Got this one from Best Buy. Bigger and more expensive that I was planning, but that’s insane specs at that price (and it’s actually better than advertised; it’s a 1920×1200 WUXGA 17″ monitor, not a 1440×900 WXGA). The thing is a gaming machine and supposed to be able to run Crysis on high settings. It might even be powerful enough to run Vista.
Anyway, screw you guys; I have to go set it up.
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Chapters 1 – 39 Archive
Bryce was angry — he could admit that to himself — and perhaps he was acting a bit rashly. Lately there was no course of action that kept him out of danger, though, so he felt he might as well go for the slightly more dangerous yet satisfying route in hunting down Lara.
Bullets whizzed by Bryce’s ear. Lara wasn’t alone, and her associate was firing at Bryce wildly while running. Bryce fired back a bit more accurately and slightly less panickedly, and then it was just him and Lara. He realized his gun had gone empty, but he didn’t want to kill Lara anyway — not immediately.
As he caught up on Lara, she tried to swing her gun around towards Bryce, but he blocked it and slammed his fist into her face while stripping the gun away from her.
She touched the blood on her lip and looked at Bryce and smiled. “Well, Edmund, I guess–”
Bryce interrupted her with another right hook to her face and then grabbed her by her neck and slammed her against the wall.
Lara’s smile was gone. “Aren’t you the tough guy.”
“I’m getting a little tired of that ‘I know so much and you don’t expression.'” Bryce placed the gun to Lara’s forehead. “You’ve been playing me since I first met you, and I want to know why!”
“You think I know everything? I just have my instructions and I follow them. As I understand it, you had an ally helping you three get in here who would know a lot more than me. The Devil usually knows all the details.”
“He does probably no more than he’s telling and is playing us to…” Bryce elbowed her in the face. “…but you’re the only one who knows anything that I’m able to smack around.” He put the gun back to her head. “Why Doug? You all think this is some joke putting him through this?”
Despite the threats and the now bloody face, Lara still didn’t look very scared. “My understanding is there’s not a damn thing special about him. The powers that be just needed someone to get the ball rolling.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know all the details, but I know in the end it’s just a power struggle. Nothing more interesting than that. The reason Elza gets our loyalty is she offers us a piece of it.”
Bryce let go of her neck and grabbed the pouch containing the cube from her. “And what’s this about?”
“That, my friend, is the rock God made that he cannot lift. And right now that’s what we’re all hiding under.”
He pressed the gun harder against her head. “I don’t need the metaphysical crap.”
“Best I can give you.” She smiled. “We’re the ‘Last Children’; we need to stick together and help each other out.”
“I’m done with you.” Bryce backed off a step, and now firmed up the gun with both hands as he pointed at Lara’s face. “Goodbye, bitch.”
“You’re not going to kill me.”
“Why not?”
Lara smiled. “You’re just not.”
That only enraged Bryce further, but as he began to pull the trigger, Lara was on him, punching him in the face while grabbing the gun. He fell to the ground, and Lara was on top of him, hitting him repeatedly in the face with the gun. Dizzy and with blood getting in his eyes, he watched as Lara got up.
“That was fun; we should tussle again sometime.” She walked away. “Have fun with Loch.”
They have this product so you can check whether your coffee is actually decaff, but I think it would be useful for the caffeinated and paranoid (a great combination!). I’m always suspicious that someone is actually giving me decaff in an attempt to kill me, so now I can know for sure and dispense justice.
Though I’ll need some regular coffee first.
I thought I should follow up on my Two America post from the other day. Now, first off, this isn’t some impotent cry of anger like a succession; this is supposed to be a long term solution. We have two groups in America with divergent goals, and conservatives can’t actually get rid of liberals. They’ll always arise in a prosperous society and work on eroding freedom with their little fascisms because they have nothing better to do. That’s why I think we need to stay as one country but give each other his own sandbox to play in. Liberals will have their area to pass all the taxes, government programs, and nanny state laws they want, and conservatives (classic liberals) can have their own area where it’s made near impossible for government to do anything. We’ll all have the same military, same president (though his function will be just for foreign affairs), and you won’t need a passport or anything to move between the two Americas, but all there will be a big firewall between each area’s domestic laws.
Basically, it’s pretty much impossible to scale back the federal government with all the people who now depend on its programs, so instead let’s just redirect it to a more limited area. Now, Sissy America (or Enlightened America — I don’t care what we have to call it to get liberals to sign on) will have all the parts of the federal government that were dedicated to domestic affairs to itself and no longer have to worry about conservatives trying to stop their enlightened ideas… but they will also have to fund it solely by taxing the states that fall under their jurisdiction. As for Free America (or Stupid Rethuglican America — I really don’t care), it shouldn’t need any central authority as there would be nothing for it to do. We’re talking super scary, no net freedom. You have basic laws like don’t murder each other and police, but that’s about it.
Now, it will be a challenge figuring which states go in which America, and we might need to break up some states. Usually there would be huge resistance to that because of reduced political power, but since the elected president and representatives will deal only with foreign affairs and no pork or domestic programs, that won’t be as important (Sissy America will have to have its own separate centralized government to deal with domestic programs).
So that, once again, is the vision. You can’t have your Heinlein libertarian utopia because there will always be sissies who get scared and want to expand the government. So now, they’ll have a place within the same country to go if they get scared while leaving the rest of America free. Everyone is happy. I really think this is a workable solution.
Orin Kerr mused about what things are widely accepted now that will be looked down upon in the future. This gets me to a point I’ve made before that’s worth making again: People in the future are pretentious assholes. Where the @#$% do those effete pansies get off looking down on me? I swear, I’ve had enough of their attitude. If I ever get my hands on a time machine, I am coming after them and I am going to get Computer Age on their asses. And what are those useless future sissies going to do other than cry about it? Nothing.
I’m your ancestor, bitches. You respect me.
I figure most of my readers are already going to vote for me in the Weblog Awards… at least since Iowahawk wasn’t nominated. Or maybe you’ll vote for Treacher; who knows. Anyway, the point is I should be making out these appeals to non-regular readers who are checking out the site. So here are some representative posts of the humor you’ll find at IMAO. Thank you for your consideration.
