How Bored are you?

My co-worker and I walked down the steps. She was carrying an IBM R60 laptop and a yellow ethernet cable; I was holding a single pink post-it note with technical details. We hit the landing of the steps and rounded a corner. We were discussing the aspects of our mission (Top Secret!) and as we turned, we stopped. In between us and our destination was an impenetrable mass of children, each small enough for me to start hucking over my shoulder.

Though I have been asked to repress that particular urge.

After some deliberation with my associate, we decided that she should continue on and I should return to our base of operations. She quickly straightened her arms into a plow and charged forward. Those children in the back of the group were pushed aside like ice chunks on the prow of an arctic whaling ship. Those in the front heard the screams and moved, fearful.

What you see above was really just a distraction for myself. Now that school is out and summer is in, it takes a sharp mind not to go crazy with boredom working at the help desk. For eight hours a day I sit and look at a screen in front of me. Even now I almost wish for the phone on my desk to ring just so I could have something...anything...to occupy my time. I have become so bored - just in a single week - that I have actually started a list of words or phrases that people should use more often:

Sadly
Affront
Pomp
Frou-frou
Never you mind
Behest
Oh my goodness Justin Bieber grow a pair of testicles

Guess which one gave me the most pleasure to type? But I digress. One of the things I have been doing in earnest is research of a certain type. Some time ago I was listening to an album that features several songs on mental disturbances, such as PTSD, Schizophrenia, and Depression. While in the course of this, I began to get an idea for a story. It featured a boy who had personality disorder, and was capable of both shining good, and darkest evil. I sat down to write the beginning, and liked what was being put on the page. I was having trouble figuring out exactly what would happen, as well as how the boy would function, but I liked what was there.

While doing something completely unrelated, I was reading a story and was guided via hyperlink to Ted Bundy's Wikipedia page. I had never heard the name before, and decided that it was important enough in the context of the story for a look

It held me captured for over an hour. It wasn't that it was it was interesting, more so morbidly fascinating. It was a mild wake-up call that not only do people and actions of this kind truly exist, but more common in our age and more common in the U.S. than ever before. It was also a surprise to me the specific difference between serial killers, of which Ted Bundy is maybe the most infamous, and mass murderers.

Serial killers usually have a specific target. Woman with hair this long or boys this old. Their actions are also usually sexually driven, and they have mental inhibitions that cause them to act on this. One of the most common traits was that their childhood was mangled and twisted (exception). It was these facts and others that turned my story about a terrible boy into a book-length story about a terrible person. I was struck by different ideas even as I read Bundy's page, and wanted to incorporate them into the story. However, I decided against much of what I had developed because of the parallels between my ideas and true-life events, which might have caused families distress with just the wrong type of luck

Mass murderers, on the other hand, usually have an agenda or reason, no matter how evil that agenda is. The most famous mass murderer is Hitler, carried out by the Nazis and dubbed the horrifying Holocaust. There is also Mao Zedong and Stalin. It is defined as a systematic killing of many people over a short amount of time. In a way this could be carpet bombing, spree killers, and even the ultimate bombing of Japan by the U.S. in WWII.

After taking in the information about serial killers, I decided that I was lucky enough to be able to use what I already written as the start of my project. The most important part, I believe, will be the beginning. The reason for this is that as previously mentioned the childhood of these twisted minds are the critical time for development. There are also specific, linked details such as serial killers have a hard time holding down jobs or relationships, they are either above average intelligence or very below average, and, I noticed, tend to do anything they can to avoid death.

It's good to have a hobby, I suppose. But most people just build models.


5,900 pieces.

The 4.7th Level of Hell

So in between watching a balloon closely at home, to make sure it doesn't kill again; and trying to convince my Professor that not a lot of people actually freaked about "The War of the Worlds" broadcast back in 1938 (Note: don't trust Wikipedia on this one); I was at work, doing my normal answering of the phones and calming rabid users who didn't know the difference between a task bar and the start menu. I was, for some reason, was reading the lyrics of the musically diverse, highly listenable, and almost unlawfully long "Octavarium" by Dream Theater.

While mentally placing the lyrics with the music I saw an ad on the right of the screen that was...interesting. You've probably seen or heard of it. It was that "Mom losses 47 pounds with one easy step!" ad. Colors may vary.

If you are like me, then this advertisement concerns you a little. What was the one step? Don't eat? Surely not, because then the 23-year-old model of a girl who could not have possibly ever had a child would look like a Stephen King novel.



There are other ads in this range. Dentists, malevolent fiends that they are, are keeping trade secrets from you that could keep your teeth strong and white. Perhaps it is eating jello? Perhaps it is swallowing a pill that looks like Styrofoam? Perhaps it is smiling at the camera, which never picks up anything but the mouth even though the eyes yearn to be captured. Somehow this magic discovery has also been made by a mom! Are we ignoring our country's greatest minds because they have to care for children?

Once even I saw a plucky hamster waving its chubby cheeks my way from a box that said "Obamas (sic) want you to return to college." Many facts were listed, all of which I ignored because I was already a step over college...at University. What I missed was the connection between the hamster and the Obamas, and especially the plural. Were the Obama daughters pinning for my increased scholarship? And did they own a hamster?



Finally, I was presented with a bi-colored shape, so triangular it boggled the mind. That was the purpose, apparently, because I was prompted to divine the number of triangles inside the triangle. I counted a staggering number. There were three options, one of which was the one I had discovered. It took all of my will not to click, proving my superiority over the alleged 90% who got it wrong. 90% of what, though? Grandmothers who send funny cat pictures to their friends via email? Harvard mathematicians? Dove hens?

Here's my favorite:

"Get a free Subway Sandwich f0r 0ne day 0nly!" "If you love Olive Garden, you have to look at this!" "Get a $500 gift card for Best Buy!"

Empty promises. This is an epidemic. This has sprung from the new facebook fan page option that requires you to be a fan before you can see the page. So, somebody came up with the idea that they could, in a word, 'cahoodle' people into signing up, chasing the thought of that much Best Buy. The page that asks you to become a fan has only three things (plus all the other Facebook tops and bottoms): A flashy HEY! HEY YOU! BEST BUY! OLIVE GARDEN! QUIZNOS! PIZZA HUT!, a button to become a fan of the current object, and a small, blue list of comments. ...Who must be zombies, neither living nor dead. Consumerism grips them and they cannot escape it. These identical comments, always things like "My tummy is full!" or "Tasty!" line it. Your tummy is full of lies! These comments are the exact same on every. single. page. There are also a grand 937 "likes" on these...comments? I don't know what they are liking, said Yoda. These things, these...people...are not real. They are a scam.

I tried to comment add my comment to this number, as there is an appropriate spot for adding one. I typed, and hit enter. It was a question posed to the world if I would lose my sanity or free will if I became a fan of this Subway sandwich. Instead of immediately adding my question to the responses, however, I became informed that my comment was "under consideration" and "will be posted soon."

What they did of course was take my comment into the back room and shoot it.

There are also those "you can't use this cool feature on Facebook until you invite all of your friends first."
"All of them?"
"All of them. If you don't, watch your step."

So perhaps you wish to know.

But you won't know that imperative step to losing weight; what secret chemical will heal your stained teeth; how much those Obama tykes are offering you to go back to school; or how many people can't figure out how many triangles there are; until you click. Your mouse hovers and a rare spasm of nerve punches your finger down, sending you hurtling through the tunnels, bouncing off other ads and picking up a slew of viruses - most of which pretend to be virus scanners - to find yourself in a dark place.

The air is thick with the shake and flash of banners offering you cars for being the 999,999th visitor, screams of trolls from every corner surround you and push you until your back is against a tiled smiley-face wall. For a moment you hear embedded midi above the tumult and dream of a place that could be yours. YourPlace. A flurry of messages appear before you all promising riches, greatness. You count eight as they cut you off from escape of this smothering hell. You long to connect to your loved ones as these false admirers drain your lifeblood. The cries of innocent victims fall deaf to the ears of the madmen behind these schemes.

It is too late. You yearn to be free.

Trapped inside this Octavarium.

I am in a dark room. A Jdarkroom. There are lights on and still it is so dark. Dark and calming.

It is my first post on this, my first blog, An Eyrie for Thoughts. And, to prove that no person isn't not not a hypocrite, my first post will be making fun of blogs.

The first thing that always bothers me about blogs is the names. It always has to be something kind of almost-not cliche but maybe a little cool and just a touch of weird. For example, things like "Brainzludge," "HaVN't U Seen?" "Despite Concrete," or "An Eyrie for Thoughts." All of those names wouldn't really show up anywhere in normal life (Though Brainzludge would make a great Norwegian death metal band name). I'm proud to say that most of those names actually took me a few minutes to make more pathetic than I would have had them. I have seen a few cool names. For example, I just recently saw one that was something like "The House of Marrakesh." That there is a fine name for a blog. I wonder if Marrakesh is a made up word, though. I sure hope it isn't.

That's what I'm talking about.

Next, the content. Now a lot of people use blogs to complain, which is what I'm doing I suppose. See paragraph 2, sentence 2 for explanation. And I will continue to do so, but only in a humorous and family-friendly manner. Like with balloons. One thing that a lot of people with blogs do is complain specifically about politics, which I had enough of by 1992, so I will not be doing that. There may be items of the blog that has a foot dipped into politics, but never anything about a politician on one side or the other, or some policy or some such. As long as they don't outlaw pancakes I'm okay with whatever they do.

And the final thing that a lot of blogs tend to do is basically post random pictures of funny things or photos from some photographer, or talk about hypocrisy - who does that, really - in things like basketball tickets or use of the word "communism."

Probably what I will have is a weekly, bi-weekly, or whatever "Manly Mondays," where a man with chest of hair and calves of thick will be explained and praised. Like this guy:



Not always like him though. Usually less fictional.

Au revoir.

Which is French for goodbye. I'll also have things like music, movies, TV shows, actors or actresses, musicians, or ideas about writing, which I will do my best to explain in a humorous and family-friendly manner.

Like with balloons.

The possibilities are endless! Exactly the opposite of Michael Cera's future Hollywood prospects!

Au revoir!