From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sun Jun 25 2000 - 22:58:20 MDT
>Sorry Brian. Gotta say this. Then I'm unsubscribing.
>
>Imagine Brian is a woman, Brianna.
>Imagine Natasha is a man, Nathan.
>Imagine Max is a woman, Maxine.
"wha...?" Harv stares incredulously at the monitor. He slaps the
side of his iMac to clear the display, but it doesn't help. He tried
ROT-13, but the display is still garbled. He tries PGP. He tries
fractal algorithms. Nothing helps.
>This really helps see what's happening with Max's machismo blow-up.
Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the Help Center launches. "I don't
need help," Harv complains to the monitor while hitting the
close-window key to no avail. "Help never helped anybody."
>But some background is really needed too.
Then the desktop pattern disappeared, leaving Harv staring into a
black expansive of void. "Uh oh..." He didn't move.
>Go back a few months
His eyes flick nervously to look at the menu clock which has begun
racing backward in time like an H.G.Wells applet.
>(Fast Forward a few months.)
Then, just as inexplicably, it starts racing forward. Harv slowly
starts inching his hand toward the mouse.
>Brianna[....]
An icon appears on the screen as Harv grabs the mouse.
>Maxine[....]
Another icon appears on the opposite side of the screen as Harv's
other hand reaches for the keyboard. The icons slowly start circling
around the screen like two boxers in the ring.
> ('racist', 'misogynist', etc.).
Random words start spewing out of the voice synthesizer modules. "Oh
no you don't," Harv exclaims as he frantically tries to launch Virex.
>Brianna
>>>Stan
>Maxine
More icons are appearing behind the original icons. There seem to be
two groups forming, opposing each other. Harv starts right-clicking
icons to scan them, but they are appearing faster than he can point
and click.
>Brianna
>>>Pauline Borsok
>Maxine
More icons appear at a furious rate. Harv is sweeping whole segments
of the screen and hitting function keys.
>A long time goes by.
He has no idea how long this goes on. For every icon he squashes,
hundreds more appear. They are shooting at each other like Space
Invaders gone mad. Harv almost thinks that under the random voice
synthesized babbling he can here the almost forgotten words: "Stop
the Invaders! Kill the humanoids!"
>emails [....] odd emails [....]
>Zip from Maxine [....]
The Internet control panel shows that messages are flowing in and out
of his system at a phenomenal rate. Some of the bug-like icons have
crawled out of the screen and are now crawling down the USB cable
toward Harv's Zip Drive.
>Fast forward to June 2000.
The clock stops its nauseating cycle. "How can this be happening?"
Harv wails, still clicking with one hand and typing with the other.
"We killed all of the Y2K bugs in the last millenium! This is the
logical paradise of the future! How can 21st century hardware have
the same communications problems as the 20th century?"
>Brianna
>Maxine
>Brianna
>Maxine
>Nathan
>Brianna
>Maxine
>Nathan
More icons are appearing. Just as the Y2K bugs are about to reach
the Zip Drive, Harv reaches over in desperation and yanks the USB
cable out of its socket. Instantaneously, the Y2K bugs along the
cable promptly vanish. The Millenium logo appears on his screen. It
is a snake feeding on its own tail. In a similar manner, it seems to
be feeding the hoard of swarming Y2K bugs that are raging a civil war
of consipiracy on his screen. He hears Frank Black saying "my voice
is my password."
>Nathan then disappears.
>*Maxine* then attacks Brianna!
>Extropians join in!
>Earth to Extropians: Anyone understand yet?
A look of understanding crosses Harv's face. He lets go of the Zip
Drive cable, and then reaches over for the Internet cable. He yanks
it out of the wall while the remaining icons disappear with a
deafening howl. The Millennium logo fades lastly, as if it were
never there at all. The room is echoing in the silence.
>P.S. This way of looking at things was someone else's idea, for the record.
Harv suddenly wakes up with a jerk. He wipes the drool off the side
of his face, and feels the indentions the keyboard has made on his
face. He stares a moment uncomprehendingly at the normal-looking
screen. The single window shows Spike's posted suggestions that we
should gang up and mock anti-Extropian posts made to the list.
"That didn't make any sense at all," Harv mutters.
After a pause, he picks up a half finished bottle of Sobe all-natural
juice beverage and tilts the bottle to read the label. "New improved
formula my ass!" He slams the unfinished bottle into a waste
receptacle. Some of the liquid splatters on the outside where
droplets ooze down the side leaving trails of color through the
Windows recycle logo. Harv staggers off to look for something
alcoholic to drink
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> IBM Certified Senior Security Consultant, Legal Hacker, Engineer, Research Scientist, Author.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:29:30 MST