[camidon] Evening, Anneliese

[anneliese] Hi CM!

[anneliese] You snuck in on me

[Elizabeth] hi there!

[anneliese] Hi Elizabeth!

[Elizabeth] how's it going?

[camidon] I see.

[camidon] I was trying to think of some witty response to sneaking up on you, but one never came!

[anneliese] I survived the CL chat tonight, so all is good

[anneliese] LOL! CM

[camidon] Evening, Elizabeth

[Elizabeth] eep, I still need to make one of those.

[Elizabeth] have you been able to access Kier's journal? I can't get into it no matter how many times I try.

[anneliese] Tonight's was not the same thing as last weeks' (I think).

[anneliese] Nope. Haven't even found it yet.

[camidon] CL chat? <Elizabeth, I think Anneliese may be two timing this group!>

[Elizabeth] AOL keeps telling me the journal area isn't available.

[Elizabeth] Community Leader, CM. Be glad you don't have to attend.

[Elizabeth] so what was the topic tonight?

[anneliese] I never made any of the ones last week, so I figured I'd better show up for this one.

[anneliese] It was a Q&A, plus a tiny introduction. It got ugly.

[Elizabeth] neither did I. Whoops. Bad moderator.

[anneliese] I thought Kier was going to walk out.

[Elizabeth] Ugly how?

[anneliese] Yes. Any you need to update your journal... bad web links. (I posted a comment)

[anneliese] Hi Mike!

[emptykube] hello

[camidon] wow, I definitely don't eny you at all.

[Elizabeth] oops. I do need to update that.

[camidon] Evening, Mike

[Elizabeth] hi Mike!

[emptykube] hi cm, hi elizabeth, anneliese.

[anneliese] The rules for AOL hosties be a changing.

[emptykube] cm...just sent you a critique.

[camidon] Just got it, perusing it, thanks!

[Elizabeth] Yeah, and not in a good way, from what you're telling me.

[Elizabeth] lots of disgruntled people at the chat?

[Elizabeth] sorry, CM, Mike, I'll knock off the CL gossip.

[anneliese] Quite a few. But I think that there are new tools such as journals that can replace some of what has been lost.

[anneliese] If the community can get itself organized.

[anneliese] [ending CL gossip now]

[emptykube] no...its okay...i was browsing backwards trying to read what you guys were talking about glad I don't have to worry about CL ..doesn't sound like fun.

[camidon] I don't mind this little CL discussion at all. In fact, I'm rather amused!

[camidon] More kudos to you two for putting of with AOL #*@&$

[Elizabeth] Every two years or so AOL feels the need to completely revamp its Community Leader procedures.

[Elizabeth] Why, I'm not sure, but there are probably cost-cutting reasons involved.

[anneliese] Yea, there was that quip about CLs having to live up to a higher standard...

[anneliese] Yeppers, it's all about money.

[emptykube] Money? AOL about money??

[anneliese] Anyway, CM, what do you have to say about your sub?

[emptykube] no....say it ain't so!

[Elizabeth] Like when they de-contracted most of their freelance content writers and decided to have "local experts" contribute for free.

[anneliese] (LOL Mike)

[emptykube] I miss Writer's Club!!!

[camidon] Mike, i agree with all your comments in your critique. Before we talk at all about my "pepperoni" submission, I should say: 'I HATE time travel stories. I'm still shaking my head as to why I wrote one. Farce is definately the right word

[Elizabeth] So do I, Mike. It was such a great resource, and they just decided to chuck the whole thing.

[emptykube] LOL!!! Think of time travel as fantasy...

[anneliese] Everyone misses Writers Club. Tonight's painful experience got me to thinking about how it might be resurected.

[camidon] Hey, the bold feature worked! <patting myself on the back>

[Elizabeth] CM, your sub definitely said "farce" to me. It had almost a Terry Gilliam feel to me...an ever-increasing portion of society dedicated to making sure that nothing, absolutely nothing, changes.

[camidon] Yes, I agree; Time Tavel = Fantasy

[emptykube] elzabeth it was Writer's Club that made me stick with AOL to begin with. Over the years its just seems to have become all about mass media and hype.

[Elizabeth] And in the meantime, there's no fracking progress to be made in the present or future...everybody's busy sanitizing the past.

[Elizabeth] Word, Mike.

[camidon] But then I still fall into the trap of trying to explain the "science" of this "farcical" time travel story.

[emptykube] I have twenty three more days until my AOL connection is severed completely. Would have been sooner, but when they offered that free month, how could I say no?

[Elizabeth] I think Douglas Adams might be a guide for the science in this one.

[Elizabeth] He has a "scientific" explanation for the Improbability Drive, but it's just as goofy and farcical as the rest of his stuff.

[camidon] I knew I had done that, before I sent this to the group, but couldn't brging myself NOT to explain it. <weeping, weeping, weeping,)

[emptykube] CM...Elizabeth might be right. make the whole thing of time tarvel and adjusting really complex.and bizarre.

[camidon] Free = Good. Yet AOL = BAD. Damn these paradoxes!

[Elizabeth] don't be too hard on yourself, CM. Maybe the pepperoni (especially the stale pepperoni, the kind you shouldn't let pseudo-vegetarian clients eat) be part of the time-stream maintenance package.

[Elizabeth] Whoops, so much for grammer.

[emptykube] LOL CM

[Elizabeth] have the pepperoni be part of the time-stream maintenance mechanism.

[Elizabeth] Or coffee.

[camidon] Ok... Hmmm... Make it complex and bizarre. I like that idea. Any ideas exactly how to do thta?

[Elizabeth] Schrodinger's Pepperoni?

[camidon] Time-stream maintenance package. What a gread term!

[emptykube] If every choice changes time, I'd say your on a good track to being complex

[camidon] I definately could see Malachite using the term "Shrodinger's Pepperoni." That would definately be his type of explanation.

[Elizabeth] Perhaps the time-stream maintenance package has several options, varying time-frames and integrity percentages, depending on what you're willing to pay for.

[Elizabeth] (Sorry, we just got back from hubby's auto dealer today. The repairs on his car are <B>almost<B>/ complete.

[emptykube] Perhaps the answer is that each moment has an object taht has to be put in the right place, or not used, or not eaten , or eaten, or wahtever, and the "adjuster" has the job of figuring out what it is, and how to keep time flowing the right way??

[anneliese] Shrodingers Lipstick... something else for pepperoni?

[Elizabeth] Like a really, really annoying computer game where you have to get a whole bunch of different items, and do favors for a bunch of characters, before you can get to the next level?

[anneliese] The cat ate the pepperoni?

[emptykube] Shrodinger's Pepperoni is a great title!

[Elizabeth] Schrodinger's Cathouse Red Lipstick.

[emptykube] yes,. elizabeth...like such a game!

[emptykube] The cat who came in for the Pepperoni.

[Elizabeth] the cat ate the pepperoni, and now it's sick. All over the quantum box.

[camidon] lol

[camidon] You all are a riot of gonzo ideas. Perfect for this pepperoni farce

[anneliese] And that would be Malachite's explanation

[camidon] Perhaps malachite can explain time travel in terms of Shrodinger's cat eating pepperoni before the cat is put into the box. Will it barf or won't it? And if it does, will it just eat the barf right back up.

[Elizabeth] And perhaps part of the story is that Malachite's explanations don't explain a darned thing.

[emptykube] I also kept think how unemployment in your future has been solved since everyone seems to be employed by stabalizing the past.

[camidon] My apologies for the gross barf comments!

[Elizabeth] :::laughing very hard at the Schrodinger's cat/pepperoni/barf/catbox comments:::

[Elizabeth] CM, I have a six-year-old boy, very little grosses me out any more.

[emptykube] I like the idea of the explaining not really explaining anything.

[camidon] Yes, that would be a good way of going about it, Mal's explanation not reallt saying anything, but being darn silly

[emptykube] Elizabeth...son is 6???!! My God! I remember when you used to come to chat and talk about diapers! has it been that long???

[Elizabeth] yeah, Mike, it has.

[emptykube] CM...like Ford Prefect.

[camidon] True, no unemployment, yet one by one, other jobs are disappearing. Soon EVERYone will be working for the TPA. No more teachers, no more artists, musicians, janitors. But then, that would also mean there would be no more politicians... oh wait, I apply a TPA a government.

[Elizabeth] brb

[camidon] Damn, even the future politician's get out of being "drafted" for the TPA...

[emptykube] Elizabeth....my oldest turned 9 in decemeber...youngest is now two....middle ones are 8 and 5....time sure does need stabalizing!!

[camidon] Yes, Mike, it's been that long since we joined! ACK!

[anneliese] (trying to find something rational) I figured that the moment of insight was going to be that since everyone is in the TPA and they are all time traveling, the past is really populated mainly by time travelers.

[anneliese] Hence, no future.

[camidon] Mike, it'd be so much less fun if time were really stablized wouldn't it

[emptykube] LOL!! Anneliese...that's great!!! And the only way to keep it that way is to keep sending people on mundane missions!!!

[camidon] Rational? Why bother...

[emptykube] CM...I'd jsut like to be able to stop a coupl of minutes here and there from happening, that's all...

[anneliese] lol

[camidon] Yes, that was kind of my intention, sort of, I think, maybe

[Elizabeth] bak

[Elizabeth] The entire population is drafted into maintaining the past.

[camidon] I definately did want to imply the future was spiraling into oblivion by being so obsessed with the past. That's a good leap of deduction though Anneliese. One I hadn't thought of.

[Elizabeth] kind of like the aorist rods in Douglas Adams.

[camidon] Yeah, Mike, or pause a little longer in some of the really good moments.

[Elizabeth] CM, have you read Young Zaphod Plays It Safe?

[Elizabeth] It was an addition to one of the versions of the Hitchhiker's Guide.

[Elizabeth] There's a spaceship in which all sorts of extremely dangerous materials are stowed for safekeeping, including aorist rods--

[camidon] Why, yes I have, Elizabeth, read them all, including that short one

[emptykube] brb

[Elizabeth] your TPA reminds me of the aorist rods, and how the present generation finally figures out that future generations are robbing them of their power, and get rid of the aorist rods.

[camidon] <pulling from shelf> It's in "The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide"

[Elizabeth] Except that, of course, the ship carrying them to an undisclosed safe hiding place crashes.

[anneliese] Darn. I don't have that version.

[camidon] It's a big green volume, 1994

[camidon] was this collection published.

[Elizabeth] see if you can track it down at the library, Anneliese. The short story is hilarious.

[anneliese] I'm going to. I remember seeing it in the bookstores when it first came out, but not since.

[camidon] "Holy dingo's do," snarled Zaphod, "thre are aorist rods on board...!"

[anneliese] <== always was a Douglas Adams fan

[camidon] sorry, got lost in the book.

[anneliese] lol

[emptykube] back

[emptykube] how much text can be copied and pasted here?

[Elizabeth] hubby's rereading Hitchhiker's Guide. We're amusing ourselves (and annoying the six-year-old) by trading Hitchhiker trivia.

[anneliese] I have no idea.

[Elizabeth] good question, Mike.

[anneliese] Are you going to make me try to look it up?

[emptykube] I have a brief conversation between Mal and Daniel just wrote, to kind of flesh out the ideas we bounced. Gonna try to paste it here, okay?

[camidon] So, besides making the time travel explanation more bizarre and wacky, ala Adams, other thoughts about this "farce"?

[anneliese] At least 256 characters, but it might be more, would be my guess.

[anneliese] Go for it!

[emptykube] Mal talking to daniel:

[camidon] If you find my longest post of the night, I hit the "max" charactes on that and couldn't type anymore

[camidon] Does anyone actually have any idea what happened at the end of my story? I sure don't. . .

[anneliese] Use the show command to see more lines and set up a vertical scroll bar.

[anneliese] I don't CM.

[emptykube] See, rookie...its like this.

[emptykube] There ain't no future. Not really. They don't teach this in the books, but someone figured out long ago that there ain't enough resources to go around. No one gonna get enough, see?

[Elizabeth] I enjoyed it, CM. Good use of farcical situations to make a serious point: by obsessing over the past, TPA is depriving people of a future.

[emptykube] So what's the answer? Keep everyone busy so they can't think about what they don't have. Now how do you do that? No one knew until this guy invented time travel by accident.

[emptykube] Slipped back into the past, changed his future, popped out of existence. But his machines, see, they stick around. No one knew why.

[emptykube] One day this Dept of Labor dude finds them. The rest is history."

[camidon] well, good, at least I'm not alone, and I wrote the darn thing.

[emptykube] Daniel looks confused. "I don't get it. What are you talking about?"

[emptykube] al sighs..."Christ! Do I have to spell it out?

[camidon] Keep, going, Mike, please!

[emptykube] Every choice in the past changes the future, so if you send everyone back in time to watch the past, there ain't a future to worry about!

[anneliese] lol

[emptykube] Therefore, we got to make sure this lady don't swallow the pepperoni!

[emptykube] daniel shakes his head. "I'm sorry. I still don't understand."

[emptykube] "Just sip your coffee, rookie. Leave the thinking to me."

[camidon] lol

[emptykube] okay...done...what do you think CM?? or did I over step my boundries??

[camidon] can I hire you as co-author, Mike?

[emptykube] LOL!! no just borrow my ideas

[camidon] I pay sixteen cents, a packet of mustard, and a button that pop of my khakis six months ago

[emptykube] skip eevrything else...send the packet of mustard.

[camidon] "popped" should be "popped"! Way to grammatically ruin a joke!

[anneliese] LOL!

[camidon] I'll keep that in mind, Mike.

[Elizabeth] lol!

[emptykube] "of" should be "off" too, but who's paying attention

[camidon] Seriously, though, I love it. You're definately onto the right way to go about the time travel explanation

[emptykube] the idea is anneliese's, hire her...

[camidon] I think I have to use some of what you've created, as there is no better place to be creating text for this story, than in one of these zany chats.

[anneliese] Idea? I had an idea???? :looks quizically:

[camidon] So, Anneliese Will you for a packet of mustard?

[emptykube] LOL!!!

[anneliese] For a packet of mustard! You know I will!

[Elizabeth] Dijon, deli, or plain yellow?

[emptykube] gotta love the mustard pakets!!

[camidon] Let's see, any last thoughts or questions...

[Elizabeth] I'll do a lot for good mustard...

[emptykube] plain yellow mustard packs that never seem to expire...

[anneliese] You mean mustard comes in flavors?

[camidon] Woah, Elibeth! Please, stopping cutting the mustard! Ok, was the whole pepperoni vegetarian thing funny? Or did it go on too long? Thoughts?

[Elizabeth] I thought the pepperoni vegetarian thing was funny.

[emptykube] me too.

[camidon] Elibeth? damn typos.

[anneliese] I thought the *catastrophe* at the end could have been more catastrophic.

[camidon] Elaborate, Anneliese? What "catastrophe"?

[anneliese] Of course, the notion that the real problem was not paying the check, was kind of interesting.

[anneliese] Well, I wanted the ladies to have a pepperoni pizza, and there was nothing to do about it.

[anneliese] But I'm not sure that works for the story.

[anneliese] I still have to think more about it, I guess.

[anneliese] Ignore the above.

[camidon] What about the whole "going back to the origins of time" thing. Did it seem random? Out of place? Funny? Poorly set-up?

[emptykube] Hey...I hate to chat and run...but I have to cut out...sorry.

[Elizabeth] okay, Mike. Glad you could make it tonight.

[camidon] Pleae, think all you want. The more pepperoni for thought, the better.

[anneliese] It came on hard, and I think it could be made really silly...what if upon return, the role of pepperoni is reversed?

[anneliese] Glad you could make it Mike!

[emptykube] CM..good luck with this....elizabeth..anneleise next week on AOL??

[camidon] np, Mike, thanks for coming, chatting, and laughing

[anneliese] AOL... I'll be there!

[Elizabeth] what if he has to pay his bill in pepperoni...and realizes that, somehow, he's managed to completely futz the timeline?

[emptykube] See you all soonest.

[Elizabeth] AOL...if the Writers Corner is still there.

[camidon] have a good week and evening, Mike.

[camidon] Thta is funny, pepperoni as payment.

[anneliese] It seemed a little out of line in that everything before hand was mundane, then, suddenly, this joker is qualified to handle a dire emergency?

[Elizabeth] good night, Mike!

[anneliese] Niters Mike

[camidon] I did try to imply the passage of "time" and in so doing, Daniel became more into the "mainstream"--he began drinking coffee.

[anneliese] Yes. You did a good job of implying the passage of time... but he was still watching for pepperoni all that time.

[camidon] <shuddering> yes, he was.

[anneliese] I think just a tiny forshadowing to imply that other *special* events occurred...perhaps Malachite mentioning one in passing...

[anneliese] ...oh but it was nothing... only a one-timer... nothing like watching lipstick for 13 years.

[camidon] I actually have to get running to. But last brain-taxing, mustard related (or not) thoughts?

[camidon] I agree, that would be a good thing for Malachite to mention briefly.

[anneliese] My brain is mustard tonight. Really bland, stale, non-spicy mustard.

[Elizabeth] not at all, Anneliese.

[anneliese] Nothing more in my brain, tonight.

[camidon] Definately remember to post this chat, Anneliese, as I'll certainly be sniffing around Mike's text.

[Elizabeth] I'm a bit mustardy myself.

[Elizabeth] I'll copy it to my files as well.

[anneliese] Will do.

[camidon] Thanks for your wonderful fun and comments again.

[anneliese] I like the way the chats save in this software.

[anneliese] Thank you for putting up with us!

[Elizabeth] It's a fun story, CM. I enjoyed reading it, and I think you can have even more fun with it.

[camidon] I've had my quota of laughter (and mustard) for the week

[Elizabeth] pass the mustard!

[Elizabeth] I'll have to incorporate mustard into a future story.

[camidon] I definately think from the feedback, the more farcical, the better. The serious points still come across.

[anneliese] Quotas? We don't need no stinkin quotas!

[camidon] Gnight, Anneliese, Elizaneth.

[anneliese] Nighters, CM. Glad you could make it.

[Elizabeth] Good night all!

[Elizabeth] I'm off to AOL to fix the links.