator. Sidewalk photo by Meganne Soh. Originally published, January 2006. (Obviously, not very effective at stopping this linguistic excrescence.)