#queue continuing to continuum

[thedreammweaver]

The end of The Voyage Home is just so special to me. I love these grown adults playing in the water and James T. Kirk being a little shit also whales.

[thewomancallednova]

Hide and Q

ohhhhhh okay that's interesting!

I am once again really enjoying Riker, especially how differently he interacts with Q (vs. how Picard interacts with Q)

Data turning around and being Q is literally the scariest thing I've ever seen (in TNG)

Okay so the meat and potatoes:

Is this the first time Data expressed a desire to be human? Like, not just be better at laughing or whatever, but like. be human? Ironically his immediately going "no" to Riker before he even offered anything and his speech afterwards is perhaps the most human Data moment yet. <3

Seeing adult Wesley is so weird, now that we know what adult Will Wheaton looks like and he just kinda... looks like Wesley still? I mean, obviously they couldn't cast future Will Wheaton in the role, but it's still so funny how different they turned out.

Also Crusher's expression at Wesley turning down Riker's gift is 10/10 like look at her she is so proud

also i mean like what a horrible gift. Like unless you die you're gonna be ten years older in about ten years. He's literally just taking away ten years of your life wtf?

Worf is a stronger man than I am, I would have absolutely failed that test ngl (and then died afterwards for obvious reasons)

With Geordi, I am not blind, but I have to imagene if you're used to not seeing your whole life and then seeing the whole electromagnetic spectrum, like Geordi is, seeing just what humans normally perceive would maybe not be terribly interesting? I mean, again, I'm not blind, so I don't know, but that's what I would assume

Also it feels kinda rude that Riker's gifts are all "I'll take the thing that distinguishes you in the context of this show away from you" except Worf who gets sex

Also why don't Crusher and Tasha get anything? Like, I get Picard, he's obviously anti-Riker and wouldn't accept anything, but we just skip them? Did time run out? Could no one think of something the women on the show could want?

Okay, so that's the very significant gift giving scene, now the rest:

I hate to say it, but I though Tasha's "breakdown" scene on the bridge was not acted greatly. Like, I think Crosby generally does a good job in the realm of being a tough and alert security chief, but I didn't think she did a good job with this emotionally vulnerable scene. Also wtf was that "If you weren't the captain" scene, like that is not at all what the rest was building up to? Huh? wtf?

Incidentally, Picard's comforting Tasha was really quite lovely and well done and well acted and all that.

I find it extremely funny that this is the first episode where Troi is missing (apparently the actress was unavailable). Like her ex becomes god and she's just hanging out on Betazed. Amazing!

(Also apparently Troi's lines were partly transferred to Tasha, so I'm wondering if that penalty box thing was originally for Troi. Although she doesn't strike me as in need of encouragement frm Picard)

Also it felt a bit weird that Riker just like, gets away with it? Like they take his powers away and they just put him on the bridge again? As if the rest of the episode didn't happen?

But I guess it's good for them to establish some flaws in Riker, to give him a reason to stay on as XO, instead of becoming the captain he so clearly deserves to be

god the things i would do for this man

uhm anyway

is it just me or does Riker kinda look like Gary Mitchell? I mean, maybe it's just the obvious plot similarities, but the shot just after he teleported the away team to safety. That was some Mitchell shit.

In general I'm glad Picard didn't have to kill him with a rock

and of course Troi wasn't here, so the Where No Man Has Gone Before comparisons can only go so far!

[thevalicemultiverse]

What if you got a job in the past and used the money for coin collecting?

Doc: [grimacing] That carries even more risk of altering the space-time continuum, because you'd be naturally displacing the person who normally be working there, who would then go and do something else, and--

Marty: You really think that one person getting a job in the past might screw over the whole universe, Doc?

Doc: The risk may be small, but it is still present. The problem with time travel is, you never know what small change might end up having huge effects later on! And I personally don't want to take the risk of, I don't know, half of England being leveled as a bizarre side effect of one person from the future getting a job in the past to look for rare coins.

[srbachchan]

DAY 5748

Jalsa, Mumbai Nov 12/13, 2023 Sun/Mon 2:00 AM

Govardhan Pooja Monday, 13 November

last night Blog was a random state of the mind and body, with some of the most extended queries that had meaning and none at all ..

but we have the benefit of some of the dearest assets in our Ef brigade that possess the acumen of the highest iq's ..

may I present to all one such reaction to the somewhat thesis dissertation of coffee shot infested brain - mine !!

Good morning…

I'll respond in an order… 'cause the reverse might sound random…

Wise quiet of silence

Perhaps this is why sàdìsts prefer the company of spartans… so that they can get away with barbarous fun…

You see, spartans are accustomed to unfair insults… They do not react…

But, come once in a new moon, they do… and when they do, they demolish the facade with simple words and gestures…

In other words,

The quiet of the silence is indeed wise… but everything has a point of ignition… and when the wise are on fire, those rotten germs infecting humanity are scorched to ashes…

From eternity to eternity

अजो नित्यः शाश्वतोऽयं। - गीता

Unborn, forever, and imperishable…

Which is the only reasonable definition of being… one that subsumes continuity…

There's nothing in any measure of a being on a timeline… the suffix 'ing' does not permit that…

Seclusion, and replication elsewhere

The desolate is usually in the queue of extinction… its days are numbered… soon to be obsolete…

In stark contrast, replication is that link of a chain which assures continuum…

I'll give a true example,

There is a shikara and houseboat attendant at Dal… His name is Shafique…

(Don't worry… there are thousands of Shafiques there… I'm not revealing a unique identity…)

Shafique's father died when Shafique was about 12 years old… they were living far away, on the right bank of Jhelum, in a small and little known village…

The father had created a farm of about 5 acres which he was tilling till his death…

Upon the father's death, his mother had invited his uncle to help with the farming… lest the land goes waste…

The uncle had three sons… all were elder to Shafique… They would beat and harass him on the farm…

His uncle came to the house one day, and said to the mother, "I cannot control my kids… I'm afraid they might kill your son some day… I suggest you leave the village and go to Srinagar… I have a friend there who will find a living for you…"

Today, Shafique is around 40… married with teenage kids… And, he is determined to get back the farm, which his father had carved out of nothing…

In short,

Continuity may seem like āmour in the beginning… but it can have savage consequences…

Desolation and extinction follow…

Venus

All true, dear Sir…

However, do you know that Venus has a retrograde spin?

Which means, it rotates in the opposite direction… While Earth rotates anti-clockwise when viewed from the North Pole, Venus rotates clockwise…

Haha… kind of a magnetic couple, eh?

Crucible foetus

I sincerely hope it's not an unwanted child… that seems to be happening quite often these days…

If it survives the incubator, it dies every day of its life… The facade doesn't work…

OH NO YOU DIDN'T

Hehe… but I did… in my own way… is that prohibited?

REALLY… YOU SHALL NEVER KNOW

I care to know just enough to sing your song wherever I go… I hum your tune, I recite your words… I live your moments…

For that, I shall always kneel before God, and thank Him and thank you… 🙂

and the collision of the wishers with that Sunday fervour ..

Loved and cared for .. in its immense value ..🚩

Amitabh Bachchan

[drowsinginspace]

10 Characters, 10 Fandoms, 10 Tags

Coming back from my accidental hiatus (because I forgot to update my queue and now there are hundreds of posts sitting in my likes waiting to be reblogged) to do this lovely game that @captain-fflewddurfflam tagged me in! Thank you <3

Share ten different favorite characters from ten different pieces of media, in no particular order, then tag/send to ten people (anon or not)

In no particular order:

Wall-E ___ Pixar // I'm in the middle of a megarewatch of all Pixar movies, because there's nothing to watch on tv in the summer and I haven't seen some of these features in so long! What's not to love about this cute polite robot, who cleans the Earth and generally wants the best for everyone?

Gil Ra-Im ___ Secret Garden // It's that time of the year where I go back to rewatch my fave comfort kdrama, so I have to mention the Only Girlboss Ever. She is literally never wrong, goodbye.

The Captain ___ BBC Ghosts // Ghosts is coming back soon, so I have to mention it. It genuinely makes me happy, and it's definitely the best comfort show ever. It's hard to choose a favourite character, but Cap is just fun, and I have a soft spot for characters who need a hug. (which brings me to...)

Stede Bonnet ___ Our Flag Means Death // To be fair, a lot of people in this show need a hug -Jim, Lucius and Blackbeard included- but Stede spends most of season one in very hugless situations and when Mary gives him a hug and shows him that she understands near the end, it's just very lovely and satisfying. I can't wait to see how his story will continue in season 2.

Yoon Jin-Myung ___ Age of Youth // I'm finally catching up with this kdrama, always thanks to @not-the-face, and I love the relationship that these friends have. The first season was so good I watched a good eight or nine episodes in one day, but I'm liking the second one as well. Jin-Myung is the oldest, shyest, and -as usual- feels like she needs a hug, although all of them need a hug, at the end of the day.

Frodo Baggins ___ The Lord of the Rings // Before starting my Pixar rewatch, I rewatched LOTR, and let me tell you: these hobbits made me cry. Again. Of course I love Sam, Pippin and Merry, and all the other fellows of the Fellowship, but Frodo had my heart this time more than the others. He had to make a journey he didn't choose to do, had to carry a weight that was imposed unto him, something that could change him forever. He was ready to do it alone if it could save the world, even though he could have lost all his hope in the process. But most importantly, he accepted help and finished his quest, well, not alone. (Also he, too, falls in the "character desperately needs a hug" category, so I guess this list has definitely a theme)

Ted Lasso ___ Ted Lasso // Here's a tv show I finally caught up with, this year, after seeing so many gifsets and not understanding anything about it! I absolutely love the character of Ted: optimistic, cheerful, and ready to help you in any way, and yet, maybe he needs some help too. All in all, all these characters are beautifully written and I hope they'll make their development justice next season!

Nadia Vulvokov ___ Russian Doll // She just wants to have a normal day home with her cat, but has to fight with the space-time continuum. I think she deserves a spot on this list. Also she has amazing hair.

Jessie ___ Starstruck // If Nadia's hair counts as a reason to be on this list, Rose Matafeo should have a perennial spot, but I also love her character in this show: she's quite relatable, even though the situations she's put in don't seem as such.

Polly Perks ___ Discworld // The Monstrous Regiment was one of just two books I've read of Discworld so far, but I loved it. I got to read it thanks to our Agents of Movies Discord server's book club, and I really enjoyed its themes and developments to the story. Terry Pratchett is always an awesome writer, so I could trust him with anything. Polly was an amusing main character, and it was fun to see the world from her perspective, even though she did take quite a long time to find out that The World Is Female, I guess.

Since it's been a while, I'm going to tag some of you to keep in touch, even though I do keep in touch with some other of you through other social networks 😁 Feel free to ignore the tag if you don't want to do this!

@not-the-face (visto che ti ho già taggata nel post, adesso ti taggo anche qui sotto, sorry), @2minutes2midnight, @agentofship, @apathbacktoyou, @clementinewhy, @englishmagic, @the-astro-ambassadors, @giorgiaink, @woofety, and @todayesterday.

Have a lovely day, everyone! Thanks for reading until here, if you did, and even if you didn't, I hope you're all safe and having a somewhat nice and comfortable day! 🌻

[demented-tours]

The line between writer panic and comfort is so damned thin.

...that moment when you have a reasonable idea of how long a story is going to be based on the outline/past experience/your inability to write anything less than 100K words, and this one will be almost 2x that due to character complexity and the story structure you're exploring, and you also know your general output of words and how often that output can occur, so the math for how long it will take you to finish the story is pretty straightforward...

...and you realize you'll be writing this beast for another seven months. And part of you wants to roll around in happiness because OMG STORY FEELS SO GOOD AND IS SO DARK AND SEXY AND MMMM CHARACTER JOY and the other part of you looks at the long queue of creatures waiting to get written, and then you start calculating how long you have left to live, given a certain set of parameters and barring critical system failures, and you realize you need to cut out some major time sinks in order for this to all work, like sleeping, eating, and going to the bathroom...

...but your health journey dictates that you can no longer do that, as it's Bad For You, so, okay, you'll just have to flex the space/time continuum in order to bend reality and make additional pockets of time and hope you don't cause some kind of storyline event horizon that sucks down the entire planet or opens a hell gate or perhaps resets the universe to zero...

...but THEN you realize that if you DO that in the quest to make more stories, then that'd be an awfully good story for somebody (not you; you'll be squished flat by the terrible, infinite weight of dark matter, space, and time compression and/or eaten by demons and/or be too busy RULING the demons that your writing pursuits just need to go on hold for a little while for the sake of your new career, and KAREN, THAT DOES NOT ACTUALLY MAKE ME A FAILURE AS I WILL BE THE QUEEN OF THE MOTHERFUCKING DAMNED AND PLEASE STOP TRYING TO PUT ME IN A BOX AND NOT EVERYTHING IS MEANT TO BE FOREVER EXCEPT FOR POSSIBLY THIS NEW HELL DIMENSION THING THAT IS POTENTIALLY HAPPENING), once, you know, we develop out of primordial sludge and get those opposable thumbs happening again, and it won't MATTER that you can't finish all your stories because somebody else will... ...which just speaks to the continual wheel that is time and purpose and destiny and there's always another life around the corner and you won't KNOW you missed out on writing stories as it's a soul purpose, not a life purpose, and there will be new ones to tell in THAT life and in THAT existence, so, honestly, just do your best with the fucking word count, Dee, and maybe go have a goddamned cookie or some fruit or something because all of this spiraling over math computation is likely because you forgot to eat again, AS YOU DO, which is WHY WE ARE IN THERAPY.

*huff... puff... gasp... wheeze*

Okay. So, um. Yeah. Gonna go... get a snack. And, um... I'll be done with this story in July.

Cool.

Peace.

[thepixelelf]

helloooo i was wondering if you have any advice for someone who wants to write a social media au?? i'm only used to written stories and i wanna try writing a smau for once but lmao i'm finding it so hard to not get lost between tweets, messages and so many screenshots 😭😭 and also finding a balance between not letting the characters talk too much about things that are irrelevant to the story but also making them sound natural when texting each other

Alright! *cracks knuckles*

I'd say moving from written word to smau isn't TOO hard if you just keep your dialogue tone relatively the same! Most of my characters text/tweet how I'd imagine they'd talk, and I don't think it bothers and readers too much 🤔

A lot of reaction/personless date-like images, if that's something you want to incorporate can be easily found on pinterest (but a lot of pictures there are stolen without credit so be aware!) I usually grab most of mine from google images... which is honestly just as bad credit wise so who knows!

As for organization, I personally write smaus part by part, so I don't often get lost with all my pictures because I save them in respective folders generally right after I take them. But! If you're writing your smau ahead of time, I highly recommend writing it all in a document beforehand and THEN putting it together part by part. That way you always know what you want in each part before you have to take the screenshots. You can make the tumblr post, schedule/queue/save it, and then throw the screenshots in a folder in your images app in case you need them for some reason later. I definitely suggest writing the messages/tweets/fake posts in the fake social apps, taking the screenshots of one part, making the part, then going back to the fake apps again. If you write it all at once and then try to go back and take screenshots, or take all the screenshots at once then try to go back and separate them into posts, you'll probably end up with way too much stuff on your hands. Build parts in manageable bites!

(I mostly use these folders below as archives because I'll post parts as I make them, but if I need to look back, I can)

About balance.... I think it's important to have silly stuff in smaus! Honestly, I often find myself needing to fill up space with stupid quips . If you're worried about "irrelevant" topics, then I think it's fun to have these strings of conversation end before the plot-driven conversation, or start right after and get cut off because it's not important to the story.

Like in Hood pt. 3 Titanic, Sunwoo enters the groups chat right as MC is finishing up a TEDtalk about why Mator from the Cars cinematic universe altered the space time continuum to prevent the sinking of the Titanic. Clearly this has nothing to do with the story, but it was something two characters were talking about before the plot happened.

Or in Shoot Your Shot pt. 14 I May Be Stupid, right after the golcha boys' discussion about moving too fast, Jangjun comes in saying "Aye wait did I hear that Son Youngtaek is TUTORING?" before the screenshots move to a text from Grapes to Jaehyun. It's assumed that golcha/Jangjun continues on to roast Youngtaek in the group chat, it's just not seen

I think that doing things this way can keep your tone natural and keep the pace for your smau!

I honestly think I don't have any more tips at this point.... but I hope these help 💕

[thedreammweaver]

Cut together two scenes from The Empath because the way they all touch eachother and hold Bones and everything- AAAHH

Like!!!

They are married!!!

[puns-and-musicals]

I posted 833 times in 2021

54 posts created (6%)

779 posts reblogged (94%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 14.4 posts.

I added 638 tags in 2021

#bbc ghosts - 125 posts

#for queue and country - 97 posts

#star trek - 89 posts

#the queue continuum - 67 posts

#star trek: tng - 49 posts

#bbc ghosts captain - 49 posts

#the captain - 45 posts

#star trek: the next generation - 44 posts

#fanart - 41 posts

#ben willbond - 32 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#crack hc that’s why they’ve all stayed as ghosts they each have some physical reminder of the unnecessary and tragic nature of their deaths

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

Rewatching season 1 of BBC Ghosts to show my family, and I couldn’t stop staring at this very good shot of The Mirror™️ in this scene. For a character we’ve seen so much backstory on, we really know the least about Cap’s death, huh?

144 notes • Posted 2021-09-14 03:24:01 GMT

#4

Anyways Gonzo continues to be a queer legend:

1) having the Big Fear of being alone

2) terrified of not being enough

3) willing to die to save a friend

I didn’t hear anyone refer to Gonzo with a pronoun the entire special which I think was very sexy of them tbh it lets me cling to canon they/them Gonzo a little longer 💜

200 notes • Posted 2021-10-09 04:26:36 GMT

#3

BBC Ghosts Headcanons/Thoughts!

Robin

Was an invaluable gatherer bc of his neurodivergence

Learns new language and cultural shifts fastest

Hates change but is the most used to it at the same time??

Like he’d get annoyed if they put a new mat in the meeting room but if the house burned down he’d be like “eh houses come and go”

Everything’s Alright - Laura Shigihara

Humphrey

Nonbinary, uses he/they pronouns

Hears about gender identities outside of the cis norm and immediately goes “People can do that????”

Ace/Aro, sorry i don’t make the rules

Because Dreaming Costs Money, My Dear - Mitski

Thomas

Hyper aware of how he’s perceived at all times

Would lay face down on the floor for hours waiting for someone to find him in search of attention if that’s what it took

Has no idea what he wants from other people at any time or how to ask for it

He gives really good hugs. Fantastic hugs.

Seeks out romance because it’s ingrained- how he thinks he’s supposed to treat pretty women, as opposed to necessarily how he feels or wants to act

When She Loved Me - Peter Hollens (This version specifically, although there are many)

The Captain

Touch averse

But like super awkward about it? He won’t Deny people contact because he wants to seem “normal”- Plus! He likes feeling needed so if someone wants a hug or something he won’t say no, he just acts super uncomfortable

His swagger stick is comforting to him- it’s an object he feels strong attachment to, and if he didn’t have it in death he would have found it incredibly distressing

None of the other ghosts even know how he died, none of them were there and he doesn’t talk about it.

Soldier - Fleurie

Pat

Tries to be really chill about schedules but gets Very upset when people change plans/schedule suddenly (or even sometimes with plenty of warning)

Rejection sensitive dysphoria

Needs to feel needed to feel loved/appreciated

Doesn’t understand why someone would want him around if he isn’t helpful

To Build a Home - The Cinematic Orchestra

Julian

A bicon

Gets migraines but drinks anyways

Super perceptive of other people, very aware when he wants to be. (lowkey canon but sh)

Low empathy (whether from ASD or a personality disorder, you pick but the point is there’s a Reason)

Absolutely loves gentle physical affection like hands through hair and cuddling, he just doesn’t know it

Would probably cry if someone held him close, change my mind. You can’t.

Company Man - Dane Terry

200 notes • Posted 2021-09-22 08:09:52 GMT

#2

Gender Envy But It Gets Steadily Weirder & The Characters Grow More & More Niche

318 notes • Posted 2021-09-23 03:21:02 GMT

#1

I feel like the ‘formula’ that so many writers try to replicate is so wildly out of touch with what people actually want in their content.

They try to figure out the similarities popular content and they think well- they’re wildly different shows but they’re all set in space, so it must be the tech! It must be the chain of command, or the space ships, or the lifeforms! Or they’re fantasy adventure shows or movies or books, people like them for the monsters! The landscapes! The character design! People must like them because this character’s sarcastic, or that character’s brave, or this character’s not!

The content that does best with fans, that really matter? The good content? Star Trek, Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Good Omens, Lord of The Rings, The Mummy 1999, Gravity Falls, BBC Ghosts, those kinds of things?

They’re just about… kindness. They’re about being kind to each other, being kind when it feels like you shouldn’t have to be, and being kind when people say someone doesn’t deserve it. They’re about people who are kind even if they’re not good.

People want to hear stories about people being kind, no matter what kind of world they live in. People want proof that other kind people will always be out there. That’s all.

921 notes • Posted 2021-10-05 08:02:47 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[indecohotels]

When Heritage Meets Technology…Beginning of a New Hospitality era - Part 3

The question of where the continuum of digital technology suite (discussed in the previous blog) will lead us into the future remains to be answered. But for now let’s remember that contactless technology and touchless operation define the future of how hotel industry will reshape itself to meet the growing customer demands of security, safety and hygiene. Here is some more technology stack that heritage hotels might be wedded to in the coming months.

Being able to locate where hotel staff and guests are located at any given time can open up a world of opportunities to improve the guest experience—anytime, anywhere, just at the click of a button. From delivering services to guests, wherever they are located on the property to helping event staff function more effectively, to turning over hotel rooms faster and beyond, location-based services can turn the tables on. Some employee located-based features are already deployed using SIP-DECT technologies. May be heritage hotels need to start adopting this at some point. All said and done location-based services are here to stay.

It comes as no surprise that if we say heritage hotels all over will quickly come to grips with the use of robots to undertake tasks traditionally humans perform. For instance, robots can assume a concierge role within hotels, welcoming hotel guests and visitors, and offering them with vital customer information. There are some hotels that are consciously using robots for cleaning purposes including vacuum cleaning floors and even for killing germs.

Contactless payments can be indispensable for speeding up payments, and improving customer satisfaction. They can also be made to easily fit into existing customer loyal programs. Gone are the days when guests have to line up in queues for making payments. Mobile contactless payment can prove than useful even if customers don’t have their wallets configured or even if their banking cards have been misplaced. We will continue discussing how technology can enhance the success prospects of the current strategic operational or marketing plans of heritage hotels. But that’s for another day.

[laughloji]

A bug in the code is worth two in the documentation.

According to my calculations the problem doesn't exist.

A computer's attention span is as long as its power cord.

A computer scientist is someone who fixes things that aren't broken.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

Air conditioned environment - Do

not

open Windows!

All computers wait at the same speed.

All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?

Willyoupleasehelpmefixmykeyboard?Thespacebarisbroken!

All you need to know is the user interface.

Any programming language is at its best before it is implemented and used.

Any program that runs right is obsolete.

A paperless office has about as much chance as a paperless bathroom.

A printer consists of three main parts: the case, the jammed paper tray and the blinking red light.

A Life? Cool! Where can I download one of those from?

A program is never finished until the programmer dies.

ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI!

As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.

A user friendly computer first requires a friendly user.

A user will find any interface design intuitive...with enough practice.

Backup not found: (A)bort (R)etry (P)anic

Bad or missing mouse driver. Spank the cat [Y/N]?

Be aware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers.

Best file compression around: "DEL *.*" = 100% compression

Beta. Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it's released. Beta is Latin for "still doesn't work."

Bug? That's not a bug, that's a feature.

Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it.

Buy a Pentium 586/200 so you can reboot faster.

Cannot load Windows 95, Incorrect DOS Version.

COFFEE.EXE Missing---Insert Cup and Press Any Key.

Compatible: Gracefully accepts erroneous data from any source.

Computer analyst to programmer: "You start coding. I'll go find out what they want."

Computer and car salesmen differ in that the latter know when they are lying.

Computer programmers do it byte by byte.

Computer programmers don't byte, they nibble a bit.

Computers are a more fun way to do the same work you'd have to do without them.

Computers are like air-conditioners: both stop working, if you open windows.

Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.

Computers are unreliable, but humans are even more unreliable.

Computers can never replace human stupidity.

Computer Science: solving today's problems tomorrow.

Computers follow your orders, not your intentions.

Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.

Crashing is the only thing windows does quickly.

Daddy, what does FORMATTING DRIVE C mean?

Disclaimer: Any errors in spelling, tact, or fact are transmission errors.

Disinformation is not as good as datinformation.

Don't compute and drive; the life you save may be your own.

Don't document the program; program the document.

Don't hit the keys so hard, it hurts.

Don't let the computer bugs bite!

DOS=HIGH? I knew it was on something!

DOS Tip: Add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS

Email returned to sender -- insufficient voltage.

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Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue...

Error:015: Unable to exit Windows. Try the door.

Error: Problem exists between keyboard and chair.

Error reading FAT record: Try the SKINNY one? (Y/N)

Ever notice how fast Windows runs? Neither did I...

Every bug you find is the last one.

Every time I type 'win', I loose ...

Excuse me for butting in, but I'm interrupt-driven.

Failure is not an option, it comes bundled with the software.

.....File not found. Should I fake it? (Y/N)

For any problem there is a solution that is simple, quick, and ultimately worse than the problem.

Hardware: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.

Hi, my name is Any Key. Please don't hit me!

Hiroshima..45........Tjernobil..86........Windows..95....

Hit any user to continue.

Home is where the computer is plugged in.

How an engineer writes a program: Start by debugging an empty file...

I am a computer, dumber than any human and smarter than an administrator.

If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0.

If a train station is where the train stops, what is a work station?

I finally made my stupid computer faster; I dropped it out of the window, and it went really fast.

If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce today would cost $100, get a million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, and a picture is worth a thousand words, how dangerous is a fax?

If your computer says, "Printer out of Paper," this problem cannot be resolved by continuously clicking the "OK" button.

I have a dream: 1073741824 bytes free.

I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on tape somewhere.

I hit the CTRL key but I'm still not in control!

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.

In a few minutes a computer can make a mistake so great that it would take many men many months to equal it.

Is reading in the bathroom considered Multi-Tasking.

It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one.

It said "Insert disk 3..." but only 2 fit.

It's not a bug; it's an undocumented feature.

It works! Now if only I could remember what I did...

I wish life has a scroll back buffer.

Keyboard : Instrument used to enter errors into computer.

Keyboard not connected, press F1 to continue.

MACINTOSH stands for Most Applications Crash If Not The Operating System Hangs.

Maintenance-free: When it breaks, it can't be fixed...

Math problems? Call 1-800-[(10x)(ln(13e))]-[sin(xy)/2.362x]

Melted fruit snacks found on Keyboard. Delete nephew [Y/N]?

MICROSOFT: Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software is Only for Fools and Teenagers.

Mommy! The cursor's winking at me!

My software never has bugs. It just develops random features.

Never say "OOPS!" always say "Ah, Interesting!"

No matter how much data you add to your laptop, it will not get heavier.

Of course I know how to copy disks. Where's the xerox machine?

One person's error is another person's data.

One picture is worth 128K words.

Operator! Trace this call and tell me where I am.

Owners of digital watches: Your day's are numbered!

Oxymoron: Microsoft Works.

Press any key...no, no, no, NOT THAT ONE!

Press any key to continue or any other key to quit...

Press CTRL-ALT-DEL to continue....

Programmers don't die, they just GOSUB without RETURN.

Programmer's Time-Space Continuum: Programmers continuously space the time.

RAM disk is NOT an installation procedure.

Reference Manual: Object that raises the monitor to eye level. Also used to compensate for that short table leg.

Scheduled Release Date: A carefully calculated date determined by estimating the actual shipping date and subtracting six months from it.

Shift to the left! Shift to the right! Pop up, push down, byte, byte, byte!

Shutting down networkservers reguarly during worktime prevents RSI and develops social contacts at work.

Speed Kills! Use Windows.

System going down at 1:45 for disk crashing.

The box said: 'install on Windows 95, NT 4.0 or better'. So I installed it on Linux.

The definition of an upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in.

The name is Baud......, James Baud.

The program is absolutely right; therefore the computer must be wrong.

The programmer's national anthem is 'AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH'.

The Queue Principle: The longer you wait in line, the greater the likelihood that you are standing in the wrong line.

There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days before Saturday.

There are only 10 types of people in this world: those who understand binary, and those who don't."

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

There can never be a computer language in which you cannot write a bad program.

There were computers in Biblical times. Eve had an Apple.

These settings will have no effect until you restart the system.

Reset Universe (Y/N) ?

Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Those who cannot teach, HACK!

To be, or not to be, those are the parameters.

To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.

User error: replace user and press any key to continue.

Warning, keyboard not found. Press Enter to continue.

What boots up must come down.

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

Why doesn't DOS ever say "EXCELLENT command or filename!"

Why do they call this a word processor? It's simple, ... you've seen what food processors do to food, right?

Why do we want intelligent terminals when there are so many stupid users?

Will the information superhighway have any rest stops?

Windows 3.1 not found: (C)heer, (P)arty, (D)ance?

Windows is NOT a virus. Viruses DO something.

WINDOWS stands for Will Install Needless Data On Whole System.

Windows: the ultimate triumph of marketing over technology.

You are making progress if each mistake is a new one.

You don't have to know how the computer works, just how to work the computer.

You forgot to do your backup 16 days ago. Tomorrow you'll need that version.

You had mail, but the super-user read it, and deleted it!

You never finish a program, you just stop working on it.

[bluesdoodles]

Tonight, outside The Fleece, Bristol the queue was happily full of anticipation that tonight we would once again be wowed by live music.  Why? The Marcus King Band is in town and they deliver music that may defy definition BUT will always entertain and excite.

Before the main event, the crowded venue was treated to a display of the power of vocals accompanied by guitar. Beth Rowley was superb as she underlined the lyrics with a sharp punctuation mark of her harmonica.  Her guitarist Tom was superb his accompaniment was sensitive when needed and grinding out the power chords when required. A duo that combines their talents and delivers with soulful sensitivity the music they both love and understand. The long awaited album Gota Fría has been receiving rave reviews with the power of the songs and melodies as blues, Americana fused with rock. The songs are strong with Beth co-writing with Ron Sexsmith, Marcus Bonfanti and Ben Castle. Will the music transport to the live stage tonight. Yes, they do what a fabulous opening set. Her voice caresses the lyrics and makes the song full of soulfulness and intimacy. The only shame was the constant chatting and noise from the crowd, how disrespectful you will never know what you missed the songs had a message that touches deep into your soul. Her song Brother about her sibling written with Ron Sexsmith was a wonderful song of a relationship rarely explored by songwriters. Brave Face; a song that reflects that feeling you have when in a relationship you know stuff has to be talked about and you put on a brave face to talk unsure what the outcome would be a stronger partnership or a broken one. Beth Rowley is back a class act with songs that say something to those who take time out to listen.

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  Short break, time to catch up with friends talk music and anticipate the treat ahead. Tonight, the first night of the tour the Marcus King Band hit the stage running opening with What’s Right from Due North E.P. I know what right music is when it is delivered by a band that is full of self-confidence, playing the music with passion for each other and the audience.  Marcus King and the band are young but the talent is immense the output is music that is funky sexy and has the free flow of a jam band when played live you are never sure where they are taking to you.  The setlist was high-energy varied with the mix of sounds and texture full of interest and the interplay between the musicians was fresh and natural. The music crosses genres creating an infectious sound that connects to your inner dancing DNA no-one stood still tonight at the Fleece tonight the music was hot and the reaction was even warmer.  Marcus King up front whether playing his cream Telecaster or red Gibson 355 his solos were scintillating threading through the chords, licks and riffs. This is a band that has layers, and layers of sound they are to your ears what a complex wine is to your taste buds every note gives you something else to latch onto. The keyboardist DeShawn ‘D-Vibes’ Alexander, was stupendous he is playing was mesmerising as he mixed up Hammond, Korg and Electric piano combined with a sonic producing box of tricks. His keys were wicked throughout the set.

The set was a mix of tracks from their latest album Carolina Confessions, these songs grow on stage as they are stretched and re-formed when played live. There was no hard sell tonight was about the music engaging with the audience and ensuring the music was what we wanted to hear tonight.  The band pulled numbers from their self-titled album and Soul Insight interspersed with live medleys including a delicious Slo Blues number.  The music was creative with the horn section adding the brassy energy of flute heard on Rita Is Gone and the wonderful tenor Saxophone from Dean and then we had trumpet that seared through the melodic backdrop from Justin combined with his backing vocals and tambourine watching him was a show itself. The Rhythm section was a combination of strong drumming and cymbal work that sharpened up the beat on every number as the sticks were applied with pure concentration by Jack. The bass lines were fast and slow cool and deep under the skilful playing of his four strings by Stephen.  Tonight they played two hours of creative music that will always be welcomed. If you haven’t seen them do not miss the tour, they are a phenomenon and the music will grow as the band continues to mature. The band continues to take us the audience on the wonderful musical journey Gov’t Mule and Tedeschi Trucks have taken on. This is a continuum that will grow and continue to reshape the music they love playing live and in the studio. Long may Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks keep mentoring this rising star whose light in the musical firmament will only get brighter.

The set was sensational from the first chord to the last note. Everyone left pumped with energy powered by funk, blues and so much more. What a start to the band’s 2018 U.K. tour OCTOBER TOUR DATES Thurs 25th – The Fleece, Bristol Fri 26th – Islington Assembly Hall, London Sat 27th – Night & Day Café, Manchester Sun 28th – Stereo, Glasgow

Tickets are on sale now and available here.

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  The Marcus King Band Marcus King: Vocals, Guitar DeShawn ‘D-Vibes’ Alexander: Keys Jack Ryan: Drums Stephen Campbell: Bass Justin Johnson: Trumpet, Trombone Dean Mitchell: Saxophone, Flute

Set List – Bristol What’s Right (Due North EP) Booty Stank (Soul Insight 2014) Ain’t Nothin Wrong Where I’m Headed B.A.M. Fraudulent Waffle (Soul Insight 2014) SLO Blues Autumn Rains(Carolina Confessions) Good Man Self Hatred (Marcus King Band) Homesick Woman’s Got To Have It Bobby Womack cover How Long(Carolina Confessions) Always > He Bite Me Rita Is Gone (Marcus King Band 2016 ) Goodbye Carolina (Carolina Confessions) Welcome Round Here (Carolina Confessions) Plant Your Corn Early (Marcus King Band) Funk Medley

The Marcus King Band Open Tour at The Fleece Tonight, outside The Fleece, Bristol the queue was happily full of anticipation that tonight we would once again be wowed by live music. 

[intrahealth]

HIV Epidemic Control in Action

US Ambassador Lisa Johnson saw it firsthand last month at Onayena Health Center in Namibia’s Onandjokwe District.

Ambassador Johnson visited the center on March 20 to see how the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) supports the health center, its impact on the drive for HIV epidemic control, and key challenges the center is still experiencing.

Onayena provides a comprehensive package of HIV clinical services, including testing, linkage to care, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, antiretroviral therapy (ART), TB/HIV coinfection services, retention in care, and viral load suppression.

The site is situated in a high-HIV-prevalence setting with high unmet needs for ART. The HIV prevalence rate for Onandjokwe District is 22.6%, according to the 2016 National HIV Sentinel Survey. The first patient was enrolled in HIV treatment at the facility in May 2010. Currently, 880 patients receive ART at the site.

Last year, the health center accomplished the following with PEPFAR/USAID support:

313 people tested through provider-initiated testing and counselling); identifying 11 positives (4% yield)

100% of pregnant women who attended ANC at the center were tested, informed of their HIV status, and enrolled in lifelong treatment when necessary

79% of all patients on treatment achieved viral load suppression

Provision of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) services started in October 2017

All 14 tuberculosis patients onsite were tested for HIV and enrolled in treatment when necessary

At this center, HIV services are fully integrated with other services, which can lead to more clients using services. In fact, for the entire fiscal year 2017, all pregnant women who attended antenatal care (ANC) at the center knew their HIV status, and only one baby out of 40 HIV-exposed infants was diagnosed with HIV (the mother in this case did not attend ANC and delivered at home). Both mother and baby are now on ART.

The ambassador also met members of the Try Again Support Group, a community ART refill group through which two members collect medicines from the health facility on behalf of the entire group, relieving many group members from long queues at health facilities, reducing transport expenses, and allowing them to go on with their daily household chores.  

Ambassador Johnson promised to continue developing the strong US-Namibia relationship marked by the successful collaboration in combating HIV/AIDS.

From left to right: Maria Blees, Political/Economics Officer, U.S. Embassy in Namibia; Lisa Johnson, US Ambassador to Namibia; Dr. Abeje Zegeye, USAID Continuum of Care HIV Team Leader; Simon Mathias, Deputy Chief of Party, IntraHealth International; and Dr. Saad Srwenhumbiza, Senior Medical Officer, Onandjokwe Intermediate Hospital. Photo courtesy of Valery Mwashekele.

Onayena Health Center achieved its results through the support of PEPFAR and IntraHealth International’s USAID Clinical Technical Assistance Project (UTAP), which helped recruit additional health workers in the region and promotes nurse-initiated management of ART training, mentorship, and improved data quality. UTAP works closely with the MoHSS in 72 health facilities to achieve HIV epidemic control, including Onayena Health Center, where HIV treatment is initiated by nurses.

IntraHealth is working with the government of Namibia to increase the number of health workers providing HIV services and provide the support and training they need to reach the country’s goal of an AIDS-free generation. IntraHealth’s USAID HIV Clinical Services Technical Assistance Project in Namibia is funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Response (PEPFAR).

By Valery Mwashekele

[shareopenings-blog]

Senior Software Engineer

New Post has been published on https://shareopenings.com/jobs/senior-software-engineer-3/

Senior Software Engineer

Job Description

Bank of America is one of the world’s largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services.

BA Continuum is a nonbank subsidiary of Bank of America, part of our Global Delivery Center of Expertise in the bank. Our employees help our customers and clients at every stage of their financial lives, helping them connect to what matters most. This purpose defines and unites us. Every day, we are focused on delivering value, convenience, expertise and innovation for the individuals, businesses and institutional investors we serve worldwide.

We’re committed to attracting and retaining top talent across the globe to ensure our continued success. Along with taking care of our customers, we want to be the best place for people to work and aim at creating a work environment where all employees have the opportunity to achieve their goals.

BA Continuum India Pvt. Ltd. supports business process, information technology and knowledge process across Consumer Banking, including Card and Home Loans, Legacy Asset Servicing, Global Banking and Markets, and Global Wealth and Investment Management lines of business at Bank of America.

GIS- The Global Information Security team is responsible for protecting the Bank and Customer Information assets by managing external and internal information risks. The objectives are met through multiple programs and engagements related to security policies & procedures, security assessments, security incident management, training& awareness, consulting, threat management and risk remediation. As a control function, the Information Security team partners with cross functional stakeholders for meeting the overall objective of providing reasonable assurance on keeping Bank and Customer information secure.

Cyber Security technology function is responsible of development and maintenance of security products across Bank of America. Team works on various security products and also develops in-house products.

Responsibilities:

Expert level hands-on experience managing a Hadoop cluster with Cloudera distribution.

Strong understanding of Hadoop security concepts and implementations (Kerberos and Ranger/Sentry).

Experience in installing various Hadoop eco systems such as HBase, Zookeeper,Oozie, Pig and Hive

Should be able to install and configure Kafka, Storm , Java and Python

Installing, configuring and managing the Linux Operating systems

Experience with shell scripting

Supervising Hadoop jobs using scheduler.

Performing cluster coordination services via Zookeeper.

Assist MapReduce programs running on the Hadoop cluster.

Preserve security and data privacy.

Develop highly scalable and web services with exceptional performance, for data tracking.

Responsible for troubleshooting and development on Hadoop technologies like HDFS, Hive, Pig, Flume, MongoDB, Accumulo, Sqoop, Zookeeper, Spark, MapReduce2, YARN, HBase, Tez, Kafka, and Storm.

Translate, load and exhibit unrelated data sets in various formats and sources like JSON, text files, Kafka queues, and log data.

Include DBA Responsibilities like data modeling, design and implementation, software installation and configuration, database backup and recovery, database connectivity and security.

Requirements:

Education: B.E/ B.Tech/MCA/M.Sc/M.Tech/ME

Certification: Hadoop is added Value

Experience Range: 2 – 4 years

Mandatory skills:

Knowledge in Hadoop

Good knowledge in back-end programming, specifically in java, JS, Node.js and OOAD

Ability to write MapReduce jobs.

Familiarity with data loading tools like Flume, Sqoop.

Knowledge of workflow/schedulers like Oozie.

Analytical and problem solving skills, applied to Big Data domain

Proven understanding with Hadoop, HBase, Hive, Pig, and HBase.

Work Timings: Rotational – 7:30 AM – 4:30 PM OR 1:00pm – 10:00pm

Job Location: Mumbai

[mikegchambers]

Scaling the serverless summit requires environmental sympathy with dev & ops

The only way to gain confidence that a feature branch will work in the cloud is to run it in the cloud — with environmental sympathy

In the wake of Serverlessconf 2017 in Austin, there’s been an increasing number of discussions about today’s cold reality of serverless. While we can see the glory of serverless manifesting in the not-too distant future, the community still finds it difficult to test, deploy, debug, self-discover, and generally develop serverless applications.

The discussion has been amplified in recent days with tweet storms and the great threads on the Serverless Slack channel from Paul Johnston that prompted this post. The common sentiment is that the difficultly with serverless gets more acute when developing applications composed of multiple sets of functions, infrastructure pieces, and identities evolving over time.

On the one hand, the serverless approach to application architecture does implicitly address some of the high-availability aspects of service resiliency. For instance, you cloud assume — without empirical evidence — that AWS transparently migrates Lambda execution across Availability Zones in the face of localized outages. This is unlike a more traditional VM/container model, where you must explicitly distribute compute across isolated failure domains and load balance at a higher logical level (e.g. ELB and ALB).

While this intrinsic reliability is undoubtedly a good thing, overall resiliency isn’t so easily satisfied. Take for instance the canonical “Hello Serverless” application: an event-based thumbnailing workflow. Clients upload an image to an S3 bucket, a Lambda function handles the event, thumbnails the image, and posts it back to S3. Ship it.

Except, how do you actually test for the case when the S3 bucket is unavailable? Or can you? I’m not thinking of testing against a localhost mock API response, but the actual S3 bucket API calls — the bucket you’re accessing in production, via a dynamically injected environment variable.

Another example is when you have two Lambda functions, loosely coupled. The functions are blissfully ignorant of one another, although they share a mutual friend: Kinesis. In this use case, “Function A” publishes a message, perhaps with an embedded field whose value is another service’s event format (like an S3 triggering event) that’s consumed by “Function B”. While there’s no physical coupling, there’s potentially a deep logical coupling between them — one which might only appear at some future time as message contents drift across three agents in the pipeline.

How can we guard against this? How can we be certain about the set of functions which ultimately defines our service’s public contract?

Are they coherent? Are the functions secure? Resilient? Correct? Observable? Scalable? How can we reduce uncertainty around non-functional requirements?

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Serverless is an implementation detail, not an architectural pattern.

 — @mweagle

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The non-functional requirements of serverless

The great thing about non-functional requirements is that they’re … non-functional. They speak to a system’s characteristics — how it should be — not what it should do, or how it should be done. In that sense, non-functional requirements both have nothing and everything to do with serverless.

The slide from Peter Bourgon’s presentation on the microservice toolkit for Go

The slide above is from Peter Bourgon’s excellent presentation on the design decisions behind go-kit, a composable microservice toolkit for Go. The concerns listed apply equally to a JVM monolith, a Go-based set of microservices, or a NodeJS constellation supported by FaaS. If you’re running something in production, those *-ilities lurk in the shadows whether or not they’re explicitly named.

In that sense, serverless is less a discontinuity with existing practice and more the next stage in the computing continuum — a theme emphasized in Tim Wagner’s closing keynote. It’s a technique that embeds more of the *-ilities into the vendor platform itself, rather than requiring secondary tools. Serverless enables us to deliver software faster and with fewer known unknowns — at least those that are externally observable.

Although serverless offloads more of these characteristics to the vendor, we still own the service. At the end of the day, each one of us is responsible to the customer, even when conditions change. We need to own it. And that means getting better at Ops. Or more specifically — cloud-native development.

Charity Majors does an excellent job describing the operational best practices for serverless

The Base Camp — “Works on My Machine”

For many of us, the end result of our furious typing is in many cases a cloud-native application. In more mature organizations, our software constructs go through a structured CI/CD pipeline and produce an artifact ready to ship. This artifact has a well-defined membrane through which only the purest configuration data flows and all dependencies are dynamic and well behaved.

On a day-to-day basis, though, there is often a lot of bash, docker-compose, DNS munging, and API mocks. There is also a lot of “works on my machine” — which may be true, at least at this instant — but probably doesn’t hold for everyone else on the team. And it definitely doesn’t provide a lot of confidence that it will work in the cloud.

The only way to gain confidence that a feature branch will work in the cloud is to run it in the cloud.

Operations is the sum of all of the skills, knowledge and values that your company has built up around the practice of shipping and maintaining quality systems and software. — Charity Majors, WTF is Serverless Operations

If everyone on the team is developing their service feature branch in the cloud, complete with its infrastructure, then we’re all going to get better at ops. Because it’s development and ops rolled together. And we’re all going to share a sense of Environmental Sympathy.

To the Summit — From #NoOps to #WereAllOps

Environmental Sympathy, inspired by Mechanical Sympathy, is about applying awareness of our end goal of running in the cloud to the process of writing software.

While it’s always been possible to provision isolated single-developer clusters complete with VMs, log aggregators, monitoring systems, feature flags, and the like, in practice it’s pretty challenging and expensive. And perhaps most aggravating, it can be very slow. Short development cycles are critical to developer productivity and that’s not really a hallmark of immutable, VM-based deploys.

Serverless, precisely because it’s so heavily reliant on pre-existing vendor services and billed like a utility, makes it possible for every developer to exclusively develop their “service” in the cloud.

The service can have its own persistence engine, cache, queue, monitoring system, and all the other tools and namespaces needed to develop. Feature branches are the same as production branches and both are cloud-native by default. If during development, the *-ilities tools prove too limiting, slow, or opaque, developer incentives and operational incentives are aligned. Together we build systems that make it easier to ship and maintain quality systems and software. Which will also help to minimize MTTR as well.

Serverless, for both financial and infrastructure reasons, makes it possible to move towards cloud-native development and Environmental Sympathy. It represents a great opportunity to bring Dev and Ops — and QA, and SecOps) together. This allows us to mov from “worked on my machine” to “works in the cloud — I’ll slack you the URL.”

From #NoOps to #WereAllOps.

Scaling the serverless summit requires environmental sympathy with dev & ops was originally published in A Cloud Guru on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

from A Cloud Guru - Medium http://ift.tt/2rFik4J

[islandofkiwi-blog]

Time’s Mirror Episode 4 - A Web Series by Steven Embers

Chapter 4

 So I lied to you. Well, half-lied. That was, in fact, my first encounter with my mystery girl that I mentioned earlier; I did, in fact, fall in love with her and revel in her glorious features, or whatever, but it wasn’t at first sight. I was a zombie, and I knew why I had become a zombie – I was a broken shell of a person and in no way was a likely-just-as-broken-teenage girl going to help me with that. I like to think I was smart enough to know that trying to fall in love was exactly the wrong way to go about solving my problems.

           Anyways, I wanted tell the story that way because it makes for a better memory, and also because I genuinely couldn’t wait to talk about her. In reality, I don’t remember why I stopped in the hallway. I don’t remember being astounded by her appearance and I only remember feeling confused as to the reason why a girl who I didn’t know wanted to kiss me. There was a lot of eye contact, and she did have really beautiful eyes, but the important thing was that I woke up from my moody reflection after that.

           Back to the story.

 I wasn’t planning on calling the girl even though the piece of paper she stuffed into my hand after stealing my lips had ten, neatly drawn digits on it. I figured she was probably crazy and I wasn’t going to get anything more than the tease if I went looking, so I took it as a sign that I was supposed to lighten up and I moved on with the rest of my day.

           Instead of pretending to count the number of tiles on the floor, I responded to a passing “Hello” after my next period class, which, incidentally, I had ended up being twenty minutes late to – I got off with a soft scolding from the teacher because my friends had seen how dead I looked and figured I was probably spilling my guts into a toilet for that missing time.

           Being depressed all day made me a little tired, and by the end of the day I was really just looking forward to a nap on the bus ride home. But as I finished packing books into my locker, I saw her again out of the corner of my eye. Brown hair, green eyes, her mouth moving as she talked to someone next to her; but she was looking right at me. She was talking to multiple someones, actually. Popular someones. I didn’t recall seeing her before that day, but if she was new to school she was adjusting very well.

           As soon as I accepted her gaze, I couldn’t stop myself from looking at her. She was like a cobra, sending out a hypnotic siren’s charm with nothing but her eyes, and even from across the hall it was enough to make my heart skip out of rhythm. I am going to miss my bus, I thought to myself. She lifted her index finger to point at me, flipped her hand around, and then curled her finger into a fist, beckoning me to follow.

           She turned around after that and started walking away. She was wearing a white overcoat that flared at her mid-thigh and twisted fluidly behind her as she walked. She carried an air of nobility around her, something about her perfect posture that screamed ‘runway model.’ The people who had been talking to her looked over at me and then back at her, watching her leave with confused expressions on their faces.

           The entire chain of events felt extremely pretentious, but there was something so primal about the way she executed it that put an image in my head of me getting ravaged in the back of her car. The shroud of mystery surrounding her, alone, was enough to make me follow.

 I followed her out to the parking lot, twenty paces behind her the entire time. I was starting to feel wary, but I didn’t want to be the idiot who prays for adventure, gets hit over the head and beaten sideways with it, and then doesn’t go chasing after it. Then I started a debate in my mind whether following a stranger home was the right thing to do. I began to picture a scenario where she would take me back to her cave for her children to eat, or try to sell me into slavery, or suck me into another dimension where I would have to fight my way through evil wizards to find my way back home, but that made me feel almost just as idiotic.

           I attributed my disregard for simple stranger-danger safety to my mother’s talk of chasing life with a stick of dynamite; I didn’t want to disappoint her.

           My mystery girl stepped into a bright crimson, luxury sedan and waited for me to walk the twenty paces to the driver’s side window. I could make out her face through the tinted glass. She was still just staring at me, but her stare seemed less intense now. She held one hand on the steering wheel and waited patiently for me to do something.

           “Hi,” I said, not really sure what to say, but trying to avoid getting into her car without at least knowing her name.

           She cocked her head, but kept her eyes locked on mine. Then she nodded at the passenger seat to signal for me to get in. I heard the click of the door being unlocked.

           I went around to the other side of the car and opened the passenger side door. The car smelled like her, and I could see the color in her face. She was really pretty .

           “Hi,” I repeated, still not stepping into the car. She rolled her eyes, playfully, trying to assure me that she wasn’t trying to kidnap me, and motioned again with her head to get me to close the door. I got in the car against my better judgment.

           I buckled my seat belt and she turned the ignition, still completely silent.

           “Do you have a name?” I asked, after an uncomfortable moment.

           She raised an eyebrow at me like I was stupid.

           “Okay, yeah.” I nodded to acknowledge my stupidity and tried again. “Do you want to tell me your name?”

           She shook her head silently and backed the car out of the parking space.

           I kept trying. “Do you want to tell me anything?” I asked.

           She shook her head.

           “Are you mute?” I asked.

           She shook her head.

           “You know they say that playing hard to get just makes you come off as a tease, right?”

           She winked at me.

           Conversation was going nowhere fast. We joined the queue of cars that were trying to turn onto the main road. I had the time between our position and the stop sign to roll out of the car and call a friend for a ride if I really started to feel uncomfortable. Until then, I tried to force an expression out of her that I could actually read.

           “Well I guess you would say ‘Who says that?’ and then I would say ‘No one really, I just read it online,’ and you say ‘You believe everything you read online?’ and I say ‘Not everything, just the stuff that comes from .net domain names and reputable sources like they teach us in English class.’ and you say ‘Well did you get that from one of those?’ and I say ‘No.’ and, hey, I’m just trying to have a conversation, you feel free to jump in anytime.”

           She smiled and it was the first time I saw the white of her teeth. I smiled, too, feeling moderately accomplished that I had broken off a bit of the shell of her armor.

           “So,” I continued as we pulled up to the stop sign, “I really like that color—”

           “Oh my god, you’re ruining it.” She finally interrupted. Her voice was deeper than I expected, but it was pure and rich.

           “She speaks,” I said. “But what am I ruining?”

           “You know. Bring a guy home without saying a word. I was on a roll.”

           “Is that a thing?” I asked.

           “I’m about to make it a thing.”

           “So we’re definitely going to your home, right? Not an abandoned warehouse?”

           “I could always live in an abandoned warehouse, you never know.” She smiled again. “Actually, I’m surprised that you even got in the car with me. Isn’t there a thing about strangers and cars?”

           “I—” I stopped midsentence. I was almost about to start flirting with her, but I still wasn’t completely convinced that she wasn’t a lunatic. “I have a thing with adventure.” I finished. “Can’t say no.” And I quickly realized that now I sounded like a lunatic.

           She looked at me curiously for a long moment and I thought we might crash into the car in front of us since she wasn’t focusing on the road, but when she turned back ahead we were still cruising safely.

           “So what is your name?” I asked after a moment of silence. “I’m only asking because I don’t think we should be strangers.”

           “A name does not an acquaintance make,” she said, introspectively, but when she spoke again she sounded more cheerful. “But, tell you what. I’ll tell you my name if you can follow a few rules, okay?”

           I blinked a couple times. “I’m confused. Why can’t you just tell me your name?”

           “I’m in a curious position. It requires me to have a little guile.”

           I thought for a moment. “I don’t know what that word means, but you’re like a spy?”

           “No.” She sounded moderately intrigued.

           “The daughter of a foreign national looking for a hook up?”

           “No.” She shook her head.

           “Okay, you’re going to have to help me out, because—Wait.” I snapped my fingers, “I got it. You’re my wife from the future and you traveled back in time after my tragic and untimely death to spend a few more years with me. Of course technology has advanced so far that you can have the looks of when you were sixteen, but I have to tell you that I’m just not ready for that kind of commitment right now.”

           She was quick to react. “I hear the time-continuum is pretty unforgiving to travelers trying to interfere with the past, so it’s probably not that.”

           “Probably, you say.”

           “Definitely,” she corrected.

           “Okay.” I leaned back, feeling comfortable enough to let down my guard. “Well it would explain the kissing as the first thing you decided to do.”

           She looked at me. “You didn’t like the kissing?”

           “I don’t know. It just felt kind of—dead.”

           “Huh. Well it tends to feel like that when you’re kissing a corpse,” she remarked.

           “Ah, well we know I, at least, can stay in character,” I said, pompously.

           “I’m sorry, what?”

           “Oh come on. You were playing that silent, crazy chick and you knew the mystery was exactly what I wanted. But here you are all chatty, telling me you’re from the future, whereas, I didn’t break my zombie man even while you were forcing yourself on me.”

           “Isn’t that a little iro—Wait. What?” She was almost laughing. “Who are you?”

           “I’m not so sure myself,” I said, plainly. “Seeing as you chose me, why don’t you tell me?”

           “I’m not quite sure who I chose, either, now.”

           “Well, it is a little late, but we could start with introductions.”

           “Fine,” she relented. “But you first. We’ve got to teach you some manners.”

           “Man-ners,” I repeated, emphasizing each syllable deliberately. “I’m sorry, I was raised by wolves so English is not my first language.”

           “Well that does explain a lot.” She smirked, but then went silent, signaling that I should stop playing around and make a decision.

           I wasn’t bound to her. Not yet at least. The car was reaching the intersection where I could tell her to turn right and leave me safely at my house. We were heading out of town where she could beat me over the head with a shovel and drink my blood and no one would be the wiser.

           I wasn’t bound to her. And yet she completely owned me. It was exciting sitting in a car knowing nothing about the person that I was sitting next to, except that she wanted me to go through a checklist before she could tell me her name.

           I was a lamb, offering itself to the lion with two words. “Bailey Prince.”

           She looked at me, putting my name to my face, and then looked back ahead. “Lacey,” she responded. The name rolled off her tongue, sounding like a whisper amidst the whipping howl of wind and the static buzz of tires on the road. It was elegant and sounded almost foreign in the dull winter of Nowhere, Colorado.

           “Lacey Valentine.”

 Lacey Valentine was right. Knowing a person’s name doesn’t change anything about your perception of them. She was right about herself, at least, because she continued to give cryptic answers when I asked her personal questions. She was very good at playing me like the puppet I was.

           “So, where are we going?” asked I.

           “To find adventure,” said she.

           And so on. We were about two miles out of town when I realized where she was taking me. There was a secluded neighborhood right on the outskirts of our little town called Paradise Gardens. I heard the community was commissioned by a misguided business man who had a hook for a hand and owned a pet seal; my dad sometimes called these kinds of rumors “frozen bananas.” I don’t know why.

            It was a rich neighborhood filled with rich people who didn’t want to be seen or heard. The neighborhood had its own police, lawn care service, and even a fancy wall, complete with a gatekeeper to keep out any unwanted guests. ‘Unwanted guests’ included ninety percent of everybody who came knocking. Several, minor celebrities had summer homes in Paradise Gardens and it was a pretty popular sanctuary for people seeking refuge from the eye of the public.

           It was a tradition during prom to try to sneak in through Paradise’s defenses, and go pool hopping or watch the sunrise with your date. But the neighborhood police had recently started working with local law enforcement in order to issue more significant fines for trespassing. This made me wonder what we were doing here, seeing as no one that I knew of lived in Paradise and we were still a couple months away from prom when kids were still willing to foot the bill for a little thrill.

           We pulled onto the road leading to the gate. I could see the tops of buildings peeking over the walls and a giant spire rose up towards the middle of the Gardens, apparently some kind of water tower and lookout perch. The words PARADISE GARDENS were carved into the stone that created an arch above the gated entrance. The car slowed as we pulled up towards the watchman’s box.

           “We’re going to Paradise?” I asked.

           “Don’t worry,” she assured me. “It’s much less appealing on the inside.”

           “I’m more concerned about what we’re doing here.”

           “I live here,” she said. “I told you I was bringing you home.”

           “Who are you?” I marveled aloud.

           “Don’t waste your curiosity,” she cautioned. “You’re going to have a lot more questions in just a bit, I’m sure.”

           Before I could respond we pulled up to the booth and the watchman peered out. For some reason the booth was situated on the passenger’s side. Lacey rolled down my window and a serious-looking man, sitting level with me, stared into my eyes and down my soul. I glanced over at Lacey and she was smiling. She waved over to the watchman who stopped glaring at me.

           “Hey, Jerry,” she greeted him while peering over me.

           “Miss Valentine.” Jerry replied with a slight nod.

“The snow comes tomorrow evening,” He talked to her across me. “Make sure to get your essentials before then.” He pressed a couple buttons in front of him and the gate swiveled open.

           “No smoking in the Observatory,” he warned me. His voice was deep and commanding. I smiled nervously at him.

           “Thanks, Jerry,” Lacey called. She rolled up my window and we pulled in through the gates.

           I had never seen such a change in atmosphere like the one crossing the border into Paradise Gardens. The outside world was a barren wasteland compared to the three-mile radius of the giant, circular compound. Everything seemed brighter, even though there were pale clouds covering the sky. Street lamps shone at short intervals down the road and they illuminated the colors of the new world.

           What impressed me most was that there seemed to be no sign of winter anywhere. The trees were still full with broad leaves and the grass was still green. I assumed the turf was artificial unless they had planted super-grass that could still be green when it was ten degrees below freezing, but I had no idea how the leafy trees were still full. It was like the founders had paid the sun to work overtime on their little plot of heaven. I could almost hear birds chirping a springtime song, it was so painfully perfect.

           We drove about two-hundred feet and then the road branched three ways. The roads on the right and left looped lazily around the inner edge of the circle and led to the main plots of land where the first ring of houses was positioned close to the wall. The road straight ahead ran towards another ring of houses. Both rings centered around the giant spire that I assumed was the Observatory that Jerry mentioned.

           There weren’t actually that many houses in Paradise. The plots of real estate were pretty big so the houses were spread out, giving a fairly private bubble around each home. I guess it discouraged interaction with neighbors. Each house was uniquely constructed, and they were very meticulously designed. I saw one with a veranda with walls of glass and a thatched roof, standing on stilts like it was pretending to be a beach house, and one that looked like a princess castle in every shade of pink, with a community-sized pool area in the backyard.

           We turned right at the first fork and continued past more luxurious homes until we were towards the back of the complex. We came to a house that towered three stories and looked like a castle made of stone. It had two towers that arose from the front corners and stretched ten feet above the roof, each of the towers served as a perch for one of the two giant statues that looked like the disembodied horse’s head and the castle pillar from a chess set.

           Lacey slowed to turn into the driveway that looped in a half-circle around a small mound in front of the house and she parked in the middle of the drive behind a black SUV. Apparently, people didn’t need park in the garage since they didn’t have to worry about their windshields freezing over, because Paradise was suspended in a perfect, alternate dimension.

           Lacey looked at me before she nodded and I heard the door unlock to let me know we had reached our destination. Getting out of the car, I looked up towards the chess castle, and wondered what kind of person would want to live in something so blatantly tacky. It was bigger now that I was up close and I was feeling a bit exhausted already, but I was sure that the fun hadn’t even started. Lacey came around the front of the car and waved for me to follow her up towards the house.

           We walked up to the front door, or rather, a set of wooden double doors that looked unbelievable heavy. The doors towered about ten feet off the porch, and metal knockers, shaped like lion heads, were positioned halfway up the door at about chest height. Lacey took one of the rings that hung out of one of the lion’s mouths and she looked at me.

           “Welcome home,” she said. Then she pushed inwards, forcing the door slowly open.

TO BE CONTINUED!