Speak Stiltedly and Wear a Yellow Shirt

X.1.2

You can’t tell from your end, but I’ve gone high-tech. My stone-age mac is all fast and aqua now.

How did it all happen, you probably won’t ask but I’ll tell you anyway - but first, why? Macs are a little annoying in that they go on working perfectly well while you’re salivating over a new firewire Powerbook, then a new grape iBook, then a new Titanium PowerBook, then a new pearly iBook, or a new Cube, then a new G4, then a really snazzy new iMac with the flat screen display on the robot arm. But your old mac keeps going and going and going, like the Energizer bunny, even though you run ten programs at once on its paltry 64MB of memory and fill up its teensy weensy hard drive with Joan’s Buffy scripts, Jim’s Voyager Reviews, mpegs of musicals and embarrassing pictures of Spike to be explained later. If you don’t do much with it besides IM your beta reader, edit your fic, and read your mail, then you don’t need new operating systems every six months. MacOS 8.6 was a very good year, you tell yourself, and you know you’re right.

Then, if you’re really lucky, your boss asks you, token Mac addict among the Windows sufferers, to deal with the Mac port that so-and-so requested. And then he says that lovely word, “reimburse”. Gotta love that word…

And that’s how I found myself at the Mac store yesterday, having enough memory (and then some) installed to run OS X on my Bronze-age Mac. I considered just buying the memory, on the off-chance that I would fry the motherboard or something trying to install it myself, thus creating the perfect excuse to buy a nice new titanium PowerBook - but I couldn’t do that to my poor mac. And it’s a good thing I didn’t try it at home, because there were problems - the specs were a little vague on the question of adding RAM, and the 256MB didn’t work. I suspect the problem was that it was designed for up to 192MB in each slot, bringing it up to its telling maximum of 384MB. (I know, I’m boring you.) If I could be bothered to read the directions, I could have told the genius dudes that.

Instead (yes, interesting part now), I came off looking like a twit, with my desktop image of Spike that I forgot about, because something is always covering it when I’m using the computer. (Ten programs take up a lot of screen space.) Just the night before, my lovely sister Veronica had admired Spike when I was burning my fic to a backup CD using her new iMac, but did I stop and think, take Spike off the desktop before somebody sees him? No, of course not.

Nevertheless, I made it out of the store with new ram in, and the old ram out. (Anybody need 64MB of SO-DIMM, at 100Mhz? It won’t work in a new iMac, but an old one, or a Powerbook, would take it.) The next, and scariest, step was formatting the hard drive. That isn’t usually necessary, but I had a Yellowdog Linux partition taking up half my teensy weensy hard drive, and OS X, being Unix itself, needed just as much space. So I ascended the ladder of operating systems from 8.6, past 9.2.1, to X.1.2.

OS X is so cool. I remember way back when the OS X Server was in development and my supervisor had somehow convinced Apple that he was a Mac developer and got a copy. It was cool. Now it’s way, way cool.

It’s also very slick, and designed to keep people who have no clue what they’re doing out of trouble. I’ve been using Unixen of various types since I’d rather not say when - though the soft spot in my heart for SunOS 4 says more than enough - and if you’d told me Unix could be user-friendly, I would have responded with the full syllogism: “UNIX is user friendly. It’s just selective about who its friends are.”

What did I think I was getting in the nice white box with the big X, then? I don’t know - I guess I didn’t believe that there was really a Unix under all that aqua. Maybe I thought it was some sort of velocity engine too deep for mere mortals to access. Then I found the command line - this puppy is running a Turbo C shell just for me. You can’t fake tcsh - I know, because I’ve installed my share of clunky poseurs on Windows.

Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.

And Don’t Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out

(A sequel to Bye Bye Bye. For previous chapters, see Jemima’s Annotated Guide to the Blog Wars.)

Jemima mounted the soapbox that had taken out Seven of Nine.

“That’s enough!” she shouted. “There isn’t room in the van for the boyband, the Britney and the 80 million teenagers. You are hereby banished to one of the frostier circles of Hell.” Jemima snapped her fingers, and the extras disappeared.

“Much better,” Lori said. Seema sent Tom to the wetbar for another margarita as Jemima watched thirstily. Then a lightbulb appeared above her head, and she snapped her fingers again.

A platinum-blond appeared and said, “Bloody hell! This scene again.”

“Spike, take the wheel. As long as we’re in this galaxy, we may as well blow up the Death Star.” Jemima rubbed her hands together eagerly.

“Which one?” Lori asked.

“There’s always one hanging around,” Jemima assured her. “Snape, fetch me a Guinness.”

Snape appeared from behind the wetbar and poured Jemima a foamy one.

“Now this is the life - two poolboys and a perilous mission to save the galaxy.” Jemima dismounted the soapbox and sat down in one of the minivan seats, putting her feet up. Snape retrieved a tray of deviled eggs from behind the wetbar and began serving.

Chakotay cleared his throat. Everyone ignored him. Jemima handed her Guinness to Snape to hold and pulled out her UFO bag - not the unfinshed fanfiction, but the unfinished cross-stitch projects. “Lori,” she proposed, “how about a real round robin?”

“Sean, fetch my crochet bag,” Lori said, and the two stitchers were soon deeply involved in their other common addiction.

“When will you drop us off in the Delta Quadrant?” Chakotay asked.

“Are you still here?” Jemima frowned. “Talk to Seema about tying up that loose end.” Seema saw him coming, however, and had Tom run interference while she started on her third margarita and petted her angst bunny.

“Say, luv, does this van have any armaments?” Spike called from the front.

“There’s probably a freeze-ray around here somewhere - why?” Jemima said.

“Because we’re coming up on that Death Star you ordered.”

“As a neutral country, I must protest,” Liz said, “or at least bravely run away.” Harry, Hermione and Ron gathered around her, drawing their wands and and uncorking a few potions in preparation for a sudden retreat.

“Fine, but leave my poolboy here,” Jemima said. Snape gave her one of those piercing, ambiguous looks that was so much more complex than a vapid Volvo-boy smile, and she sighed contentedly. There was nothing in the world like semi-evil, tortured poolboys who looked good in black.

“It was nice seeing you, Liz,” Seema said pointedly.

Such little hints were lost on Jemima, who added, “And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

(Dazed and confused? See Jemima’s Annotated Guide to the Blog Wars.)

I forgot to mention another blog war chapter, From the Swiss Department of War, by Liz. I think it comes before Lori’s installment. Rumor has it Blogger ate Seema’s next chapter. And where did I get this reputation for yelling? I have not yet begun to yell…

The blog war series continues in The Blogger Strikes Back. Lori made my poolboy disappear, which was quite unfair, but she made up for it by straying into yet another fandom. Elsewhere (in the Lori Fan Club, if you must know) Lori links AAA is happening again this year. Though it’s been half a year since I produced any significant J/C, for a lark I looked through my VOY fic to see if I had enough “new” stories to enter. I entered ten last year, out of eleven categories, and I found seven fresh ones already for this year’s mercifully curtailed contest. Nor does that fill the count of my J/C fics. Kahless, but B’Elanna the Canon-Correcting Muse was productive in her day. Buffybot has nothing on her…yet.

So am I going to do it? Do I need one last bad contest experience for old times’ sake? I’m not reading all the (non-smut) entries this time, that’s for sure. Pardon me while I reminisce - AAA is bringing back all sorts of memories of a year ago, when fandom was new (to me) - before C/7, before VOY went off the air, before virtual seasons and bitterness and the mass-unsubscribes as people abandoned VOY for greener pastures.

Ahem. Anyway, I had a few J/C stories tied up in other contests at the time the first AAA was going on, and I wrote a few more, in those last months after AAA and before BOFQ. Although repeat entries are allowed, just for the principle of the thing, I’m not going to repeat any of last year’s entries. Here are my losing fics, both past and planned:

It’s a tighter bunch, anyway, except for The Museum, weighing in at 225k. Since it ate half my year, it deserves to be in there. I may want to switch Thrive with A Light Beyond - what kind of catgory is Friendship/Hurt/Comfort, anyway?

Sorry for the lack of links. The stories are all available on my Voyager fic page.

Take the What Should Your New Year’s Resolution Be? Quiz

I came home to four feedback emails for a new fic I hadn’t even had a chance to announce here yet (because blogger’s been up and down), Jade’s Drabble. It’s just a drabble, but Jade’s been passing it around the J/C lists. I think this might be the first time I’ve gotten feedback totalling more words than the story itself.

The previous post may have been the last blog war volley…dare I hope? Another bit of whoo-hoo news: Psyche is back up. The sky isn’t falling after all.

Jintian has a new article up at zendom, about Real People Fic. She suggests that people who live in glass fandoms shouldn’t throw stones…or something like that.

Jemima ex machina

(for previous posts, see Jemima’s Annotated Guide to the Blog Wars)

Kira was distracted from Chekov’s heavily-accented attentions by a comm hail, informing her that an unusual ship had requested permission to dock. “Put it on the viewscreen in here,” she told Ops, glad for the distraction.

A large black van was approaching the docking ring.

“What is that?” Kira asked.

“That’s a truck, ma’am,” Tucker informed her. At her puzzled stare, he added, “A ground transport vehicle powered by fossil fuels. Watch that baby fly!”

“That van looks familiar,” Buffy said, climbing down from Worf’s shoulder.

“Is that the Death Star painted on the side?” Xander asked.

“Right-o,” Willow said, plucking a stray leaf out of her hair and edging away from Chakotay. Her witchly senses told her something big was up - a crackle in the air like lightning, in which case she didn’t want to be caught standing under a tree.

“Why is a truck docking at my space station?” Kira asked.

“We picked one up in the Delta Quadrant a few years back,” Chakotay told her. “They get around.”

A hush fell over the conference room, and lasted until the door opened.

“Cool!” said a rather short, dark-haired geek in a Star Wars t-shirt. “T’Pol, Seven of Nine, Kira–”

“Jonathan, what are you doing here?” Willow asked.

“Would you believe following the Slayer around as part of a nefarious scheme to take over Sunnydale?” the short geek asked.

“As if!” Buffy said, and the other Scoobies laughed.

“Fine,” he said huffily. “I’m Jemima’s driver. Warren installed a warp drive in the van, and here we are.”

“Where’s Jemima?” Lori and Seema asked in unison.

“She and Anya stopped at Quark’s for a drink. She said something about always having wanted to try Romulan ale.”

“Anya!” Xander choked out. He let go of Ezri, who fell a full two feet to the floor and sprained an ankle.

“Jemima is on her way,” Jonathan said, wagging a finger at the crowd. “You know what that means.”

“Weddings,” Spike said.

At the mention of marriage McCoy and Chekov, sixties characters to the core, filed out the door of the conference room. Riker was edging towards the exit himself when a tall, buxom, blonde woman strode through the doorway, carrying a box marked Ivory. She placed it on the ground in front of the crowd.

“Is that Jemima?” Kira whispered to Willow.

“No, that’s just Anya.”

“Anya…honey…how was your trip?” Xander asked. His fiancee eyed the gnome on the floor, then dragged Xander into a corner for a good scolding.

Suddenly, everyone noticed a figure framed by the heavy Cardassian architecture of the doorway. She was of average height, with wavy, flowing locks and flashing eyes of indeterminate hue. “Hi, Lori,” she said, and “Hi, Seema - fancy meeting you here.”

“Welcome to DS9,” Seema replied. Lori gave Jemima the secret handshake.

“Now, about this blog war…” Jemima said as she mounted the soapbox. The poolboys tensed, Buffy drew her best stake and Spike’s fangs appeared. Willow began replicating wedding dresses. “When someone says war, I expect to see photon torpedos and Genesis waves and Chakotay weeping over Janeway’s apparently-dead body - whole planets assimilated by the Borg, species wiped out, redshirts bleeding profusely, and Harry Kim dead again.”

Buffy cleared her throat.

“Oh, yes,” Jemima added, “and giant snakes eating the high school, Earth getting sucked into an unknown hell dimension, Spike saving humanity just because they’re so snackable, and Buffy dead again.”

“Sounds messy,” Seema observed.

“That’s the idea. So the next time you declare war, I want to see a war, not a round robin.” Jemima caught Lori’s eye. “Is that so much to ask?”

“I guess not,” Seema said. Lori shook her head, but there was a sparkle in her eye that made her poolboys nervous.

“Now that that’s settled, we can move on to the weddings. Kira, will you do the honors?” Jemima asked. The Bajoran agreed to perform the wedding ceremony, hoping to appease this Victorian Prophet and get her station back as quickly as possible.

“Thank you. Now, when I call out your names, pair up and don your formalwear.” The crowd shuffled nervously as Jemima took a little purple notebook out of her pocket and opened it. “Crusher and Riker…” Riker turned pale and Beverly looked positively ill. “You two are dismissed. Lori has pairings prepared for you when you get home.”

Lori raised an eyebrow as Beverly and Will fled the conference room in relief.

“Anya and Xander,” Jemima announced, and Anya squealed in delight. Xander shrugged on the tuxedo jacket Willow was holding out for him, looking resigned.

“Tucker and T’Pol,” Jemima said next. Tucker gave out a whoop.

“This procedure is highly illogical,” said T’Pol, “yet strangely fascinating.” Willow replicated a pecan pie with a tiny bride and groom on top.

“Worf and Ezri Dax,” Jemima announced.

Seema protested. “What about those trill rules?”

“You’re the ones who were bashing the writers,” Jemima explained. “Do you expect me to follow their idiotic rules?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but named the next couple, “Chakotay and Seven of Nine.”

Chakotay maintaned his arboreal calm, but Seven protested. “I have no established interest in Commander Chakotay.” Captain Janeway would be highly displeased, as well. “May I marry Ensign Kim instead?”

“No,” Jemima said, with a touch of regret.

“The Doctor?” Seven suggested, but the matchmaker merely shook her head. “Axum?”

“Sorry, Seven, but you and Chakotay are canon.”

“I will…adapt.” Seven pulled a white dress on over her catsuit.

“Last but not least,” Jemima pronounced, “Buffy and Spike.”

“Bollocks!” Spike exclaimed. “Wait a minute - this means I get to move in.” Willow helped the lucky vampire into a tuxedo with tails.

Buffy watched in shock, then approached the soapbox. “I can’t marry Spike,” she said. “He doesn’t have a soul.”

“Don’t talk back to the author,” Lori warned her.

Jemima was tired of the soul excuse. “You’re not doing your Vamp Tramp of the Hellmouth routine in my blog, young lady,” she said. “It’s high time you settled down.”

Buffy frowned, but took the dress Willow handed her.

“What about me, o bloggy one?” Willow asked, eyeing Kira Nerys. Jonathan hid himself under the conference table.

“Sorry,” Jemima replied, “it’s the Season of Evil Willow. I can’t marry you off until you clean up your act.”

“What about Kira?” Willow protested.

“Seema can handle Kira.” Seema nodded, and Willow pouted. “I can give you Evil Jonathan under the table there,” Jemima offered, relenting slightly.

“I’ll pass,” Willow said.

Jemima looked down upon the collection of couples in their tuxedos and white dresses, and saw that it was good. “Make it so,” she instructed Kira as she dismounted her soapbox. Kira began the traditional Bajoran group wedding ceremony, and Jemima opened her box and placed five bottles of Bajoran blue wine on the conference table, next to the pecan pie.

“Where did you get those?” Seema whispered to her.

“Quark’s,” Jemima whispered back. “My work here is done, ladies. If you need a lift, my van’s parked on the docking ring.”

  Puppy:  off
  Word of the day:  hoarse

Well, the puppy didn’t recognize my voice, so I’m back to the manual approach. No time to review, but I will include the list of what’s outstanding: American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Thief of Time by Terry Pratchet, Downbelow Station by C. J. Cherryh and Falling Free by LMB. I’m also in the middle of her Borders of Infinity.

Remember Good Omens by Gaiman and Pratchett? I wonder whether that book began the whole fad of occult-as-comedy that is raking in the big bucks for Joss Whedon on UPN. It was, in any event, a good book. Separately, though, Gaiman and Pratchett leave something to be desired. American Gods is also, for lack of a better term, a fantasy, as is Thief of Time and, I presume, the entire Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. American Gods is entirely nondescript. It follows the fates of certain Old World deities transplanted to America and not doing well at all, and of an ex-con who gets a job working, dying and rising again for one of them. Gaiman can write well enough that one wishes he had something to write about.

Thief of Time is a better book, having a more coherent plot and less unpleasant and unenlightening realism, but it lacks the deeper level one assumes Gaiman was trying to reach. Is it better to succeed at less, or fail at more? As humor, it’s not The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - and if you mean to get by on humor alone, you have to go Hitchhiker-far with it to please me. Yet it was a fun, readable book, and if it had been scifi I’d probably be recommending it right now. Fantasy leaves me cold, though, whenever it fails to achieve Tolkienesque levels - and it always fails. Someday I’ll put into words what it is about scifi that can carry a mediocre book, and what it is about humor and fantasy that makes even above-average books fail - someday.

Two down, two to go.

No, I’m not complaining that the Blog War has sunk even lower than Seema’s realpeople fic level. I was in Trek a little too long to be shocked at the sight of a Mary Sue.

That’s not my woe, but woe are we, for Psyche’s Transcripts are gone! Has the long arm of the law reached all the way to Germany? Why, oh why, didn’t I download when I had the chance? And who will replace Psyche, now that she’s 404 not found?

I volunteer, English Chick - I have offshore accounts and I’m not afraid of lawyers or Cease and Desist orders. There are no bandwidth limits on me. Let me be your happy hostess…

Armabloggen [5/?]

(see previous post for…previous posts)

“Aren’t any of you demons?” Buffy asked.

Xander pointed at the gnarly creature passed out on the floor. “He looks like a demon.”

“He’s my tactical officer,” said one of the men in red pajamas, striking an indignant pose.

“He’s my tactical officer,” said the woman with the scrunchy nose and the name that sounded like one of those diseases Xander came home with after a particularly bad episode.

“He is a Klingon,” the starving woman with the pointy ears explained.

“Don’t mind Worf,” said the woman who’d come in just as Lori had left. “He always acts that way. I’m Beverly, by the way.”

“I’m Buffy. But I still don’t understand who you people are.”

“I’m Chief Medical Officer of the starship Enterprise.”

Xander snorted. “Right, and I’m Mr. Spock.”

“Hey! Dr. Phlox is our CMO,” drawled the man who’d been running around with a pecan pie. Now he was eating it.

Kira Nerys shook her head. “Please keep the Temporal Prime Directive in mind, people.”

“There is no Temporal Prime Directive,” T’Pol argued.

“It applies retroactively,” Kira lied.

“Will?” The annoying man in red looked up at Buffy. “Uh, Willow…” Buffy poked the redhead, distracting her from her admiration of Kira’s earrings. “Geekiness is your area - can you tell us if these people are really Star Trek characters?”

“Well, I was a Voyager girl myself, back when they were on the air - ship of the Valkyries and all that, you know. So I can vouch for Seven of Nine over there.” Willow smiled shyly at the Borg.

The man with leaves in his hair cleared his throat. No one paid any attention, so he added, “I’m also from Voyager.”

Willow dragged her eyes away from Seven’s implants and tried to focus on the large, pajama-clad man. “Sorry, I don’t remember you. I missed part of second season…”

“I’m the first officer!” the leafy man insisted.

“Were you?” Willow replied. “I thought the Vulcan was first officer.”

“I was captain of the Maquis ship!”

“You mean Seska wasn’t the head of the Maquis? I liked Seska…until she turned evil, of course,” Willow added, glancing at Buffy nervously.

“I…”

“Anyway,” Willow interrupted, “if you’re from Voyager, where are Captain Janeway and B’Elanna Torres? I’m sure they could settle this war right away.”

“Is Captain Janeway a good mediator?” T’Pol asked.

“Mediator?” Willow laughed. “Janeway would blow Lori halfway across the Delta Quadrant just for looking at her funny, and B’Elanna would slice Seema into tiny little bits with her bat’leth - because you know, Seema is just two letters away from Seska, and Seska was bad.” She glanced at Buffy again.

The Slayer took the opportunity to cut to the chase. “Ok, assuming you’re all from Star Trek, how did you get involved in the Blog Apocalypse?”

“Do you mean the Blog War?” Kira asked.

“Whatever.” Buffy twirled her stake, waiting for an answer.

Kira cleared her throat. With Worf unconscious, security was at a low ebb, and that stake looked awfully pointy. “We’ve all gathered here to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the blog war. Although with Lori claiming there never was a war–”

Spike crushed out the cig he’d been smoking. “Ok, mates, there’s your first mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Riker asked, puffing out his chest.

“I mean there’s your first mistake - trying to settle things peacefully,” Spike said. “That’s why all you blokes are off the air–”

“We’re still on the air,” T’Pol interrupted. Tucker mumbled agreement around a mouthful of pecan pie.

“Give it a few months,” Spike replied dismissively. “You were always trying to play nice with the bad guys. Negotiate. Compromise. Very bad idea. Like that whole treaty with the Cardassians - look how that blew up in your faces.”

“Hey, Captain Picard negotiated that treaty,” Riker said.

“My point exactly.” Spike lit another cigarette, and continued his argument. “Do you want to know why we get the ratings, the Emmys, and the big, big bucks?”

“Yes,” Seven of Nine said.

“How big?” Riker asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Xander told him sotto voce.

“Because,” Spike said, “we kill the bad guys. Buffy here stakes them right through the heart.” Buffy made a demonstrative staking motion, and several pajama-clad people backed away. “That’s what you people need,” Spike explained, “stakes, crossbows and throwing knives. No negotiating. No more wanking around.”

“That’s all it takes?” Beverly asked.

“Well, that and the occasional apocalypse,” Willow said. “Lucky for you, we brought our own. One Blog Apocalypse, coming up. I’ll just replicate some stakes, and you’ll be ready when Lori and Seema come back in.”

“We could certainly use the ratings,” Tucker said.

  Puppy:  off
  Word of the day:  incitement

This time I have an excuse - I’ve been too ill to blog. I have been racking up the books, however, and my sister gave me a nice stack of LMB for my birthday. I’m far enough behind, however, that I’ll have to drag out the puppy tomorrow and dictate. For now, though, let me make a note on seeing The Lord of the Rings. Today I finished rereading The Fellowship of the Ring to clean my brain out after the movie. The scenery was wonderful, and the choices of what to cut from the book were not bad choices. However, the choices to rewrite the dialogue, plot and characters were all bad choices - too many to name, but all of them poor indeed. Let me clue the producer in: You’re not J.R.R. Tolkien. You’re not even Christopher Tolkien.

If I had to pick the biggest nit, it wouldn’t be the fifty Ring-shots. It wouldn’t be Arwen oozing elfish essence into Frodo. It wouldn’t even be Aragorn the Slacker. It would be, strangely enough, Frodo moaning glassy-eyed in pain from the moment he’s stabbed by the Ringwraiths until he wakes up in Rivendell. In the book, Frodo took it like a hobbit, and formed complete sentences all the way to the Ford.

Still, the scenery was nice.