The Miners

With the rise of digital currencies, like bitcoin, the miners of those digital currencies compete to throw raw computing power at earning those currencies, whether its their own or servers that they’ve hacked and taken over.
They don’t completely take over a server’s resources, because that would alert the owner to their presence.
Instead, they use all of the unused resources, so there is no performance loss.
When the administrator logs in and performs any tasks, the mining program hides and sleeps, until the admin logs out.
They start back up and begin once more to mine for more coins.

Drogo

Every prince wants to one day be king.
And Prince Drogo was no exception to that.
His father, King Grond, who taught him well.
As well as Drogo’s brother, Prince Victor.
A year older than Drogo.
When Grond died, Victor took the crown.
Drogo did all he could to get it for himself.
Assassins and poisons aren’t cheap.
Victor’s wives and children died, but Victor survived.
And then, the crown was Drogo’s to take.
He took it off of his brother’s corpse and put it on his head.
“Oh shit,” he said. “The poison. I forgot to wash it off.”

Weekly Challenge #723 – PICK TWO: contest, hop to it, toys, pain, treading water, protect

Vet

LIZZIE

The End of the Rope

“Tie a knot and hang on… I’ll tie a knot around their necks. Be happy and blah blah blah…”
She was grumpy all the time. The neighbors would always scatter away in all directions, hiding from her.
And then came a bird. She scared it away, but the bird came back, again and again. And it brought a little twig, then another, and soon there was a nest. And baby birds!
She opened a bit of the window and gave the mommy some seeds she had bought.
No one could believe it when, one day, she simply said “Good morning!”.

RICHARD

Hot stuff!

She suggested ‘spicing things up a little’ to restore our flagging relationship. I, being naive, surprised her with a meal at a Thai restaurant: Apparently, not the sort of spice she had in mind.

I’ll never forget the night she introduced me to her new ‘toys’ – for all the wrong reasons.

I can still remember the sickly sweet smell of lubricant, and the slimy feeling as she applied it in places that I myself would only venture from necessity.

But, above all, the horrific pain as we realised she’d mistakenly applied chilli oil instead of lube…

Now, that’s spicy!

TOM

In The End Its Really About the Toys —The contest is simple: He Who Has The Most Toys Wins. Now simple in no way represents easy. And one man’s toy might well be greater than the net worth of a 3rd world country. Some argue tools are toys, but I don’t ascribe to this point of view. A good toy lack any functional purpose, or useful interface which allows fundamental alteration of local reality. Further it must maintain some level of childish glee that would cause a six year old to smile, giggle and clap. I’m sure Eli Musk does all three when he lights up a rocket.

DAVID

Snow fell gently. deadening the sounds of the forest like a tomb. I withdrew my sword without effort and stared across the white field to my nemesis. Enraged, I charged at my opponent. “Fill your hand, you son of a bitch,” I screamed! Our blades crossed and clanged as our footwork crushed the snow. Each of us furiously slashing to preserve one another’s life. I was quick. I was skilled. I was not the victor. The pain in my gut exploded as her reddened steel was pulled from my side with a boot kick. Who will protect my family now?

NORVAL JOE

Completing another loop around the block, Billbert’s mother pulled the car into the driveway. “I don’t know anyone in our neighborhood named, Balloni or Rigatoni. You don’t mean Albragetti, do you?”

“That’s it. I knew it was some kind of pasta. They’re still behind us, Mom. What am I going to do?”

His mother shook her head. “As a mother, I’d love to protect you from pain and embarrassment. But, you got yourself into this predicament. You’ll have to get yourself out. Hop to it, now. Go confront this girl.”

Billbert dragged his feet as he walked toward the Fararri.

TURA

Toys; pain
———
I found Jackie torturing her toys again. She’d pulled the back legs off the dog robot, and it whined as it struggled to drag itself away. The boy robot had a screwdriver jammed through his neck and twitched painfully.

“Stop that at once!” I screamed.

“They’re robots,” she said, “they don’t care.”

“How will you ever care about your baby brother if you can’t care about your toy friends?” I pleaded.

“He’s fake too,” she said, twisting the cat robot’s body to make it snarl. “Daddy told me he bought it for you because you couldn’t have any more children.”

SEREDIPIDY

You’ll thank me for the cold soon.

Watching you frantically treading water, from my sanctuary in the lifeboat, I see your exertions slowing as cold and shock set in: But, don’t worry, I’m not going to let you drown – your wrists are lashed firmly enough to the dinghy to assure me of that.

And that freezing water really is a blessing in disguise. Trust me.

You see, the sharks will come soon, and when they do, they will tear you limb from limb, piece by piece.

Then you’ll thank me for the cold…

And how it numbs the pain.

PLANET Z

Klaus the Toymaker likes to make toys for the children of the village.
And the children love the toys.
But he is only one man, and the village has grown so much in the past twenty years.
And then there’s the toys that the children break. The repairs, the wear-and-tear.
That takes time, too.
Now, there is a lottery.
The children who want toys draw tablets from a kettle.
And they swallow them.
Those who wake up the next day get toys.
And those who don’t, well, they should have taken better care of their toys.
Or read more books.

The Islamic State

My Muslim friend tells me that ISIS isn’t really Islamic.
Despite the fact that they’re called the Islamic State.
Despite the fact that they quote the Q’ran as they behead people.
Despite the fact that they’re forcing people to convert to Islam or die.
Despite the fact that when they’re captured, they demand Q’rans, prisons, imams, and halal meals in prison.
Despite the fact that Muslims protest that the prisoners are treated badly, or that it’s a War On Islam.
So, I took out a massive scimitar, and beheaded my friend.
“I guess I’m more Islamic than you,” I said.

Ashtray dinosaur

When I was little, my family had a great big green car.
It was from the days when everybody smoked, and there were ashtrays in the back.
I remember pulling out the ashtray assembly and stuffing a toy plastic dinosaur in the well of the seat panel.
I’d look in there every time I rode in that car.
Then, one day, my dad traded in that car for another.
The car and the dinosaur were gone.
I don’t worry too much about losing things.
I like to think of them as being with the dinosaur in his little ashtray cave.

Birthday presents

Instead of getting presents for my birthday from my parents, I give them presents.
After all, weren’t they the ones who gave me life in the first place?
I give my dad a tie and some flowers to my mother.
Then, on Fathers Day, I demand a present from my dad, because, after all, aren’t I the one who made him a father in the first place?
On Mothers Day, I demand a present from my mother, because, after all, aren’t I the one who made her a mother in the first place.
“That was your father’s fault,” she says.

Zip

I’ve always been a zipper-fly jeans wearer. Never been the button-fly kind of guy.
Never zipped the zipper into my cock, either. Never been that careless. Or drunk.
Until yesterday.
So, here I am in the hospital, all stitched up and drugged to the point of not caring.
I wish I had been drugged to the point of not remembering, too.
They asked for my ID and my insurance, and I told them it was in my wallet in my back pocket.
“Be gentle,” I said.
They were.
Seen the bill? The cuts will heal long before the wallet will.

Filters

It started with a simple filter. Fred sent email from his bank to a Banking folder.
Then, Fred filtered some mailing lists into their own folders.
All the while, Fred was creating filters for Spam, sending it to the trash.
A few rules here, a few filters there.
Then Fred added auto-responders. This let people know he got their mail.
Pretty soon, Fred’s email box could run itself.
Fred’s car, on the other hand, couldn’t drive itself.
He got drunk and ran into a tree, and died.
But Fred’s email box kept on going.
And so will yours, one day.

The Tenth Life

A friend once told me that when a beloved cat dies, their tenth lives are our memories of them.
The truth is, their tenth lives are as ghosts, and they haunt the shit out of us.
We see them out of the corners of our eyes.
We feel them near when we are trying to sleep.
We hear them in the kitchen, or in the closet, or under the bed.
And it scares the shit out of us.
Maybe when we tend to our other cats, or the new kitten, do they get bored with us, and they move on.

Weekly Challenge #722 – Hot Potato

Zzzzz

DAVID

In a world gone wild, the stage was set for the decimation of the world record. The stadium was loud and rukous. Bets were being made in Vegas and the back rooms of laundromats. No one believed it could be done. No one but one little man from the dirty streets of Woodburn, Oregon. He alone believed he could chuck a hot potato 100 yards into the gaping mouth of a 12 year old child from bangladesh. With a wave of his potato, he silenced the crowd and eyed his distant trembling, sunbaked target and let his starchy legacy fly.

TOM

He wanted to have a cool code name. Like Raging Bear or Screaming Eagle. What he got was Hot Potato. He thought it might be some kind of a joke, but the GRU isn’t what you would call a laugh riot. This of course didn’t stop his fellow Russkey spooks from including it in ever dispatch back to Moscow. They thought it was terrible funny. Moscow didn’t get the joke, so they promoted him to section chief. With all the traffic incepts scoped up a myth grew around Hot Potato inside the NSA. Moscow scopes of the NSA made Hot Potato a legend

NORVAL JOE

Billbert’s mother watched the Ferarri following them in the rear veiw mirror. “Who is this Marissa girl?”
“She sits in front of me in math class. She’s really pretty, really rich, and super popular. I think her dad is in the mob,” Billbert said. “Earlier in the week she acted like she wanted to go to the dance with me. Then she dropped me like a hot potato when her old boyfriend, Tony, showed up.”
His mother frowned thoughtfully. “I didn’t think we had the mob here in Winklerville. What’s Marissa’s last name?”
“It’s something Italian, like, Balloni or Rigatoni.”

SERENDIPIDY

You loved your food, didn’t you?

Always taking the last helping, grabbing the largest slice of cake, helping yourself to other people’s snacks… My snacks!

I never got to lick the bowl, choose my favourite, or enjoy the last slice of pie. It was you who got the best pickings, while I did without.

They say, those who live by the sword, die by the sword, so…

We’ll start with this steaming hot potato, mashed into your fat face, followed by a nice Naga chilli rub.

And then, the pizza… Scalding hot sauce, that’ll flay your flesh from the bone!

LIZZIE

“This is a problem.”
Everyone nodded and looked at the entrance of the tunnel.
“This is a huge problem.”
Everyone nodded some more and looked at the entrance of the tunnel.
Silence.
“What if we close it down?”
All eyes landed on the unfortunate soul who uttered such nonsense.
“It’ll be the end of the town!”
Everyone looked back at the entrance of the tunnel.
“There’s a light over there,” whispered the unfortunate soul.
“We know, it’s the hole caused by the landslide.”
“There’s a light…”
“Stop it!”
The light at the end of the tunnel was not the hole.

RICHARD

Turn of phrase

“You think you’re a real hot potato, don’t you?”

I looked at my boss quizzically, “I’m sorry, I don’t quite follow?”

“And that’s your problem – you don’t follow… Instructions!”

You may have noticed my boss has, well let’s say he has an ‘interesting’ turn of phrase, so management instructions could sometimes come across as… Confusing!

“Look at you now, thinking on your feet, instead of up here”, he snarled, tapping his temple. “Now, how about you make me my coffee? Go… Push the envelope!”

How he ever got a job as Dean of the Language Faculty, I’ll never know.

PLANET Z

It’s pretty simple to cook a potato these days.
Poke a few holes in it with a fork, put it on a plate, and run it through the microwave for a few minutes.
I know some folks who slice potatoes in half, sprinkle on some salt and pepper, and put them in their toaster ovens.
Me, I prefer boiled potatoes.
Especially when they’re boiled with crawdads and corn.
The seasoning permeates the potato and gives it a lot of flavor.
I know one guy who wraps them in foil and runs them through the dishwasher.
That dude’s really weird, though.