A Short Ficklet, entitled...
"... And they all lived happily ever after."

Vash was finishing reading a story to the children who had gathered around him. The tall blond man was like a magnet for them, Wolfwood thought, something he could never explain with any logic. By all reason, they should be running in terror from the Humanoid Typhoon - but so should anyone else with reason. There was a scatter of youthfull giggles, and Vash laughed along with them.

"Children, time for dinner!" The call of their mother came from the next room over of the family run inn. The children, as a whole, groaned, and rolled their eyes.

"Now now," Vash said, his tone mockly serious, "You shouldn't ever disrespect your elders." Still reluctant, the children scampered off to eat, except for one little girl, who stayed close to Vash's knee.

"Mr. Vash, sir, I have a question." She looked up with very large, blue eyes.

"What, oh most dear child?" His smile was infectious.

"Did they really live happily ever after? Forever?"

"Yes, absolutely. That's what happily ever after means." Vash's smile was sweet, open, and, in Wolfwood's eyes, completely empty of real emotion. He tries so hard, he thought to himself, am I the only one who sees it? The little girl scampered away to join her brothers and sisters at dinner, pleased at the happy ending confirmed.

With all the children gone from the room, Wolfwood pulled out a crumpled cigarette and lit it, sighing.

"You know lying is a sin," he said around it, "Especially lying to children." He exhailed a slow stream of hazy smoke. "There's no such thing as happily ever after."

Vash visually crumpled within his red leather trench coat, as though all the false happiness which had suddenly drained from him had deflaited him as well.

"I know. But its nice to believe in something, even if it doesn't exist."

You can call us freaks
but we're your new age heros
it all comes down
to the ones and zeros
open your eyes, I think that you'll see
you are exactly what we want you to be
so go Silicon tonight
the electrons taking flight...

The code is filling my head, burning out all logical thought. Relations are reduced to pointers to pointers, somehow leading into the data through the labrynth of digital symbolism I'm so close to being there, but so far, and I understand the frustration of having the ultimate form of reason just beyond my grasp. A tool I could shape the world with, break it and remake it with, and yet I can only begin to understand the power I have tapped into....

. and I'll only dream
. of Silicon Gene
. the way that she seemed
. and what it would mean to be made of light
. I won't think about you tonight

Working, struggling, seeking help, finding it. Being grateful, learning, embracing, struggling against my own ignorance as an insult to those who teach me. I will learn this, I will master this as much as I am capable of. The world wizzes by in snips of C++ and PHP, lost somewhere between the SQL Queries and the thumping power of the music in my ears. I'll only dream ... of this silicon gene.

I live for electric piracy
it's my new religion
high technology
one twenty-eight bit encryption
in just another minute I'll be bigger than god
intelligence is supreme...
I bow my head, and pay my tithe
to the church of the machine

Worship, worship, for this is the church of the L33t, and all of those who strive must bleed and suffer and break ourselves over our own igrnorance. We code till our fingers bleed, our mind becomes numb to human language, and all that matters is the logic. All things are logic, and illogic is the ultimate taboo. Learn, understand, be. This is what it means to be Geek. Your soul is electrons, slowly becoming one with the machine you are tied to. The Machine is Life, and lifes blood is the many em feilds wich flux around you, through you. Being alive is being another peice of software and hardware interacting. This is life. This is living.

you can lock us away but that won't stop us
it all comes down to technological progress
virtual light over a digital night
the future is bright
and we're taking flight

Worship us, for we rule. Worship us, for we learn, where others hide. We control, yet we are controled. These machines we tie ourselves to become us, and we become them. And in this parisidic symbiosis, we learn to be what we could not be. Extentions of reality, beings of pure rational thought, logic to the extream, our blood now flowing in circutry streams of electron light. This is what we are. The fiber is our medium, we sail on wings of encoded light, and breath the atmosphere of phosphor and photon. This is a dream we can never awake from. For it is the dream of reality.

The fork is under my pillow... but the cables entangle me in my sleep, grasping for my throat, seeking to free me from this shell of carbon atmos and sugars chains. The Digital is caling the Analog, and I am trapped between the two relms, lost in the sea of code.

Its a strange thing, this end of semester.

I have work I need to do. I have a paper I am in the middle of writing, a program I am in the middle of trying to finish, and a database project I (I wolnt lie) havent started on.

The paper is due Tuesday by noon. The Database project is due Monday by 4:30. The Program is due tomorrow at 7:45. What am I working on - the paper. I'm so ass backwards.

But its what I can get my brain around right now. The paper is flowing, in fits and spurts, and it is a page and a half from its minimum of seven pages, and should cap out at about 8 if I am lucky.

The code is sitting stagnant because I keep breaking it whenever I try to move some thigns around that need to be moved. The interface code, written first, doesnt like the new main, and thus, keeps breaking for no real reason. So... I have to wait for this evening to get some help with it.

The database project. I am being lazy. I need to do it. I will try to get it done tomorrow before class if I get the code done tonight.

I have a creaping fear that some really bad news is coming. I know its not the Worst news, but its going to be Bad news. And its going to make things really strange soon. And I worry. I really do. I have to keep myself from trying to pry into things and find out what is going on ahead of time. That would be rude, so I wolnt do it. But I hate knowing there is bad news coming and not knowing what it is.

God damn, I wish my prozac would kick in so I could calm down.

Back to working on paper. Gods of academica, save me.

The rules of Living Life:

1) Love before all else.

2) Others before yourself.

3) Do as you would have others do.

4) Accept change - change is life.

5) Do not choose for others when they can for themselves.

6) Work to change only what you can change.

7) If there is a second chance, then take it, and do not let the first failure slow you down.

There is still some spine left in the technical Academic world

Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, citing concerns about student privacy, moved yesterday to quash subpoenas issued by the recording industry to discover the identities of students the industry says are illegally distributing copyrighted music.

The moves represent one of the first major obstacles for the recording industry in its campaign against ordinary computer users who share copyrighted music. Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, said he was disappointed and vowed legal action to obtain the information.

''These universities have chosen to litigate this in an attempt to deny copyright holders the right so clearly granted in Congress,'' Lamy said, referring to the colleges' refusal to release the names of the students.

MIT and Boston College yesterday said that they support the rights of copyright holders and would comply with any subpoena that addressed their concerns about the proper notification of students and was filed ''properly'' in US District Court in Massachusetts, not in Washington D.C.

Where are you, Nessus?

Having my life simultainiously eaten by papers, final projects, code work, and god only knows what else.

Someone just kill me now, please.