RKNet Blog... Thing

You are hiding behind a stone wall being shot at by heavily armed cultist. You have had two weeks of training to deal with situations like this. But you’re only just starting to remember this. You know you should feel angry that people are shooting at you. But you consider that they would shoot at anyone trying to sneak into their heavily armed and very secretive religious compound. Instead you think about the figurative bastards that put you in this situation. They woke you up at four in the morning approximately thirteen hours ago. Bundled you into a car, then an airplane and whisked you six hundred miles from your home. They told you that that two week blackout you had was their fault. That two week blackout two years ago. A blackout that cost you a relationship with a person you deeply loved and very nearly alienated you from your immediate family. They said that you’d been taken to a secret government facility and been in their words ‘The Clockwork Orange’ treatment. Except instead of making you dislike violence they taught you to know how to do very unpleasant things to your fellow human beings. When you didn’t believe this as they quite reasonably expected they produced photographic evidence, timestamped and digitally signed. These memories slowly came back to you. You attributed this to the background music playing in the airplane’s cabin.

The current problem that you are to be injected into was explained to as a local disturbance which could rapidly turn into the European version of the Waco Ranch massacre. They explain to you that this is where you come in. You, they explain are to sneak into the compound and assassinate the leader of the cult as well as disrupt as much of the chain of command. Logically you try to explain to them that Solid Snake does this in the video games and he tends to die an awful lot in the attempt. They do not get the reference. They also suck their gums a lot which you take as a sign of ‘you’re not the first one we’ve sent in.’

The sneaking into the farm ran by crazy cult members did go better than expected. You made it past the official police line and through a field past the body of who you assume was ‘the first one sent in.’ As you reach the edge of the main farm complex however it all goes wrong.

Not the first one to be sent in seems to explain the problem well as you hide behind a dry wall. Your mouth is dry and your hands have almost stopped trembling. Their bullets have stopped firing. Cautiously you peer around the corner and see that three of the larger cultists are running towards you while brandishing very scary looking shotguns. You gulp. Aim the silenced pistol you were given at the closest cultist. Then you fire. It isn’t a perfect shot. It goes through his leg and he tumbles to the floor. He is screaming but the other two have upped the pace. You take aim again and fire. The next one drops without a sound in a mist of red. The third cultist stops. He raises his shotgun. You take cover. He discharges the weapon into the wall and the pellets bounce off the wall harmlessly. You feel you are getting the hang of this. Looking around the corner you feel slightly disappointed that he is running away from you.

You move forwards from this wall to the next. This is progress you think. Then they start firing a machine gun at you and you dive for the closest thing you see that looks like cover. The training you remember consisted of firing ranges, simulated close quarters combat exercises and training drills. Very little of the training (although you cannot be quite certain right now as your memory is still fragmented) involved being shot at and the immediate action to be taken when you inevitably come into the situation. You go on instinct here. Duck and cover, then hope that the machine gun breaks or runs out of bullets. 

The person manning the machine gun appears to be enjoying himself. Every few seconds a burst of fire removes fragments of the dry stone wall. The bullets are close and you hear some of them whistle through the air. The gunner however has a steady rhythm to his firing. You remember that you have a mirror on one of the cargo pockets. You take it out and use it to peer round the edge of the wall. There is only him. His burst finishes. You jump over the wall and shoot him in the head. The way into the main building is clear now. You kick the flimsy wooden door from it’s hinges. You hear a thumping noise.

You are cold and cannot move. Your head aches with a dull throbbing sensation. Your face hurts. Opening your eyes you see that you are in a cellar. The thin light of sunset comes in through an opening in the wall near the ceiling. You work out why you are cold and cannot move. Directly ahead of you  is a man.  He is naked and strapped to a gurney. His right arm has a horrific gunshot wound and his groans occasionally break his possibly drug induced sleep.

Four sky clad people walk into the cellar. One of them has a demonic mask and a evil knife. Another, a drum made from wood with a tight white skin with tattoo ink blue Celtic markings on it. The other two are women who start dancing and chanting as soon as they enter the room. The drummer starts to hit his drum and the masked man you watch move to stand in front of the injured man blocking him from your view.

“For your intrusion onto hallowed ground we punish you,” the masked man shouts.
“For your intrusion onto hallowed ground we punish you,” the others repeat.
You watch the masked man drag the knife across the injured mans chest. Blood runs to the ground.
“For your violent ways we injured you,” the masked man shouts.
“So we shall injure you again!” The two dancers say.
The masked man pushes the knife into the injured mans gunshot wound.
He screams!
“We the children of the gods say you must die,” all of the cultists say.
The injured man screams one last time.
You see the masked man turn to you. 

You are sweating heavily now. That evil knife is covered in gore and the blank look of the masked man you feel hides a sadistic smile. The drumming man carries on his vile rhythm for the dancers to follow. You see a small ball shaped object role through the sunlight opening. It bounces on the stone floor of the cellar.
“For your intrusion,” the masked man starts to say. You close your eyes in terror.

You hear a deafening noise followed by chaotic screams and gunshot. You close your eyes even more. The ringing in your ears stops and you open your eyes. You try to speak and a desperate whimper is all you can summon. You see eight people in battle dress and black full face gas masks. One of them approaches you and slings his weapon over his shoulder. You watch him take his gas mask off.
“It will be alright. You’ve done your duty. You’ve exceeded our expectations. Let us help you,” he says.

This story was originally entered into the SFX Pulp Idol competition. It didn’t win (aw), didn’t get shortlisted and it didn’t even get an honerable mention. No matter I’m well aware of it’s deficencies and it was a tracer bullet. Oh well it’s a success if someone enjoys it.

Will.

A clear and flagrant disrespect for all things was extruded from the two young men chatting back and forth on the mostly empty train car and left the air palpably unclean. Crisp suits, slick and greasy hair, shifty bright eyes, and utter animal stupidity were readily apparent upon a quick glance. Typical upper-class white boys with no sense of purpose beyond where their dicks will be by the end of the night or who they can roll under the bus to get the next raise. No love except the long-since-abandoned love for mother, and a lust for money and the status associated with it that they assume is love.
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Wound and Infection Treatment Stories #1

Tales written for discerning young ladies with a keen admiration of the manliness of the male half of the species, this volume deals with heart-pounding tales of men performing stunning feats of self-surgery and suffering such injuries as would surely destroy men of lesser manliness. Yet never fear! For these manly men always get the better of every trial and tribulation that comes their way! Read on for more exciting stories of the manliness of men!

Mark was a willowy, handsome young lad, with shoulder length flaxen hair which he brushed into his pale, rosy-cheeked face often to cover his sparkling, glassy blue eyes in impish defiance of social mores.

One fine summer’s day he sat on his back porch, clad in his favorite jean shorts. This in and of itself was nothing significant. Yet the story behind his reason for sitting thus when there was action, adventure and, yes, even danger to be had out in the wide world is indeed a stirring tale.

Being as clever and crafty as he was, Mark had made these shorts himself when his favorite pants finally ripped so significantly that his girlfriend at the time had insisted with the venom only a lifelong student of modern fashions could that he do away with them. Yet young Mark would not be denied pants so well-worn that they had become something akin to a companion. Indeed, many was the week which had passed without him parting with them long enough even to wash them. He simply couldn’t bear to part with these pants! No, this was a man of deep concerns in his life who simply would not give up the familiar comforts of the threadbare pockets, nor the subtle sophistication which came with the various inked designs which turned the faded denim into a black and blue patina which echoed his triumphant past’s loves, hopes, and outstanding feats of stunning bravery. It was as grave a sin as asking an honored crusader to part with the finely wrought chain mail which had saved him from savage and ignominious death through countless battles with fierce and pitiless Moors and Turks!

So passionate had our young Mark been when confronted with the possibility of losing this treasure, he had snatched up a sizable blade from the kitchen counter in heated desire for swift yet just resolution to this disgraceful feud between aesthetic schools of thought, and with such fervor did he hack away at the offending lower portion of his beloved jeans that it caused him several injuries. Indeed, he was not mindful of such lacerations! An impassioned and bold man such as this could have no room for outward manifestations of pain when there was a battle of wit and craft at hand.

So deep was his anguish at the mutilation of this jewel of his possessions that he hurled the remnants of the pants - along with the now crimson-stained blade - as far as his slim, tight-muscled arms could manage with a pained howl escaping his chest. Regrettably his then-girlfriend hadn’t the presence of mind to clear herself from the path of the flying objects, and suffered a nasty shock as sharpened metal pierced the drywall beside her head.

What woman can understand the true nature of such manly displays, when the depth of feeling must manifest itself in a true man’s course of action? Few can, and alas this was the last he ever saw of or heard from that young lady. Indeed, though he had won a victory over an intractable situation, she simply couldn’t understand the depth of his sincere heartbreak, nor his truer, sentimental nature. In his woeful mourning over losing both his love interest and a significant portion of his most treasured pants, he neglected to care for himself and the injuries he sustained during the confrontation.

As a result, he found himself sitting on the back porch of his home in a grim and pensive state. He had moments before prepared himself for the task which lay before him in that golden afternoon. The slanting sunlight pierced the smoky air around him and cast a beam better than a surgeon’s lamp on the site of his concern. One of the the wounds he had sustained during his heart wrenching episode of confrontational tailoring had taken a turn for the worse. Such a strong believer in independence was he that Mark was not employed and could not provide the sum necessary to visit a trained medical professional. Nor did he believe in such ridiculousness. As a true student of manliness he felt strongly that anything which could be accomplished by his own hand should be! Oft was he praised for such, and oft chided by those who did not understand. Nevertheless he was prepared for the task ahead of him. His anesthetic of choice was taking hold, calming him adequately for the work ahead.

The wound in question was a clean slice whose depth had allowed all manner of dirt in, and despite having been liberally (albeit indirectly and not deliberately) splashed with cleansing alcohol during the last two weeks it was now a very angry shade of red. The protective layer of dried blood was flecked with dirt and a clear fluid leaked from beneath it with only the slightest pressure. If it was painful to look at, it was surely more painful to actually have and feel, yet young Mark showed no pain or fear. With a trusty pocket knife in hand, he paused only once to take a deep breath and hold it in before exhaling in a great rush. A sagely expression came over him, making his heavy-lidded eyes seem cloudy and distant. With a dazzling quickness he sliced open the hardened surface of his grave injury and Oh! what happened then! A rush of milky fluid rushed forth, gleaming wetly under the light of the afternoon sun. Unfazed by such Mark quickly wiped it away and proceeded to squeeze with the all the somber detachment of a true warrior. Once the rupture in his smooth skin was running with the pure crimson of a clean cut, he wiped his hands off on the comforting cloth of his shortened jeans and simply sat. Clearly this quiet contemplation was his way of cleansing his spirit as well as the site of his bodily harm.

His phone rang and with all the unhurried grace of a seasoned general, Mark reached in his pocket, saw that the name on the phone simply said “Cunty Whore That Dumped Me” and thumbed the silencer with unperturbed ease.

This concludes our first installment of Heart-Pounding Tales of The Manliness of Men Vol. 1: Wound and Infection Treatment Stories! Won’t you join us next time for more thrilling, fascinating and stirring tales of manly men and their aplomb in the face of mortal wounding and dire infections?

Sometimes shit just sucks.

~via the rabbitsonthesun photobucket and #ectomo

• @rodzilla I like the idea of searching for music a lot more than I do uploading it all ala muxtape’s model #
• @rodzilla it’s so much fun, I’ve already done at least 3 #
• @rodzilla hahaha. that makes sense, I’ve been going ga-ga over the service lately #
• going to play on mixwit now, I just can’t help it #
• @rickjulian Fage is the beeeest! Oh my goodness. with cherries? nom nom nom #
• @rickjulian even better! I wish it wasn’t so expensive. you ever try Kefir (yogurt drink by lifeway)? #
• @rickjulian lucky! :) i wonder if it’s safe to mail order yogurt… #
• @rickjulian is she still raving at whoever will take the bait? #
• got some curious traffic earlier, makes me wonder if I’m being watched (in a good way i hope) #
• @geechee_girl I stil haven’t quite gotten the hang of hash tags #

Editor’s Note: Seriously, non-stop Tweeting all weekend.
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• @bloggersblog hear hear, viva la literature! #
• Gah. I wake up to an internet fight over twitter. that’s like waking up & walking into a bar argument #
• pro baseball? overpaid children. for most people, the local bar owner is more personally important. #
• @chrisgarrett huh. we were just talking about ALICE yesterday. I heard she was a bitch. looks like it fits your theory #
• @chrisgarrett it goes back to at least the 19th http://tinyurl.com/3b2s96 #
• When I read about the internet being an instrument for social destruction I think "good, there’s a lot of cleaning up to do" #
• @chrisgarrett omg, no wonder you’re so up in arms, these strumpette people can kiss my ass. paranoids. #
• Riddle me this: how can you espouse your negative opinions about the internet on the internet, and expect any respect? #
• I’m not so sure that a luddite, pro-expert, pro-professional should be arguing on twitter. it screams hypocrite #
• @chrisgarrett you have to be published on dead trees or harass someone who’s been on tv to be pro, duh #

Editor’s note: man I was a twitter whore today. cut for length.
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One look at our vending machines will tell you that office-dwelling drones like Your Humble Narrator are always seeking out exotic drinkable liquids. Especially if said liquids are reputed to be imbued with energizing or stupefying properties. Maybe it’s the condition of our imprisonment, which in this office typically involves non-ergonomic, castoff cubicles, brutally punishing chairs, and cthonic food from the grim eateries which dot the surrounding wasteland (these bleak offerings might make Franz Kafka shrug resignedly and reach for a fork, but personally they make me bemoan the lack of a 24-hour Korean restaurant in the immediate vicinity). Maybe it’s the psychological/economic bondage of a modern business environment, wherein failure is not an option and the creature comforts are best described as “hit-or-miss”. Maybe it’s the high frustration level, combined with lack of sleep (due to work-related worries) which can make us rage like fearsome goetic demons forced to watch Legally Blonde 2.

In any case, even if one just examines the elaborate cultural rituals associated with (for instance) shotgunning sugar-free Red Bull (I’ll try to post about this in the future) or popping down to the local sports bar for a bottom-shelf Long Island iced tea (referred to by us cognoscenti as an “ether and sour mix” because of its unusual psychotogenic properties which cannot be individually ascribed to any of its constituent boozes)… it’s clear that there’s some kind of collective drinks-based coping behavior which spans the nerd-steppenwolf demographic and, unpredictably, inches insidiously into the repertoire of fairly respectable Liberal Arts majors. My personal theory is that these behaviors start out as pathological compulsions, until they are copied by at least one other person, whereby they attain official meme-hood, which in turn makes the progenitor feel justified, so he/she repeats the action, and then the cycle self-perpetuates until the meme gets old, the participants die/get fired, or until the required ingredients become exhausted.

Take for example, the practice of dropping a teabag into a hot cup of coffee.

This loathsome act is a true last-ditch effort. The participants are so jaded in their exhaustion, this is the final frontier, the nadir, the Last Judgment. Whether our nights are spent boozing it up or writing code until the wee hours, the effect is astonishingly similar. Once-human organisms are now reduced to soulless husks, caricatures of our former selves. In this degraded condition, we crave stimulus, which, at this advanced stage, can only be brought about by a handful of questionable exercise stimulants, washed down with an overpriced canister of phenylalanine-rich chemical ooze.

Such was our Monday mindset when, today, my staunch acolyte and I devised a new and gruesome sacrament. By steeping a teabag in a cup of infernally steaming coffee, our desire was to harness the clarity and energy of the strong black tea, tempered with the anxiety and panic of the coffee. The result was a murky liquid, which looked a lot like that black stuff which engulfed James Brolin toward the end of The Amityville Horror. Perhaps most singular was the aftertaste, a bitter, lingering tang of tannins. It is testament to my own slow, sad deterioration that I found the mixture to be not wholly unpleasant. Perhaps most disturbing is the understanding that I might voluntarily drink this again.

Below is a transcript of our findings:
(02:13:57 PM) me: dude this actually isn’t as awful as I thought it would be
(02:14:16 PM) XXXXX: its almost good
(02:14:25 PM) me: for real
(02:14:32 PM) me: I already feel more jacked up
(02:15:08 PM) XXXXX: then we should call it jack bauer’s tea bag
(02:15:28 PM) me: hahahahahah
(02:15:58 PM) me: I was going to suggest we could call it “Nightside of Eden” - I like yours better
(02:16:27 PM) XXXXX: well yours is for sure more poetic
(02:17:34 PM) me: “chai-flavored roundhouse kick to the taint”
(02:18:07 PM) XXXXX: thats it!
(02:18:16 PM) XXXXX: thats the taste in my mouth exactly!
(02:18:32 PM) me: “the sweat from Charles Bronson’s brow”
(02:18:57 PM) me: “Paul Schaeffer’s smarm in a cup”
(02:18:57 PM) XXXXX: strained through kurt russels pubes
(02:19:02 PM) me: hahahah

…and so is love.

We had precisely zero submissions. I’m speechless, gentle readers, but ultimately not terribly surprised. We are a sparse, busy, and easily distracted lot here at RKNet, and we can only assume that our readership shares at least some of these qualities. Most notably the sparseness, what with the sheer lack of exposure. It will change, someday, you’ll see, you’ll ALL see! BWAHAHAHAHAHA-*cough* ’scuse me.

I would like to give honorary first place, however, to Dr. Hypercube for his amazing concept submission. While he was not confident that he could produce the appropriate visual representation of his thoughts on the matter, he was kind enough to send me his idea.

Stay tuned for a complete write up, with pictures to help shed some light on the brilliance at work, soon to come.

kuro5hin.org posted a story yesterday that at first made me laugh, then made a minor amount of sense, then made me cluck my tongue in irritation with this country's rampant paranoia.

TRON, as in battle bikes, everybody's glow in the dark, Master Control Program TRON - that TRON, has been cited as a “sensitive” by the illustrious US Department of Homeland Security.

To paraphrase, TRON contains scenes of a former government testing facility. The scenes they're talking about are the “real world” ones with all the intense lab equipment strewn about. Showing this lab equipment, which is apparently the actual lab equipment that was used at that facility, is a potential security breach.

In a move that I can only describe as “shutting the barn door after the horse has run out”, the DHS is going on a crusade to sieze all copies of the movie. In addition to writing Disney a huge nasty-gram, they have also been sending nasty-grams out to film retailers large and small.

Thankfully, there was some dissent among the working class, even if Disney officials were scared to say anything.

Government conspiracy to undermine our morale in subtle ways? Disney plot to move a copies of TRON?
YOU DECIDE!

shitty german translation of us news…
Former Iraqi leader SADDAM HUSSEIN is being forced to watch his appearance as the Devil’s gay lover in SOUTH PARK: BIGGER LONGER AND UNCUT “repeatedly”, according to the cult cartoon’s creator MATT STONE. Hussein is currently being held in prison by US Marines while he stands trial on genocide charges. South Park: Bigger Longer And Uncut was banned in Iraq on its release in 1999 for portraying the leader as a homosexual. Stone says, “I have it on pretty good information from the Marines on detail in Iraq that they showed him the movie last year. That’s really adding insult to injury. I bet that made him really happy,” Stone said.

~from #ed

At some point Hal Turner’s website resurfaced to gasp for air after having been held under water by many Anonymous for quite a while.
After crawling from his hole it appears he went on a posting spree. He had this to say about the hanging.

SADDAM HUSSEIN EXECUTED
TOO BAD THE SAME THING CAN’T HAPPEN TO PRESIDENT BUSH!!

I suspect the dirty bastard in the White House is probably responsible for the deaths of far more innocent Iraqis than Saddam!

What’s most interesting about that, is a lot of the same people (or one really loud person, hard to tell with Anon) who were all for attacking Hal Turner were also spouting this very opinion last night.
~~editorial~~
However, the thing to remember is that Anonymous did not attack Hal Turner to gain some higher moral ground, they rallied and attacked for the lulz. Anyone who will continue to be loud, ignorant, and a liar in public, and is then also highly defensive, is generally deemed to be a good source of lulz. Admit it, there was always that one kid in school who wasn’t quite right in the head, you didn’t like it when people picked on him from a moral standpoint, but you couldn’t help but snicker a little when he flipped out and threatened to call in a squad of Navy SEALs with alien technology to take out his/her assailants. People like Hal Turner give this reaction in a much more extended fashion, and are therefore much more amusing. I suppose he has the right to express his opinions, no matter how stupid anyone might find them, but in situations like this I don’t really have much sympathy for him. He threatens people directly and claims to be directly invovled in the injury or death of other people. While Turner may be full of shit on that count, in my book it opens him up to take fire back.
~~end editorial~~

Iraq: Shortly after the execution of the dictator Saddam Hussein, his dog Blondi followed the same fate to the gallows. Contrary to Saddam, Blondi’s execution was broadcast live in full length. Some minor complications arose, which dragged out the death struggle to unbearable lengths. Animal activist group PETA has filed a formal complaint to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. Image of dog being hanged

~ another bit culled from #ed