In Hollywood, today’s waiter can be tomorrow’s star.
The day after he won an Oscar, Bob went to his favorite restaurant.
Bob was served by Elie, who thirty years later won an Emmy.
Elie was served by Ricardo, who ten years later signed on for a top-rated sitcom that lasted eight years.
Ricardo was served by Beth, who twenty years later made it big on Broadway.
Beth was served by ZX-72, which was a robotic food service unit.
ZX-72 never made it big anywhere. Because it was a robotic food service unit, not an actor.
But it made good tips.
Author: R.
Intelligent life
Imperial Law is pretty clear about terraforming.
Don’t do it to inhabited worlds.
Of course, the definition of inhabited is a bit vague.
Intelligent life? Animal life? Any life at all, including viruses or bacteria?
The standards keep changing with every overcrowded and exhausted world looking for living space and resources.
Including the Galactic Empire World, which is constantly on the verge of collapse.
So, these days, the definition is simple:
Any world that can raise enough of a bribe to get itself off of the list of terraforming.
And get another less-rich world to take its place as victim.
Monoboeopoly
Nothing lasts forever.
Except for things that last forever.
You won’t last forever.
A person who plays the oboe doesn’t last forever.
Neither does the oboe they play last forever.
The chair an oboist sits in won’t last forever.
But the chair in a symphony will last forever.
And when you sponsor it, your name will last forever.
In a way, you’ll last forever.
But then, the symphony won’t last forever, will it?
Better sponsor every oboe chair in every symphony in the world.
Cover them all.
A monopoly on the oboes for all time.
A monopoboly? Monopoloboey?
Sounds cool.
In the cards
I’m waiting for the new video cards to become available.
Sure, they’re been released by the manufacturer, but everybody wants these cards.
So, anywhere they appear, they become unavailable quickly.
Bots and scalpers and resellers.
Buying all the cards up.
Some stores, they only let you buy them in person.
But they use bent and crooked methods.
Like handing out line vouchers to friends and family.
Until the factories ramp up production and the distributors meet demand, there’s no point, really.
Just wait them out… until the next generation is available.
And this shit happens all over again… and again.
Jack gets jacked
“Take care of my wife and kids.”
Jack pulled the sheet over his dead friend’s face.
And he did. He got back stateside and married the widow.
And he was a good father.
Raised the kids well.
The son, he became a real estate billionaire.
Got Jack and his mom a nice house.
Then, his mother died, left Jack alone.
But Jack found someone new. brought her down to the house.
The son was livid.
When Jack died, the son sold that house, and kicked out that second widow.
Imagine if someone had done that to his mom years ago?
Graduating
Tomorrow, we’re graduating.
So we took our beers out to the football field, laid down at the fifty yard line, and lit up our joints.
And we talked all night.
Who’s going where?
College, or the Army, or a job?
Bobby got drafted by the Dodgers, he’s going rookie ball.
His dad wants him to do college ball first, but Bobby thinks he’s that good.
Who needs another beer?
Who needs another joint?
The cops left us alone.
The campus security left us alone.
When the sun came up, we all went home.
And we never saw each other again.
Weekly Challenge #848 – CROSS COUNTRY
LISA
No one
His room didn’t smell good, a bit like the changing rooms after cross country. The only light was pushing its way in through a slit in the curtains.
“Who knows you’re here?”
It felt like a throw away question. Like he didn’t even care what my answer was.
That made it so much worse.
As soon as I answered his little smile made me wish I’d thought first, made me want to grab the word back, swap it for another one.
Change it for a comforting one like Mum or Dad.
A lie.
But sometimes they were OK. Weren’t they?
LIZZIE
Taking the cross country path was a last minute decision. And it looked like it was the right thing to do.
It was lovely out there. The trees, the birds, the stars. They even found a pathway where all the trees had exotic colorful lamps, guiding them through.
In their oblivious enchantment, they reached the end of the pathway.
“Great, now we have to turn back…”
They didn’t know it yet, but they didn’t have to, no.
The light mist lifted slowly. It looked so magical, so beautiful.
When they noticed the copious amounts of skulls, it was too late.
RICHARD
Bill
Bill was always a bit of an idiot.
Always with the hair-brained plans to follow the path less trodden.
“It’ll be fun! We’ll leave the trailers at the park entrance and hike cross-country. We’ll catch rabbits and eat wild berries for food, and camp under the stars.”
Like I said, a bit of an idiot.
After parking up, we complained it was too hot to hike, but he was insistent, so we left him to reconnoitre, while we threw some burgers on the barbecue and opened some cold beers.
That was three days ago. No sign of Bill.
NORVAL JOE
Billbert eyed each of the students in the classroom surreptitiously to see if he could determine which might be members of the Guild of the Dark Knights. They all looked like normal kids to him.
He was dubious about Sabrina’s claim and challenged her on it as they walked to their second period class. “Is this alleged guild active in Eureka because your witch’s club is here?”
Sabrina scowled at him. “No. There’s a cross country network from here to Salem. Everywhere we have an established coven.”
Billbert shrugged. “A Dark Knight’s Guild sounds cool. Maybe I should join them.”
SERENDIPIDY
This place irritates me. I call it Cross Country – but you probably know it as ‘The Bible Belt’. However you choose to refer to it, the people around these parts are clearly out of their minds.
I call it Cross Country, because the minute one of the natives comes my way, out they come with their silly crosses and crucifixes, waving them in my face, or better still, crossing their fingers in front of me, like some magical hex!
As if that’s going to work.
It’s like wagging your finger at a mugger!
Crosses don’t scare me – I’m a demon!
PLANET Z
Zane ran cross country in high school, and he was really good.
He received a stack of scholarship offers.
Looking through maps, he chose the college with the best weather.
A campus near the ocean, with great beaches and restaurants and clubs for partying.
When he wasn’t out running, he was walking the strand and tipping hot bartenders with his book money.
Four years later, he spent the last of his money to buy some papers and exams, and barely had the grades to graduate.
Flipping burgers and waiting tables.
Who the fuck needs a professional runner of 5K races?
For dummies like me
I’ve been using gMail as a mail client for years now.
I just point and click things.
Today, I accidentally hit the question mark in gMail.
It brought up a keyboard shortcuts page.
I’ve never seen that shortcuts page before.
Not that I’d use them. It’s pretty simple to point and click things.
Although there’s one shortcut I know I might use.
The question mark.
It’s right there on the page.
Maybe if I’d known about it, I’d have used it.
Which is why they put it on the keyboard shortcuts page in the first place.
For dummies like me.
Bad advice
I’m not what you would call the most stable person.
I don’t deal well with change.
So, I bought a bunch of self-help books.
You know the kind:
Throwing the elephant.
Who moved my cheese.
Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Those kind of simple wisdom things that work well when you’re a rich author who’s hoodwinked people into buying your crap writing, but doesn’t work in practice.
My shelf is full of these paperbacks.
And over the years, the sun has bleached the spines so they’re all faded and white.
Which is fine. They’re all the same useless crap anyway.
King Walter
Walter was never meant to be king.
His older brothers were all given titles and land and trained how to rule.
Each built castles on their lands and liked them so much, they never came home.
While Walter puttered around the royal castle, kicking the dirt.
When Walter’s father died, the brothers went to war with each other for the crown.
And the winner was… Walter.
The brothers and their armies had all destroyed each others castles and killed each other.
Leaving Walter with the crown and the royal castle.
He hired good advisors and puttered around, shrugging and smiling.