Bob and the Pool

Bob swayed. He didn't sway like a drunk or dizzy person but in the fashion of a tree swaying in the breeze. There was no breeze, but Bob swayed gently, trying to cool himself off in the warm, still air. The wind had not blown noticably for two weeks and the last rain was three weeks before that. The elephant stared at the inactive sprinklers recessed in the withered brown grass on either sode of the pair, moping.
Bob observed the elephant carefully. He'd never had a pet before, a few excessive squirrel families and once a pigeon consortium, but never an actual pet. He had developed some affection for the animal. He found its habits interesting and its dietary intake astonishing. If it weren't for the truckloads of hay that the daycare provided daily, it might even have been possible for the elephant to be malnuirished. Growing their own foliage would reduce any animals need for food, but Bob understood that people and elephants were far too obtuse to understand such things.
They also didn't have the sense to grow roots, something even the most idiotic ferns can manage with ease. This left the elephant in his rather morose and parched state. Bob tried to think of ways to improve the animal's spirits and even tried singing to it several of the songs they had overheard from the children of the daycare. Bob surmised that nothing would work until the rains came back, and even then the elephant would only be pleased for a few weeks before it wanted the sunshine to return.
Bob forced his attention to a more pressing issue: water. The elephant needed some and he could use some more himself. There was a river on the other side of town, but it was difficult to navigate both traffic and powerlines with an independently minded elephant in tow. There was a fountain nearby, with a basin large enough for both he and the elephant to soak. He watched the elephant shift about in its melancholic state and then Bob began to uproot himself.
Traffic was disrupted in the usual manner, in accordance with what one might expect with a tree and its elephant walking down the street. Bob was careful to wait at red lights, having had several close calls between the elephant and large trucks, but the journey was only a few dozen blocks and over with shortly. Some people gawked and others took photographs, some cursed the congestion and were quietly pleased to see the elephant and tree moving out of sight.
When Bob and the elephant reached the fountain, they found it infested with small children, similar in size and shape to those of the daycare, even if none of them were familiar as individuals. With some nudging, jostling, coaxing, and a generous distrubution of balloons, Bob and the elephant were able to secure for themselves some space in the water, with each of them splashed upon by jets spraying from the fountain.
The fountain was a pool, about thirty or so feet across, give or take, and about a foot and a half deep, taking or giving whatever had been given or taken from the aforementioned diameter. Water would spray up from jets cleverly concealed as small holes int he floor of the pool, in a pattern than changed rhythmically, but slowly enough to not startle the small children prone to playing in such places.
Bob eased himself into the pool and began to absorb water, while the elephant hopped about in circles, first counterclockwise and then the other way round. This hoping action, which Bob surmised was not beneficial to the pool, came to a slow stop as the elephant dsicovered another way to play. He began to suck up water with his turck and spray it on his back. The children laughed and cheered as the elephant showered himself. Being desirous of such adulations, the eelphant began to shower the children as well. Each spray yielded screeches and screams of joy. The children laughed and encircled the elephant, yarn balloons bobbing all around him.
As the others played, Bob studied his environs. The buildings nearby were taller than most. Most were taller than anything Bob had seen before moving into town. People gathered and stared. Some took pictures of the elephant, some of Bob, and some of the children. A short, skinny man with irridescent yellow eyes even poured some sort of powder into the pool. This didn't strike Bob as any stranger than what everyone else was doing, but it was very strange.
As Bob watched, large bubbles began to appear around the base of each of the jets of water. Large irridescent bubbles with a yellow tinge and an exquisite reflection of their environs. Bob tried to pop one with a low branch, but instead of bursting, it slowly collapsed and vanished into the foam. Bob reached for another only to see the bubbles shift away from him. He tried again at another jet and again the bubbles shifted away. This struck him as odd behavior for a bunch of bubbles, but odd behavior in things that shouldn't have any behavior was far too common around people.
Bob leaned over one of the jets and encircled it with larger branches. This kept the bubbles from getting away while giving him a chance to look at them up close. He realized two things very quickly. The first was that the bubbles weren't reflecting part of their environment, specifically the tree reaching over them. Instead of a reflection of his trunk, each bubble had what appeared to be an iris, the foam was a multitude of unblinking eyes staring at him. The second thing he realized was that his roots were losing their strength, making it harder for him to stay upright.
Fortunately for Bob, something he had not anticipated but should have known would happen did happen. The elephant, having filled its belly with water and in a cheery mood more typical of Michelle, the daycare manager, needed to void its bladder. Being an animal, it did so where it stood, in the fountain. The children laughed, screamed, cheered, and vacated the pool in short order. The bubbles staring at Bob began to dissolve near the elephant and Bob's root strength began to come back as well. Bob waited until the pool had returned to normal and then went home with a disconcerted feeling of having just encoutered something conifivorous.

Goe, bigger than a breadbasket.

it grates

actual conversation about favoritism by managers.

me: the shit grates.
bossman: yeah
me: i mean the shit grates. i don't know how because shit is actually kind of gooey and it shouldn't grate.
bossman: not if you eat a lot of corn.
me: even then, it's still gooey.
bossman: what about a lot of fiber?
me: even then. maybe if you were dehydrated and ate a lot of fiber.
bossman: what if you ate glass?
(5 minutes later)
me (to bosslady): bossman and i were discussing the viscosity of feces.
bosslady: that's disgusting. ewww. gross. eww.

Goe, will panacea for fun and profit.

bob

trying to write a new bob story.

Goe, very stressed.

more stories

werewolf one is cool. you can find a link here.

you can't find one here though.

Goe, just pointing out the obvious.

stories n stuff

More stories.

Goe, cause reading is good (and the bonodminton one is pretty freakin' cool).

stories

there's yet another storyblogging carnival up.

Goe, providing linkage and whatnot.

people

Was riding the train to the store and overheard part of a conversation about lawn mowers. It seems that the people having the conversation were in agreement that the safety bar (the one that you have to hold or the lawn mower shuts off) is a poor idea as a person may need to mow their lawns with their hands full. Do these people have a habit of carrying things around while trying to mow their lawns or did they just chew on a lot of chinese lead paint? The really annoying thing (so annoying that I got off and caught the next train to finish my little journey) is that while in agreement, they were trying to out-do one another in their understanding of how ludicrous the safety bar is. The good thing is that Crazy Guy was going to work on the second train and we were able to speak briefly. Later on, I saw someone else I knew from even before the Long Ago.

Goe, watching the last of his rented movies.

The War

Being a history buff, I was interested in the new ww2 documentary running on pbs. working umpteen hours a day made it a little difficult, and i've thusfar only seen about fifteen minutes of one episode. i wasn't impressed with what i did see. ww2 wasn't defined by racial tensions in defense plants in mobile, alabama, and if you make a ww2 documentary that can go without mentioning any of the combatant nations besides the united states for 15 minutes, you're probably leaving out the big picture.

Goe, clicking on 'PUBLISH POST' in 5...4...3...2...1...

overheard on the sidewalk

so i'm walking home from work a few days ago, and i pass this kid and his mother trying to load stuff into a car. the kid (whom i'd guess was 10-12) is telling the mother that the case she's holding won't fit. she said something to him in spanish, and he replied 'then try it, lesbo'.

Goe, thinks it'll be hard to keep that one off his lawn.

odd ad

was poking around online and saw an ad repeated several times on one page. the ad was for a charity and one of the messages it kept throwing out was "and remember, unlike prostate cancer, generosity won't kill you."

a little too close to "give us money or die painfully" kind of theme going there...

Goe, not worried about dying cause he's not a puny mortal like YOU!

77th storyblogging carnival

it was put up monday by Mr. Crankshaw.

Goe, linking to it.

8th day

my 8th day of jogging and I went four miles this morning. will do that all week then try for six next week.

Goe, feelin' a might bit peckish.

whee

so I took up jogging this sunday, and the last three days I was able to go two miles, going to see if I can up that to four this coming week.

Goe, weirded out at the moment.

Trick of the light

The place I go running at has a park bench every quarter mile or so. Today I was running past one and it looked like it was made of a translucent orange plastic. It was a green bench, sitting in front of green bushes, and had been poorly repainted orange. Made me go wtf? for a second.

Goe, tired of not working.

Squirrels

To make up for the exercise I'm not getting at job#1 these days, I've taken up jogging. There's a park with a trail through it within walking distance from where I live, and while there yesterday there was an incident of squirrelly interest. There are signs indicating quite plainly that the squirrels are not to be fed by park-goers, but this obviously happens anyways because the squirrels like to come out of their trees and follow a few feet behind people utilizing the trail. Yesterday, the day mentioned prior, three squirrels began to follow me as I was going along the trail. I looked back at them and saw the closest one turn and chase the other two off before resuming it's vain pursuit of goodies I didn't have and wouldn't have shared with a rodent in any event.

Goe, knows that even though everybody wants something from him, it's only sometimes funny.

HSX

My account on the Hollywood Stock Exchange, a hollywood-centered investment game, is now worth over $340 million of the fake investment money. It's probably been close to a year since I've even looked at it, it's almost all based on solid investments I made several years before that.

Goe, amazed himself.

Perils of Peeping

He stared at the form. It was the same form he'd been filling out for 5 months, with only a few label changes from the previous form, which itself predated his 7 years of employment in this office. He knew this form intimately. He even dreamt about this form. His entire life seemed to be wrapped up neatly in the inviting yet limited rectangles, the attention-getting but forbidden hash marks of the 'for office use only' portion, and the large margins that made it appear independent, self-contained.

He kept staring at the form, with only a general idea of what was supposed to go into the next box. He glanced briefly at the stack of papers near the corner of his desk which gave him all the relevant information. He glanced briefly back at the half-completed form. He chose to look past the rectangles, the hash marks, and the margins, and pushed his chair over to the window instead.

There was another margin outside. The sidewalk, many floors below, teemed with life. He knew that the maintenance closets were the hash marks of his life, and his office was his rectangle, which he filled nicely in spite of recent revisions. He watched the people mill around at street level, watched the cars and busses make their way through downtown traffic, watched a falcon perch on a flagpole protruding from another building. He started to look for her.

She normally worked in the office across the street from his. He didn't know if she was young or old, pretty or homely, smart, or funny. He could only see general size, build, and colors through the semi-reflections of her windows. Yesterday she had worn a red blouse with black pants, today it was a white blouse with a tan skirt. He didn't remember seeing that particular skirt before, but for him she was just an idle distraction, so he returned to his form.

After finishing several more forms, he felt like taking a break. He looked for her, but she was not in sight. He sluggishly rose from his chair, and wandered to the break room, stopping to chat with a few friends on the way. In the break room, he purchased a cup of coffee from a machine that made bad gourmet coffee and a box of small donuts from a machine that usually sold nothing but candy. He sat down at one of the tables, and looked out the window.

From here, he could see into what appeared to be a conference room. There were five people in the room, and she was one of them. They appeared to be moving the chairs towards the door. Suddenly, all five backed away from the door, scrambling over the table in the middle of the room. He stood up and walked over to the window to get a closer look.

There was, in the room across the street, a pile of chairs in front of the door. He could see the pile shaking, and the people appeared to be going hysterical. After a few seconds, light began to come through the door, as if holes were being knocked in it. As he stood and watched, the door disintegrated, and what appeared to be giant chickens began ripping the chairs apart. They only sort of looked like giant chickens. They appeared to be the size of a man in a reddish brown chicken suit, and they appeared to be hopping like he'd seen pigeons do in the local parks and plazas.

He continued to watch as the chickens circled the large table, as more flowed into the room behind them. He started to count them briefly, but stopped when their incessant jumping made that task impossible. Two of the five people had gotten back on the table, surrounded by the chickens. The other three appeared to be in a pile on the ground, being pecked at.

One of the chickens at the pile stopped pecking and leaped onto the table. The two people on the table, startled either by it's movement or the human foot sticking from it's mouth, ran for the door. He couldn't see what happened to them clearly, but he was pretty sure they didn't make it.

"Am I interrupting something?"

He turned around. One of the new guys from marketing had come into the room, and was standing in the doorway, holding the door open. "Excuse me?" he asked, knowing what had already been said but stalling for a few moments to refocus his attention. He could see the marketing guy start to speak again, but all he could hear was the clucking noise coming from down the hallway.

Goe, needs to thank somebody.

assmunchers

not very many people stumble this way, but 'assmuncher' is the leading draw for people who come via search engine.

Goe, will fight evil for food.

bah

scratch that last bit about probably going back, i'd definitely go back if they apologized and told me to get to work.

Goe, has a work-ethic stronger than his ability to handle work-related stress.

Gone

quit job#1, now just have a job#2. not good. they treated me like crap but i liked the work and feel like there's some huge gaping hole in my life now even though it's only my second day not there. it's like hard work is a drug and i'm going through withdrawals. i'm not at all sure i did the right thing and if they asked nicely, i'd probably go right back.

Goe, still miffed that people feel obliged to harsh on his mellow.

quitting

i've never quit a job before. going to give notice at job#1 this evening. i'm tired of being one of only two team players in a group of eleven when the others, including management, root for me to fail and try to sabotage what i'm doing so that i will fail.

Goe, feeling kind of queasy about it.

transfers

going to ask for a transfer at job#1 tonight, got laughed at for working hard by full time employees who then started bragging about how little work they actually do. tired of busting my ass so they can get paid more, so gonna try to work in a different area with hopefully more attentive management. hopefully this will go better than my attempt to transfer in job#2 (which failed miserably but did net me a fancier job title.)

Goe, an unhappy non-camper.

A couple of things

Firstly, there are pigeons at one of the bus stops that I frequent, lots and lots of them. They wander around like tiny turkeys or chickens. There are also small brown birds there, but they don't move like chickens but rather like the rats or mice their coloration more closely resembles.

Secondly, I hate people and wish you all a most painful death.

Goe, unwell.

addendum

nuking any city paris hilton happens to be in is also fine with me.

Goe, has a pro-nuke policy.

Nuking Paris

Paris was on the 'to nuke' list several times for assorted reasons. That list having met it's demise with the collapse of the nest, I've not bothered to try resurrecting it. It occurred to me, though, that every spy film I've seen that were made recently held to 'the enemy within' theme. The only exceptions are some of the Bond films, but even the last few of them hinged on having 'good guys' turn out to be working for someone else or pushing some evil agenda. Barring WW2 spy films and the earlier bond films, I can't think of any spy-thriller where the good guys actually all were. (the jack ryan stories came to mind just as I wrote that, so it's not all, but even the ww2 set film 'enigma' had a traitor or two). What does this have to do with nuking Paris? It was the damned frogs who came up with using cynicism as a form of societal suicide.

Goe, not writing as much as he would like to.