Midnight Jolt Run

Caffeine tastes better when the city's asleep

The Daddening

Posted by Fiss on June 23, 2015

VKaFqwCThese are the days where it feels like herding cats would be easy;

like all you have is a group of wildebeests and a narrow path through a china shop and they expect you to smile as you drive the throng into the greased up isle with nothing but a bullhorn and a shoehorn. It tests your mettle and blunts the blades of the knives and swords and Swiss Army implements you never thought you’d need to grow and never though you’d have, but somehow it never seems like you have enough. It ends up being that the most powerful doomsday bomb in your arsenal is just to get through the day, knowing that the self-prescribed reward is on the other side of it all. They say it’s bad for you, like they do to all the things in the world that make the world worth livin’ for, and deep down you agree; but it’s either that or another vice that lines up to take the edge off of the naivety that you signed up for this willingly. You slithered down the isle with all that mattered pushing you forward, making promises of the white picket fence and the whitewall radial swing hanging from a chunk of proud oak, or maybe it was birch, you don’t quite recall after two years of diapers and five years of sleeping lighter than your wallet. And when you do stand at the bar with the fellows you recognize as other soldiers in this war, you joke about all those dreams with them and inevitably there will be one that gazes down at you through that thousand-yard-stare and manages a pity laugh before asking in that knowing, rhetorical way: “Why didn’t you choose Poplar?” like anything else you’ve built out of those dreams is just waiting for the final lighting bolt to put it out of its misery. And as you trudge away from that damning bit of friendly assistance to head to ballet practice or soccer or was it baseball this week, the missus lets you know she’s sick and it could be the kind that leads to babies and for a moment you have faith stronger than the pope simply because you know the devil isn’t that cruel and God’s sense of humour is par for that kind of joke. And maybe there’s a few moments you pass out and gather your wits long enough to hit REM for a cycle or two, but they wake you up with demands for a bedtime story and you wonder if you had a chance if you’d sock Doctor Seuss right in the mouth or embrace him in a hug because at least the little buggers listen to his rhymes. Two fish, blue fish later, though, and they give you your dose for the day; that damning drug that puts cocaine to shame and: “Thanks, Dad.”

Suddenly, it doesn’t seem so bad, and herding cats seems like a lot of extra work in comparison.

=-
Studio Shinnyo 2015.  Khattam-Shud, EOF.

 

Posted under Poetry

The Ambient Mass of Meaning

Posted by Fiss on January 1, 2015

Higgs-BosonFiction is defined in part or in whole as something made up by the author, but we are always told to write what we know, to research and experience, and to get inside the heads of our characters. The closer to reality we make it, the more weight fiction can carry to the casual observer…like some kind of literary God Particle.

I’m not trying to pin every Roddenberry alien on a Cold War era culture, or every bumbling, fated-to-blow-up villain as someone’s high-school nemesis whose debt of comeuppance was never realized in reality…but I’m also not arguing with those who see a downtrodden normal kid instead of the Boy Who Lived, nor a sexually frustrated and bored every-woman instead of a chick who fucks sparkly vampire metaphors.

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Posted under Manifestoes

Tales from a Sex Offender

Posted by Fiss on October 7, 2014

e20At the time of this writing, nobody has been charged or convicted for the iCloud hacking attempt that allowed the leak of private, and in many cases, intimate/nude photographs and video of several well known celebrities to the internet – an event that had been unofficially dubbed ‘the Fappening’ by quick witted Redditors.  Some believe a denizen from the ‘Deep Web’ was responsible; after realizing the inherent difficulty of getting paid for his or her ill-gotten bytes while maintaining anonymity in the face of a large number of investigators, agents and publicists, decided instead to follow a nobler hacker creed and released the data for free.  According to most mainstream news network in the United States, the culprit was a hacker known as ‘4chan’.  We may never know for sure.

But that didn’t stop a number of the legitimately pissed off and horrified victims of this breach of privacy to find moral high-ground not so legitimately in the ongoing battles against patriarchy and decency.

I’m going to be a tad unfair here and single out one of these celebrities in general, as she became the front-runner tagline in both the initial incident and the ridiculous media feeding frenzy that is occurring to this day because of it.  Jennifer Lawrence, who admittedly is both talented (in my opinion anyway) and quite attractive (yet never nude in an official photo…at least not without strategic cover) has become the figurehead in this new war against the Internet Perverts.  And in her ‘tell all’ public interview in this month’s Vanity Fair, she had some choice words for us roving bands of digital brigands and torrential rapists.

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Posted under Manifestoes

Universe! (bug reporting system)

Posted by Fiss on September 29, 2014

Universe!god-at-his-computer

Current version 1.28c

———————-

Thank you for submitting your bug report!  You are number 2108121329499192910410414828812405391013930193391039013331

Subject: “I’m right & they’re wrong!  Why the hell can’t other people see this?  I’ve worked hard and become so much better – but they look at me like I’m the bad-guy when I explain they are wrong.  I have included a number of screenshots showing specific examples.  Obviously, there is an issue with the teaching system.  All I’m trying to do is share my experiences…why am I getting aggro?”  

Severity: Critical

Category(s):  Learning and Education, PvP

– STATUS: Reviewed – Senior team lead.

———————–

Thank you for submitting your bug report.  As senior team lead of Quality Assurance, I have been authorized to give you a bit of insight into this bug and what we are doing to address it in future versions.

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Posted under Manifestoes

Pew…Pew…

Posted by Fiss on September 24, 2014

ShotShellReloadingThere’s a strange meditative quality to cleaning a gun.

I’ve only recently rediscovered it. Books and television and movies focus on the visual and auditory report of a shot, and if they do dare to dive into another sense, the sense of smell, it is usually the rancid burn of gunpowder and the thickness of blood and death associated with a firefight. But they never talk about the other smells. The cold iron rubbing against the skin as you disassemble or tinker; the pleasant, warm sweetness of gun oil as you clean and clean and clean and try to prevent your old friend oxidation from taking hold. There is cotton fluff in the air as you pull the swab through the eye of an overblown needle’s head and when you shove it down the inert blued metal of a barrel, coming back clean, you are finally satisfied and can put all your trinkets back together where they belong. You lock them up in a big, green safe, and you smile and tell yourself you are responsible…but just in case…you can unleash hell should it be required. It’s a calming, wonderful feeling.

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Posted under Manifestoes

My Limerick Virginity has been lost…

Posted by Fiss on July 14, 2014

A wild maiden aimed to settle downcc01159b-tavern-maiden-medieval-bar-wench-maid-costume

So she let it fly at the pub in the town:

She’d an ale consumption contest

To determine the hardiest best

And would present to that man in a gown.

 

Many confident men came a calling

For her beauty they drank until crawling

But the maiden had a trick

A candle and magical wick

To allow her to keep drinking without falling!

 

Now Sir Fry was a humble young knight

Who had loved the sassy maiden – first sight!

And so when it came to his turn

Beneath her skirt he did adjourn

And the maiden’s face became surprise and alight!

 

Onward the night progressed rather swimmingly

Her opponents challenged her contest willingly

But a quarter to seven or eight

She stood to announce her fate

“I’m afraid none I see survived winningly!”

 

You all showed yourselves quite able

And drank enough to enter into a fable

So to you, I cannot lie

The winner must be Sir Fry!

For he drank me right under the table!”

 

=-
Studio Shinnyo 2014.  Khattam-Shud, EOF.
Posted under Poetry

Fiss Chow Alpha – Day 1

Posted by Fiss on June 10, 2014

work.6847455.1.sticker,375x360.contents-unprocessed-soylent-green-sticker-v1One of the hardest face-slaps I received in the year of 2013 was realizing just how far I had let my health deteriorate from nearly half a decade of graveyard shifts.  This and the exponentially hard eating and exercise habits gleaned from such a lifestyle that had been drilled into my soul like a strange reverse boot-camp.

Before I had spawned a youngling I spent eight or so months on a low-carb, low-cal, low-everything diet and had actually succeeded in trimming down, improving my health and feeling better about my ghostly meat-skeleton arrangement.  It didn’t last, as I said I did gain back a lot of weight, but it took more than five years, a stressful handful of management changes, making a baby and continuing to pretend to be a responsible adult to make it finally happen.  Even so, the ease of weight loss I experienced gave me a perpetually false sense of security; that I could re-drop the weight and feel better nearly whenever I wanted if I just put my mind to it.

Yeah.  Right.  I seem to recall writing only one thing was ever easy, and it sure ain’t living.

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Posted under Colapost, Manifestoes

Of Chum, Chances and Family

Posted by Fiss on August 25, 2013

I want to share with you the moment today in which I seriously thought:  “What the hell is the point of all this?” Kawaiiiiiii!

Before anyone starts shoveling Suicide Prevention Hotline numbers toward me, though, I should clarify that this thought occurred as I stood in line, hot, moody and miserable, in order to get autographs from the voices of multi-coloured cartoon ponies.  This, coupled with similar moments fresh in my mind from May…standing in line…standing in line…paying money and then standing in more lines…really got me thinking if maybe I was done.  Maybe I needed to re-evaluate my Geek Card.  My Nerd Chic was fading.  The Fandoms…be it SciFi, or Magical Friendship Equines….were starting to fade.   Would it really be so hard to just skip the next convention?  Maybe the next two?  Three?  Nine?   And as I weighed in on the internal battle for my squeeing-fanboy-voice versus the sheer insanity that is a Fan Convention exposing its seedy underbelly in my general direction like an unwanted mooning.

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Posted under Manifestoes

OATZ. SQUATZ. REPEAT.

Posted by Fiss on April 4, 2013
OATZ N SQUATZ FOR SNOWFLAKE!

OATZ N SQUATZ FOR SNOWFLAKE!

In the last 2 months, I’ve suffered 3 different colds/flus, spiking blood pressure (low AND high) dizziness, dehydration, heart palpitations, unreasonable fatigue, and in general have been more frustrated and depressed now than any time in the last 10 years of my life. I’m tired of wondering if a heart attack or stroke is just around the corner and knowing that I can’t even leave my desk for a proper break due to the fact there is nobody else on the clock with me for a large portion of the week. This clusterfuck of trouble is not new…it is persistent, and I believe it is getting worse.

So, here’s a bit of an update for my family and friends: I’ve thrown down the gauntlet and informed my boss I am no longer available to do Graveyard shifts due to the ongoing lack of support, coverage and flexibility inherent in the shift and our team’s staff levels. I’m done killing myself so they can pretend to save a buck, or placate me with the promise of changes that could be extremely beneficial, but then tell me months later that we can’t do anything but stay the course. (2 years+ of this bait-and-switch is enough.) I have been working at Telus for almost 10 years, and this is the first time in ALL my working life I’ve had to take a step back and say: That’s enough.

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Posted under Fiss' Daily Jolt

Bloom part 1

Posted by Fiss on August 6, 2012

She wakes up at a quarter to four, spends a futile sixty seconds trying to pretend sleep will return, and lets out a three year old sigh when it is denied.

A bad case of electrocution brought on by careless co workers, badly grounded high heels, and some truly comedic timing had been the culprit.  The doctor said she’d have problems sleeping now.  The doctor told her her body would be different after the accident and she would have to relearn some of the more rudimentary things she once took for granted.  The doctor told her there could be other side effects, like sleepwalking, hallucinations, and panic attacks.  The doctor was full of shit; if she got to sleep on time all the other stuff would go away without the medication.
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Posted under Short Stories