Dark Alex's Really Long Post Thread.

[Alex]

Ash decided he didn't want to sleep last night. Got up with him at 3am to give him a bottle.

In a very sleepy voice as I left the room to get the bottle Kristi asked me to make sure that I didn't let Dracula get the baby.

He woke back up some time around 6 and Kristi decided to take over looking after him so I went to get some much needed sleep.

About 9 I was woken up by Kristi screaming quite loudly and a panicked shout of "ALEX!", so adrenaline flowing through me I jumped out of bed and came running. The thing I have learned about screams is that they are rarely good things.

Dagon had killed a mouse and brought it in the house, leaving it on the kitchen floor. Kristi almost stood on it.

Anyway, did the man thing and cleaned up the dead beastie. And of course I am not mocking Kristi by doing imitations of her girly scream either.

Well not too much.

[316zombie]

apparently i don't have a girly scream. the exact words from my BFF the last time i made him kill a spider in the bathtub were" jesus h. christ woman! that godawful shriek had me thinking you fell and broke a bone! DON'T DO THAT!" ...so i try to just shout instead.

[Alex]

A new working week dawns. Woohoo.

Had a couple of Kristi's friends from the states visit last night. Given the number of people we've had come visit Scotland I can't help thinking the tourist board should give me some sort of award. Been up since half four and could do with just going back to bed for a bit.

Still I closed the windows last night so there were no shrieks this morning from Dagon bringing home a field mouse. Or any other small creatures for that matter. I don't know, he tries his best to contribute to the house hold and all he gets is Kristi screaming.

Looks like a cloudy day outside. Hoping it remains nice and cool.

Big news today is that one of the run for profit prisons in the UK has been found to be a disaster and the government has had to step in and run it. Can't help thinking having private companies running prisons is a recipie for disaster that could never have a good result.

Oh well, may everyone out there have a great Monday.

[Alex]

The weather here is combining heavy cloud with being still warm. The office at work is still something of a sweat lodge, but hey it pays the bills.

And the country still hasn't been invaded on my watch (6257 days so far. I think I am doing pretty damn good there). 1777 days to go.

In 1777 the American revolution was going on. There was a huge amount of battles for this and I am not going to list them all because I purely do not have time, but feel free to google it if you want to know more. Washington won at Princeton, British captred Fort Ticonderoga, the US flag was flown in battle for the first time (OK, it was a skirmish rather than a full on battle but I think that still counts), Marquis De Lafayette landed in the US, some girl called Sybil Ludington (who was 16 at the time) rode 40 miles to warn her fathers militia of an attack and so on. Really, you'd be surprised just how much went on in just one year in that fight. San Jose was founded in California and Christmas Island was discovered by Captain Cook.

Surprisingly, Christmas Island is not at the North Pole, which just to show Santa is not as daft as he is made out to be and actually prefers hanging around a much warmer climate. Good move though having your home base half a world away from where ever the rest of the world thinks it is. The fact that Cook did not make it home alive also goes to show he values his privacy and that by uncovering his true lair, Capt. Cook had in fact been a very naughty boy.

[Alex]

My phone started giving me the weather report this morning. I asked Siri "Surely the weather can be that bad?"

She replied "Don't call me Shirley and yes it can."

Then I realised I had my plane on airplane mode.

[Alex]

Assessment time rolls around at work. Expecting mine any day now. It is silly. I am not overly interested in what it says. I don't care to be promoted any higher (the extra workload just isn't worth the small pay increase IMHO). All seems like such a waste. My boss has to spend hours carefully writing it and I can't just say "Hey look, don't bother."

Oh well, that is why they pay him the big bucks.

Hmm, Kimmy and Matt visiting this weekend, next week I am in Glasgow with the RAF100 celebrations. I have been told I can wear my number ones (full dress uniform with medals) to it. Bollocks to that idea. Have you got any idea how uncomfortable I find it wearing a shirt buttoned up to the neck? I've yet to find the shirt that matches my measurements. Hell, my uniform has to be specially made for me as regular sizes are too tight on my shoulders. I am not bothered about making myself a target for terrorists or anything. Not after what happened to the last ones that tried an attack on Glasgow. I still laugh at that. I'd say setting someone on fire and then kicking them in the nuts isn't generally a funny thing, but here I will make an exception.

When I was younger I used to wonder why the IRA wasted its time blowing up ordinary people. They'd have to have murdered a lot more than they ever managed before they'd get anywhere near achieving their goals. As I got a bit older I realised the government didn't particularly care about the lives of its soldiers either and blowing them up or machine gunning them down at train stations etc was just as much of a waste of time. The troubles in Ireland merely allowed arms manufacturers in the UK to make their goods a whole lot more sellable by marketing them as 'combat proven'. I thought back then that if you really wanted something to change then what you had to target was politicians. Put them in fear of their lives and they'd soon sort out.

And I was very wrong about that too. You try to kill a politician and their popularity goes up. Even if you are successful the others will just improve their own security measures and you still haven't achieved your aims.

So how can a terrorist group achieve its aims? Well for me, I'd go for the money. Blow up a bomb in the heart of the financial district of London for example and within a few years you'll have peace talks. Threaten a governments income and bam, you are on your way. Of course you have to have a very careful balancing act here. Go too big too soon and all you will get is an overwhelming military response. Although sometimes that is the whole aim (ISIS for example has been doing its best to have a grand western alliance on the ground fighting it so they can have a last stand at some place where the Koran says the apocalypse starts when the west fights Islam or some such stuff).

Ché wrote that a freedom fighter was someone who fought against an enemy military and government, while a terrorist was someone who targeted civilians instead. I wonder what he'd think about going for the money instead given his belief in "the new man, unselfish who works for a greater common good" and so on. He may have been a smart man, but he was clearly no student of human behaviour (or he learned all the wrong lessons). Humanity is what it is and change isn't going to happen over any appreciable time frame (certainly not when measured again an individual human life span). Shame he never thought to harness what he had available and make the best of that.

[Trevor]

My phone started giving me the weather report this morning. I asked Siri "Surely the weather can be that bad?"

She replied "Don't call me Shirley and yes it can."

Then I realised I had my plane on airplane mode.

 

[ER]

When I was younger I used to wonder why the IRA wasted its time blowing up ordinary people.

Hon, the IRA doesn't produce many Rhodes Scholars.

It is probably the most illogical terror group on the planet, having neither a clear set of goals nor the ability to ever implement the broadly-sketched ideas for which it claims to stand. It was fueled by poverty and hate and had in its rank and file some of the most ignorant human beings the slums of Ulster ever produced.

The only thing it was ever good at in its long history of abject failure was making the angry think they had an impact beyond their own miserable lives.

[Alex]

Guess I need to come up with a new story to write. Not sure how Indy or ER go about things, but I normally think of a scene and then work out how the people involved got there. With ‘Knowledge Burns’ it was the climax at the graveyard, whereas ‘The Forsaken’ had its genesis with the bird of prey seeing sunlight glinting off armour at the start. More or less though that story ended up being simply what would happen if a bunch of medieval mercenaries walked into the village from ‘The Monster Club’.


The sky was very overcast this morning. Out the south window it still is, with heavy grey clouds hanging around. Out the east window it is blue skies and sunshine.

Still no Taliban coming over the horizon though (although since they built a hillock to deflect the sound from the engine test house the horizon is about 50 feet away from my seat nowadays).

I wonder if any Sikhs have ever made a movie called The Turbinator?


And no that isn’t going to form the basis of my next story.

One of our minions was being a bit cocky so some of the JNCO’s (well me and Jim) got together to take him down a peg. When he went for lunch Jim picked up a red ink pad, which we then rubbed one of the phones (which I’ll call phone B) earpiece in. Due to me having two phones to answer although one is on the minion’s desk (long complicated story as to why, but that is phone B) I concocted a quick plan, and got Jim to call my normal phone (phone A). I pretended to speak to someone looking for the minion and told them they’d get him on phone B. Jim (who sits back to back with this minion), then called the other extension so minion answered it only to hear Jim say, “Your red ear is now ready for collection from stores.”

Wonder if he has learned his lesson or if there will be retaliation?


Of course, I then had to spend the rest of the day not responding to calls on phone B, until we got around to ordering the minion (apparently his name is Liam. Or Adam. One of those).

[ER]

Guess I need to come up with a new story to write. Not sure how Indy or ER go about things, but I normally think of a scene and then work out how the people involved got there. With ‘Knowledge Burns’ it was the climax at the graveyard, whereas ‘The Forsaken’ had its genesis with the bird of prey seeing sunlight glinting off armour at the start. More or less though that story ended up being simply what would happen if a bunch of medieval mercenaries walked into the village from ‘The Monster Club’.

Know what I find works is paying attention to the mindscape and when one of those burning ideas hits, leap at it before the inspiration fades. Stephen King refers to it as "my muse took a s**t on my head." Not a bad description! I can never construct a story by sitting down and concentrating, it has to be an organic evolving process of creation. And then there was what happened to me last fall and it was like I got possessed and it felt like I channeled.

[Alex]

Had to go get some bloods taken from the med centre on camp for a hospital appointment next week. Not the most skilled nurse I’ve ever had. Damn thing stung like a stingy thing going in and hurt the whole time it was in, whereas normally I just feel it going in and nothing more. Normally I have to get these done a week in advance so the blood results can be done in time for my appointment. However, they only gave me a weeks’ notice, I couldn’t get the bloods taken until this morning and Monday is a bank holiday so not confident everything will be done in time.

Good job it isn’t for anything serious then.

Aaah, Friday. If you can’t be happy on a Friday then there isn’t much hope for you. Or you work weekends.

Politicians in the UK seem a bit confused that unemployment is really low at the moment but yet more people are poorer than ever. Guess it must be all the s**t low paying jobs then with a minimum wage that is below what it needs to be. So much for trickledown economics (when I hear that phrase I keep thinking someone is p**sing on me) and wealth creators. Doesn’t do much good to the rest of the world unless you actually pay fair wages. Mind you, to be fair, I’ve met quite a few lazy bastards in my life who didn’t deserve the wages they were getting.

Meh, I’ll be there myself in 5 years’ time. Hell, as it is my pay is worth 14% less than it was 10 years ago.

An old friend got in contact with me to see if I still run. I said yes, but these days its out of f**ks, patience and money.

Always thought that part of the benefits package for being in this job is that for every full 10 years you serve, you should be allowed to shoot one person who really annoys you.

Pretty sure that would get the recruitment numbers up where the government wants it to be. I did hear Germany is considering bringing back conscription. Not that it is my country or business really, but in general I am strongly against conscription. Just because you happen to be born in one place and not another you shouldn’t be forced to fight for it. Loyalty (much like respect) has to be earned. It can’t be expected or demanded. Well you can try both of those, but you won’t get what you want.

Besides too many people confuse respect and fear.

[Alex]

Got Kimmy and Matt visiting in a few hours and staying overnight. Both me and Kristi are by this point exhausted. Neither of us can remember the last time we got a full nights sleep, but this is part of the joys of having a child and we both knew what we were signing up for.

Hmm, the ancient skeleton of a child has DNA from two different species. Guess my teachers were wrong when they said that Homo Sapiens killed all the other human like species and instead we all kind of bred together into one big melting pot. Hah, take that racists. You are merely an amalgam of genetic material from who knows how many other creatures and there is no such thing as a pure bred human.

Actually research into DNA proved that we are not the descendents of a single species quite some time ago. Shame. If more of these seperate strands had survived independantly could we have developed a polytaxic society? It does bug me slightly when people refer to evolution as a theory. It was a theory, but it has long since been proven. You can see it happening around you if you know how to look. At a basic level have a look at the drug resistant viruses we seem to be increasingly facing. Evolution in action folks, get over it.

Oh and while we are at it, the world isn't flat, nor shaped like a donut. It is however hollow and has dinosaurs living under the surface. 

[ER]

If history has taught us anything it's that's human beings will have sex with whatever they possibly can, from aerosol cans to zebras, lemurs to light sockets, Neandethals to Nice 'n Cheesy processed non-dairy spread. On those cold summer nights back in the Ice Age, I betcha those cousins of the ancestors of modern man started lookin' pretty sweet shaking their hairy asses and batting their low-browed eyes. Heck, I've met people I KNOW have to have Neanderthal genes in them.

[Pacman000]

I thought a scientific theory was proven, beyond a certain degree. An hypothesis still needs testing.

Looked it up. If Live Science is right a theory is based on facts & is considered true because it can be used to make predictions: https://www.livescience.com/21491-what-is-a-scientific-theory-definition-of-theory.html

While some creationists have noted potential problems with evolution, they haven't created a theory capable of generating predictions which evolution couldn't already make. And then the whole conversation slams into the wall which separates science, philosophy, & metaphysics, which makes me want to watch the Twilight Zone. 

[Alex]

Had a few beers with Matt last night. Between the pair of us we drank 24 beers, then started on some Norwegian stuff that I can't remember the name of, some Mead and finally sampled some of my whiskeys.

Good job Kimmy was driving the next day and that neither of us gets hangovers.

Its a bank holiday tomorrow so I don't have to worry about work. On nights next week and only have to be in Tuesday and Wednesday, then I travel down to Glasgow for a long weekend. Kristi is going to stay home while I am taking Ash so she can have some time to be herself.

Looking forward to some daddy & baby time. :)