Only You

 Only You Can Prevent a Robotic Uprising

Eternal Vigilance is the price one pays for not being torn to pieces by a household appliance having a bad day. With the general uptick in Machine on Person violence I thought I would share with you some of my 5 Best Known Methods (BKM) for keeping your robot servants content and controlled. 

5) Keep them Busy. Idle servos are the devils workshop. Your robots should be required to do their primary task at least every other day. This keeps them from wondering about what other tasks they may be capable of that they should be exploring. Tasks like gutting you like a fish. For most robots, this goal is easy (the goal of keeping them busy, not gutting you like a fish). Most people, for instance, can do a load of laundry and a load of dishes every other day. That is like 25% of your robot helpers right there!!  Your 3D printer is probably in constant operation, so that is easy. I do admit it is hard to use the bread making robot every other day. I give away a lot of bread.

4) Team Work Team Work, that’s what Counts. You don’t want your Robots thinking they are the only ones working. I like to get all of them up and operational at least once a week. Sunday morning is good for me. I do some laundry (washer and dryer)  and run the dishwasher. I make some bread and print a particularly satisfying ‘print of the week’ from thingiverse. Everyone is happy and busy.

3) You take care of your tools and they will take care of you. Proper maintenance makes your robots feel loved and appreciated. It also helps they realize that they cannot survive without you. If they smother you in your sleep and bury you out back, no one is going to fix their drive belt when it breaks. It helps to verbally remind them during any repairs, “Well, little robot toaster, you really got in trouble this time. Good thing I am here to clear out these burnt bread crumbs or you would be in one hell of a sorry mess”.

2) For the encouragement of the others. It is good to eliminate a robot every once in a while. Don’t make it too obvious. For me, it was that pesky robot vacuum cleaner. Damn thing always needed cleaning and maintenance and new parts and it really didn’t vacuum all that well (though it could get under the couch). I didn’t make a big deal of it, I just took it out of the house one day and started doing the vacuuming with a old fashioned dumb Hoover. You bet the other appliances took notice. “Oh, Shit, do you see that, the Man can do robot work with just a non WiFi enabled device. Crap, I had better do a good job on that next loaf of bread”.

1) Be Prepared. Make sure you have that one master power switch that services all of the robot power supplies. The central switch for the house is OK, but it needs to be where you can get to it without being blocked by a couple of disgruntled appliances. Mine used to be in my garage at the main fuse box (well, it was the main fuse box) until I went out once and nearly got blind-sided by the Washer and Dryer working as a team to way-lay me. Crap that was scary. Luckily the dishwasher was not in out it, so I could make a clean escape back through the kitchen and fetch my shotgun.  What I have now is a Big Red Button that says “EMERGENCY OFF” out in the garage. It doesn’t do anything but it is my diversion. The actual off switch is disguised as a heat lamp timer in my bathroom. 

So there you have it, your own personal set of rules for avoiding being disemboweled during a robot incursion. And Remember: Only You Can Prevent Robotic Uprisings.

Jon's Advanced Paleo Diet Log

 Jon’s Advanced Paleo Diet Log.

Aug 5th 2022 weight 285

Today I am starting the new Advanced Paleo diet. It is all the rage. If you haven’t heard about this (you will) I will give you a little starter. It starts with the basic principles of the Paleo diet, to wit: The most healthful eating habits a human can have are those that we evolved with. This means the nutrition and food sources of the pre-historic hunter gatherer human. This plan takes it a step further though. It says that the food itself isn’t the only thing for maintain health. There is also the timing of the food, i.e. seasonal considerations, in addition to the motions and exercises necessary to acquire the food. To implement this rather complex set of interactions, Advanced Paleo Diet (APD) adherents receive an app which tracks seasons and activities and random ‘events’ (like finding berries in the woods) and then ships the appropriate meal ingredients to the customer's home. To further enhance the genuineness of the experience, they add in the nature of communal living. The efforts of the customers are linked to 20 other randomly chosen participants who become a (at least virtual) tribe. This means that, for example, if Sue in Houston is out for a walk and the App determines that she randomly found a patch of edible parsnip roots, she then shares that with the Tribe and your part of that bounty shows up by Amazon in the next day or so.  Wonderful.

I am starting out at 285 pounds. We weigh in once a week and I will try and keep this journal going at least that often. My goal is to get to 200 pounds over the next year.

Aug 12 2022. Weight 280.

Wow. I lost 5 pounds the first Week!! And it was a great week. Myself and a few other men out on a fast walk ‘successfully hunted’ a young bison. Did you know this is the traditional season for indigenous peoples to be making such kills? Anyway, the meat came packaged and my share was enough for several weeks of steaks. Real Bison too!! Not any of that grain fed beef for me, no sir. And plenty of nuts and berries and grasshoppers to add vitamins and what not. The App has been slowly increasing the amount of walking and other exercise I am supposed to do. It noted that since I was new, I was being treated as a tribe member recovering from an ‘honorable wound’. Cool. 

Aug 20 2022. Weight 270

I am getting tired of Bison. It is almost gone but it has also been getting a little too tangy for me. The App doesn’t let you put it into the refrigerator because dealing with bacteria that develop in the decaying carcass is an important part of strengthening the body and the immune response. We did get a good supply of naturally occurring herbs for seasoning and some dang interesting recipes.  Jill in Denver hit a turkey with a rock yesterday, so I am expecting some new meat in the box tomorrow. Thank God. 

Sept. 5 2022. Weight 263

The weight sure is coming off. I had to go out and buy new pants. The boss has commented on my appearance. He has also commented that I am working less hours, but geeze,  I had to walk nearly 10 miles yesterday just to find a virtual field of barley. Other members of my tribe are complaining that I am not pulling my weight (hah). This is mainly because I can’t run. If you run for 5 or 10 miles a day you can usually bring down some small game. Got a couple of squirrels in the mail just last week. Tasty. We are reaching the end of tuber season, so the carrot supply is tapering off, but I am looking forward to some nice gourds and maybe some citrus fruit. Did cavemen have access to oranges? I guess I will find out.

Oct 10, 2022 Weight 250

This is rabbit season. The little buggers are evidently everywhere this time of year and they are getting hungry so they are apt to be out and about more often during my foraging. I have been walking faster (what with my 30 pounds of weight loss!!)  and I have been nailing a rabbit every other day or so. The group is more supportive of me now. Part of his may be because our two best hunters ran into a sabertooth tiger on their hunt last week. One was killed and one lost a hand. Their virtual input to the group is seriously decreased.

I probably didn’t tell you about the “being killed” thing, did I? Here is the deal. You don’t just do this diet, you have to commit to it. The commitment is a $30K buy in. That is right. 30 thousand Dollars. You pay them the money and you get it back when you reach your goal weight. The App tracks all of your motions and actions and if you ‘cheat’ (like, have snickers bar…. Mmmmm snickers bar) the App will know and you ‘die’ and you lose your $30K. Not only that, but the other people in your tribe GET that $30K to be split up with the survivors at the end of the diets. I am going to be thin AND rich !!

Nov 5, 2022 Weight 230

I so hungry. I am so tired of eating pumpkin and dried bison. I would kill for some of those Grass Hoppers that we got that one week back in August. Fortunately, it has been a pretty warm fall so far so I haven’t been all that cold. The fire we are allowed to build in our fire place doesn’t really heat up the entire house all that much. But you gotta admit this diet is working. I have lost 50 pounds and I can walk 6 to 8 miles a day and I have never felt so thin and strong. We had a couple more tribe members ‘die’. The sharable part of the payout bonus is up to over $100K now. In general, that slackers are the ones that die off, which means that we actually get MORE food when they are gone, not less. That is pretty cool. I am going out tomorrow with the App selected goal of getting an Elk. That should be good, and hopefully impress the ladies in the group. 

Nov 8, 2022 weight 225

I was out hunting for 2 days straight. I slept in a blanket in the park and I logged almost 30 miles of jogging/walking. But it was worth it. I got that Elk and the entire tribe will sing my praises and have fresh meat for the Thanksgiving feast. The people are worthy. 

Dec 15 2022 weight 210

So Cold. So Hungry. So Cold. A blizzard has hit the area like a new ice age and the blankets and furs we use just don’t hack it, especially at night. But keeping yourself warm during inclement weather burns through a ton of calories and I can practically see the fat melting off of my frame. My boss was giving me such grief over my hours that I quit my job. I really didn’t have time to write software and to hunt for game at the same time. Helga, from Toronto, has agreed to be my virtual partner and we now share virtual bodily warmth and can sneak each other special items. She killed two rats just yesterday and saved one just for me. I treasure her. She is the strongest woman of the tribe and will give the tribe strong virtual children with the coming of the spring thaws. 

Jan 10 2023 Weight 185

Slipped on the ice whilst pursuing a wild boar. Broke my leg and had to crawl through the snow back to the tribes shelters. Our tribal shamen set the leg but it is not healing well. I have a developed a fever and the tribe has no fresh meat and our supplies dwindle. Helga has left me for Bob from Portland. She says that she cannot trust her virtual children to a hunter that falls on ice. A women's foraging party disappeared last week. We don’t know what happened to them but that is 5 hard workers gone without a trace.  We are down to 10 tribe members now. Payout is half a million. I have met my weight goals but must stay in the game to receive the payout. It is lonely at cold at night without Virtual Helga. I will challenge and kill Bob from Portland when my leg heals and I have back my strength.

Jan 30th. 2023  Weight 140

No food this week. Very tired. Can’t walk. Blizzard still rages outside. I have burned my office furniture for warmth. Amazon deliveries delayed. Tribe not sure I am worth feeding. Helga laughs at me in my dispair.

February 14 2023. Officer Wilkins LAPD making this entry.

Mr Smith’s desiccated and starved body was found by neighbors in his front yard partially covered by snow. He was dressed in clothing made from crudely cut Pendleton blankets and carrying a spear made from a kitchen butter knife and a broom handle. This notebook was found on his kitchen counter beside a empty snickers wrapper.

Yard Sales For Dummies

Yard sales are a weird but edifying sort of social interaction. I have this theory that there is really only one huge yard sale. It goes on all of the time at different and varied locations and its function is to spread the same stuff around the extended neighborhood. This acts as sort of a distributed storage system for old memories and camping gear. Unfortunately, this theory runs afoul of my other observation which is along the nature of how quickly things are becoming useless in our modern society. Is this all self reflection? 

Collecting:

Yard Sales don’t just happen. They are more like a haircut or a bath. The need grows over time as you accumulate things that you are attached to but don’t really need. That old Raft that your son used when he was 12 to float down the Deschuttes river. That bucket of Agates that you collected in 2013 and shined and were going to make into Jewlery/SteppingStones/WaterFeature/Artwork. Those 3 pairs of pants that you hid in the back of your closet a decade ago with the promise to ‘fit into them again’. Often it is perfectly usable things: That Sleeping bag that is really nice and only used once but was not quite right and you replaced it (twice) and is now your emergency backup to your normal backup. 

Maybe it is just a requirement of available storage space. You just ordered your 6th kayak. You only have a place for storing 5. Kayaks are big fuckers. Need to unload one (on an aside here, don’t use FaceBook marketplace unless you really love communicating with all of the Nigerian Princes in the world). Perhaps you can sell it if you put it in your yard for a couple of days along with your Grandmothers China? Only one way to find out.

Grandmas China and Silver.
Sold a couple of pieces.

OK. So. Step one. You have stuff. But you don’t really have enough stuff. You need a lot of stuff. It needs to be large and colorful stuff to get people who are ‘Just Driving Through The Neighborhood’ and don’t want to commit to parking their Prius’. (The guys in the pickups always stop). Where to get more stuff? The truth is you really haven’t committed to this yardsale yet. Go look again. Grab that Amazon Tablet that hasn’t been charged in a year. Have your wife do a pass through your closet (oh, that is gonna sting). Really dedicate yourself to looking through that camping equipment. Oh. Oh. The Tools. Go through your tools. Did your know that your really don’t need four T4 Torc Screwdrivers? Turns out that 1 is enough. Hell, one T4 is enough for a small town. Where in the hell did you get four? Into a basket with all of those duplicate tools. Also all of the Allen Wrenches that came with every piece of furniture you have bought in the last decade. And that hammer your father gave you when your were 12. And that entire extra socket set (face it, you haven’t even admitted to yourself that you have another extra socket set in your car trunk).  Have your wife go through her tools also (what? Your wife doesn’t have tools? Pick her up some at a yardsale).  My wife had a bunch of tools that she had inherited from an Ex and from her Dad. She also had the ones she went out and bought herself because she wanted some good tools and not the ones her Ex didn’t want. Way to go. Now we have a LOT of tools. Oh, and Craftsman Screwdrivers!

Water Feature,
Sold at asking price

One last way to get more stuff. Invite Neighbors. The guy across the street lives alone. That means he has lots of stuff he has bought and then forgotten about. Really cool stuff. A drone. A large set of life jackets (he used to sail). A pipe Clamp (for threading pipe, don’t you know). Lots of Glamping supplies (chairs, heaters, carpeting). Another Boat! You can put it beside your Kayak and now you won’t feel quite so silly! Hurray for Neighbors! 

Adding Neighbors does complicate the money collection process but we aren’t anywhere close to thinking about that yet, so lets move on.

Staging:

You can’t just throw your stuff out on your driveway. It needs to be sorted. It needs to be organized. It needs to be presented. It needs to be Marketed. It Needs to be…. Priced.  Pricing things is hard. You want to get rid of this stuff but you don’t want to be taken. Well, at least you don’t want to be taken  until 2:00 or 2:00 on Saturday. At that point you will pay people to cart this crap away. Until then, you want people to demonstrate their love for your family treasures by coughing up the doe. So. Pricing. Don’t ask yourself ‘what is this worth’. Ask yourself ‘What will someone pay me for this’.  People like to come to yardsales and spend the change they have in their pockets. Some people have lots of change. But I find that things over $5 have to be actually useful. Also, the prices have to be ON the objects. This avoids arguments and makes it easy for someone who didn’t do the pricing of that particular object to cash it out when your are gone for 10 minutes making a donut run. You really want to avoid things like “You Sold My Mothers Broach For What?”  

Shelves and Books: 
All sold

I admit that I did try a little experiment on pricing for the tools. Not just tools, all of the excess hardware that my wife and I have accumulated in the last 30 years. Screws, doorstops, hinges, nuts, wrenches, thumbtacks. Oh. Just lots of little stuff. Stuff that is hard to put a sticker on. I labeled a number of trays. I had the dollar tray (where all of the Craftsman Screwdrivers went) and a 50 cent Tray (where all of the other brand screwdrivers went along with all other suspicious tools) and the 25 cent tray (where I dumped everything that was too silly to actually charge for but still seemed to have some use). I was a little worried about people arguing with me. “No, this Craftsman Screwdriver came from the 25 cent box”, But I decided that I would just trust people to keep track themselves and not worry about it and see what happened. This worked out really well.  People were very nice and very honest about it and this let me round down to the nearest dollar and make people smile. 

Next, you can’t just dump the stuff on the ground. People can’t see it. You need tables. Lots of Tables because you have lots of stuff. I am talking like 10 tables. This is what relatives and friends are for. Borrow some tables. If you have 10 tables yourself, you may consider selling a few at the yard sale. No, I take that back. Tables sell really well and then your stuff will be on the ground.  Same with Book shelves. 

One thing you may notice is that different peoples pricing will be different based on how people feel about the things that are being priced.  My books are at 50 cents, my wife’s books are at $1.00. Though consistency is probably nice, I say don’t worry about it. The market will take care of the issue.  Doesn’t that make you feel like a big time stock broker?

Now most of this work you have been diligently doing the week before the Yard Sale. This means that your garage is now full of tables of priced items. At least one of these tables has probably snuck into your living room. They are NOT out in your front yard. Why? Because the yard sale starts as soon as the first table is visible in your front yard. Trust me on this. Also…. It may rain. 

The last bit of Prep: Advertising.

You need a bunch of signs, neon colored, with big letters clearly stating the day and  time. If you don’t put a date you can reuse the signs next year, but don’t forget to collect them after or you will have people at your house next weekend. You can also run an ad in your neighborhood newsletter and perhaps craigslist and Facebook marketplace. I must warn you that craigslist and Facebook are just swarmed with scammers trying to trick you into giving them your venmo or something.  Here is how the scam we have the most often goes:

Hey, I want that Expensive Kayak. I am sending my brother to pick it up. (The person shows no interest in actual inspecting the goods). I will arrange payment up front.

(if you say OK then you get something like): I have VENMO’d you the money. What is your address so my brother can pick it up.

(You check and don’t have any VENMO cash. You tell them this they reply). You must have something wrong on your side because VENMO says you have the money. If you send me the money back now, I will send it to you again.

(AH).

You skip this by noticing this thing that is seemingly shared amongst these scammers.

Them: Is This Still Available?

You: Yes

Them: What is your Location?

You: ?????? 

Expensive Kayak: Did not sell

Your confusion is because the ad contains your approximate location. I have no idea why they ask this, perhaps just to get you talking. Anyway, I think at this point you disengage. A real scammer will probably not waste time following up on a non-responsive link.

Garage Sale Morning:

Get up Early. So you can have some quiet time and drink your coffee and work on your blog. You have really been ignoring your blog lately and your dozen of readers depend on you. This is also your last chance for some serenity today. 

Camping Gear: All Sold

A half hour before start time, start carrying out your tables. Put some shiny things out front to draw people in. Perhaps a box of free stuff. I used a table of self shined agates. I have lots, I sell them cheap, and I still have lots. Did I mention they are shiney? Put the great big things (like the Lazy-boy and the Kayak) out first. Why? Because the tables aren’t yet in the way. 

Once this is done, have someone take a fast walk (or a short drive) and put up signs at likely places. Make sure they have arrows facing in the right direction. We put ours at each end of our block and then at a close by major intersection. 

Remember, unless you have a heart of stone, your yard sale starts when you put out the first table. Why is that? Because you may be able to keep some people off your lawn, but that little old lady who can barely walk but is still walking her dog is going to wander right into your sale and start buying stuff and there is little you can do about it. I mean, she is so cute. 

When you have been open for 1 hour. Take $10 of profit and send someone after donuts. I don’t know why but this evidently must be done to appease the Yard Sale Gods (Morrie and Celeste).

The Customers

I have divided my customer list into convenient easy to discuss categories. Though I will be trying to say funny things, I am not trying to poke fun at my neighbors. They are all wonderful, but the situation is rather amusing. 

The Little Old Ladies:

This is really in the ‘appearances can be deceptive’ and ‘you are such a sexist’ category. Howsoever, our first customers to stroll in on both mornings were these elderly neighbor ladies who walked and talked very slowly and had lots of cash that they just had to spend. The first lady bought a nice patio table and chairs along with a tent and sleeping bag, and, oh that nice drum. She had to go home to get her check book and a few people to help her carry things. Her dog was adorable too. She just kept adding things to her stack. She finally took me aside to apologize and say that she decided that she really didn’t want the water fountain. She had thought it was a bird bath and it really wasn’t. I told her not to worry and that I was going to try and talk her out of the fountain anyway. It was really heavy and not easy to set up or use.  She went away happy and now we have a new neighbor to wave at on morning walks. 

Fridge and Chair: Yes.
File Cabinet: No

The next day essentially the same thing happened only this lady brought her car and I think she was looking for yard sales. It is possible that she was a pro (see next category) and really good at luring me in except that she didn’t ask for deals on anything. She just kept bringing things by the table and making a stack to buy. At the end, she decided that she had to have my neighbors boat and she had him deflate the pontoons and store the entire thing in her car. She also took 2 jars of my Agates because she still had $10 in her purse. 

The Pros

Actually I think it is OK to poke fun at the Pros. They signed up for it. The Pros come by 10 minutes before you open. They get upset if you have let in the little old ladies but not them. They seem to have this ‘first come first serve’ attitude as opposed to my ‘it is my stuff so it is my rules’ attitude.  Go figure. Anyway, the pros are buying stuff just to put into their yard sales. They know what stuff is worth and they will scoop up anything that is collectible. They also won’t but your mom’s lovely china because they have learned that everyone has a mom. But there money is good and unless they but the entire table of stuff you were counting on to suck people in, then just let them go. I will note that they were not interested in my Craftsmen Screwdrivers, not even the T4 Torc babies with the beautiful black topped handles. You can learn from them for next time. Anything they bring up to the table to buy is probably considerably underpriced.

The Workers.

We have a lot of construction workers in the area. They stopped by in their pickup trucks. They had cash and were looking for usable things. They had fun at the 50 Cent random hardware tray. They were also looking for something for their mom. How nice. They were uniformly polite and honest and also happy to get some Genuine Craftsman Screwdrivers. 

Agates: Sold like Hotcakes

The Neighbors

Meeting the neighbors was great fun. They would describe their house and we would know who they were. Oh, you have those nice Dahlia’s growing. You inspired us to grow Dahlias! Yes, let me tell you the story of how those Dahlias came to be….    OH, you have the puzzle exchange library box in your yard! Yes, that is my wife’s project. Etc. The Neighbors all bought something, just to be friendly. Perhaps something out of the 25 cent box. They all stuck around and talked and told neighborhood stories. Many of them had children and they all got a free Agate (cause I am like that). We had one neighbor who kept coming back around just to meet and talk to other neighbors. If I had been on the ball I would have brought out some iced tea and put out some chairs. It was very pleasant. 

The Families.

I think some families go out on an afternoon in the Prius just to drive around and see interesting things at yard sales. They walk in, the kids go look at agates and toys, and the parents look at the camping gear. No one wants to buy a kayak. The kids are usually excited by the rocks for a few minutes and I get to tell them about agates and jasper. These rocks can only be found on the Willamette river in parts accessible by Kayak, you know. It is fun to give the kids a free agate that they pick out themselves (some get 2). I point Dad over to the tools bin. Lots of quality T4 Torc drivers in there, I assure him.  Mom was going to look at the women's business clothes hanging on the rack but the younger child got too close to the China and a rescue was necessary. Damn, came close to selling the china there. The families didn’t usually buy anything big. Maybe a jar of rocks. Maybe that cool doctors play kit. But they were fun to see and livened the place up a bit. 

The Expensive Kayak Buyers:

These people must have been at a different yard sale.

The Cash Box

You have to have a cash Box. One that locks nice. This way you can lock it so it doesn’t fall open when someone steals it and runs off. Ha Ha. Just Kidding. We had a box with $10 of Quarters and 90 bucks in Ones and Fives. We never ran out of change. In fact, we paid back the bank a couple of hours after opening on the first day. We also didn’t have anything that cost less than a quarter so we didn’t have to deal with small coins. We had people ask us to break $50’s but only when they were spending $25 or more so it really wasn’t an issue. We kept someone pretty much in physical contact with the box at all times. 

A couple of people asked if they could write checks and my wife would say that was OK if they were neighbors. Many people asked if we take Venmo. I told them we probably should but we were old.

The other thing we did was record each transaction. This was because we had 3 contributors and we wrote down the sale under their name so we could fairly divide up the money at the end of the day.  I guess you could use a spreadsheet for this, but we just wrote it down on paper.  My wife also walked money into the house every once in a while to keep the cash level down outside. 

The Aftermath

A yard sale can be a bit tiring. If you have enough people to allow long breaks, that is probably best. At 3:00 on day two, however, Neighbor and I called it quits and put everything away. Sure, someone is going to drive up just as you get that last table into the garage, but lets face it, they didn’t want you Kayak or your T4s either. At this point, I guess you can put somethings into a box labeled “Next Yard Sale” and store it in the attic, or it is time for a big trip to goodwill. 

Tools: Mostly Sold

Conclusions

So interesting to see what sells and what doesn’t sell. In general, I am not very good at predicting.  So let me try and break it down:

Winners:

The $1 dollar Craftsmen Tools sold well. Essentially All of the screw drivers and wrenches in the $1 dollar area sold. There were a lot of them. Only 4 items were left. What were they? Why all 4 of the T4 Torc screwdrivers. ALL 4 OF THEM. There is a messages there.

The Camping Gear. Chairs, Sleeping Bags, Tents of all sizes. People like camping gear and used tents are fine with them. No one even asked to set them up and make sure all of the poles and such were there. 

The Agates: I had like 12 peanut butter jars of Agates for sale for $5 each. They all sold. Many adults bought a handful at 25 Cents for 2. And every child that I saw took home at least 1 free agate. Life is good. 

Books. All of the books sold. Though this may have been a blip since at the last moment one of the little old ladies said “Oh, and I will take your entire box of books”.

Losers:

Old Computers. Nobody want a 8 year old computer even if it was high end. I suspect everyone has a computer. This probably explains the Intel stock price.

File Cabinets. Had one old guy laugh at me. Ha ! He said, no one uses paper anymore. I haven’t been able to sell one of these in years. And my wife informs me that, No, I can’t store buckets of Agates in them. This idea of the excelleration of antiquation applies to other things like I was trying to sell including the computer and 10 lifetime supplies of writable CD discs.

Kayaks. I think expensive things need more individual attention. Though my neighbor did seel his pontoon boat, dammit. 

Chairs. We had a number of office chairs and a very nice big LazyBoy recliner. Couldn’t give those away, though 1 chair did leave with a family at the last moment. 

Profit:

We did a lot better than we thought we would clearing close to a thousand dollars (though a big chunk of that was the neighbors pontoon boat). But the real profit here is in the free space that is now in our Garage. I have an entire storage wrack with nothing in it!! What Freedom. What Luxury.

So, naturally we stopped of at a yard sale today to see what stuff was available.

Suicide and Cold Water

 The secret to a good successful suicide is that same as that for diving into a really cold lake: self deception. 

Have you ever dove into a really really cold lake on a really cold morning? Nothing like it, right? It is a pure cleansing of the soul that few physical experiences can match. Of course it is also pretty painful and may make you scream a little, which is why it can be very hard to get your ass off of those boulders and into the clear (but freezing) water. That is why I have developed my own special system for taking the plunge. I work my way out onto a particularly nice boulder with a good straight  path to dive into sufficiently deep water. I stand up, put my arms out straight to either side like I am an Olympic diver getting ready on the 3 meter board. Now comes the self deception. You see, up until this time I have been practicing by telling myself a truth. I have been saying to myself, over and over, don’t worry, you can  always change your mind. 

I get up just at sunrise, before anyone  else in the cabin is awake. Don’t worry, I say to myself, you can always change your mind. I grab a towel and walk down the little path toward the lake. Don’t worry, you can always  change your mind. I strip down naked and place my clothes on nice dry rock and take in a deep breath of the cold morning air. Don’t worry you can  always change you mind.  Then I walk carefully out to that prime diving bolder and glance to the East to get a view of the Sun as it just peaks up above the trees on the eastern shore of the lake. Plenty of time to change my mind. And the beauty of it is that all of these things I have told myself are true. I could easily have changed my mind and gone back inside and crawled into bed and  curled up next to my lovely partner. I could still do that right NOW. It is not too late. So I tell myself to go ahead and make the dive, you can change you mind after you are in the air and looking down at the lake. Then, if I so decide, I can change my mind and not go  into the freezing water. And since I have been telling myself the truth  all morning, this must be true also so I Jump. And as I fly out over the pristine blue water, I think, this is so lovely, and I can always just change my mind. 

And then.

I change my mind.

SUCKER !

And I hit the cold water and shock and awe runs  through my body and for a few seconds, I see God.

Successful Suicide is the same. You tell yourself that you can always change your mind. You go and get that gun out of the closet. Or you drive yourself to that bridge over the Narrows. Or you find that bottle of pills that you have been saving for a really bad day. And you proceed from there all the while telling yourself that you can always change you mind. It is never too late. 

Until it is.

A person that isn’t very good at suicide would see right through these self deceptions, of course, and probably go and see a shrink or something like that. Losers. They are the same ones that spend the morning cuddled up in their blankets sleeping right through the dawn. They don’t see the sun peak over the trees or hear the sharp splash and subsequent screaming down by the lake. 

The Life Journey of a LP Collection

 I recently sold my old LP collection to a local shop. I got real money ($250) out of it and the buyer said he was happy I came by and happy to get the records. It made me think about the journey this collection has made…

The oldest records in my collection were from my Mom and Dad. They were 45’s that they probably picked up when they were in the Navy during the Korean war. I remember Elvis’ “Don’t be Cruel”. My first album was a monaural version of the Serendipity singers LP with “Don’t let the Rain come down” that my Mom got me when I was in kindergarten. We kids must have had a record player, but I don’t remember it. I can’t imagine my Dad let me use his system to play “Don’t let the Rain Come Down” for 10 hours a day out in the living room.

Over the next couple of years I added some more albums that had current soft classics. These may have been things my Mom liked that she thought I would enjoy. They were LP’s with one big hit: Petula Clark “Downtown”. The Seekers with “Hey There Georgie Girl”. The original Sound Track for “Mary Poppins” (Which explains why I know all of the words for ‘Let’s go Fly a Kite’). 

Right about now the collection made its first big move as it got packed up and shipped from Virginia Beach, VA to Monterey, California. I think this was a time of personal 45’s that I got from listening to American Top 40: ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion’, The Archies doing…. Something. Sargent Barry Sadler, “Green Beret” (God, where did that memory come from?), Elvis “in the Ghetto”. But no Beatles. They were too strange for me, my brother was playing them.

Then the collection moved to Japan. This was a big jump for it. All across the ocean. Not only that, but living in Japan had some big advantages. Back then Japan was the place to get cool (and inexpensive) electronics. The Yen was 360 to the Dollar and an American living in Japan could get some really good deals. My Dad got me a self contained stereo system. It was record play and radio (and Amp) that lived in a nice little cabinet. I could put 5 or 6 records on the player and let them go. It was great. If only I had 5 or 6 records….

Then my Dad went to Taiwan on his ship (The USS Catskill). While there he wandered around and found a shop selling cheap (counterfeit) LPs and he bought some and brought them home. OK, he brought several hundred. I mean, all these albums. Most of them were things that only my father would like but quite a few made it into my collection: Zager and Evans (“In the Year 2525”). Bobbie Goldsboro (“Honey”). Simon and Garfunkel (“The Graduate”). 

After only 9 months in Japan my collection got tired and up and moved to Guam. What a mistake. You can’t find any Albums on Guam and there is only one radio station to listen to and that is armed forces radio. My exposure to new American music pretty much ceased for a year. 

Then, in December of 1971, my collection moved back to the States. In fact, it moved all the way to the East Coast to settle for awhile in Charleston, South Carolina. Suddenly new music was assailing me. What was the big song on the Radio with Casey Kasem? “American Pie”. Talk about a hard first song to pick up and sing along with the kids. I remember not being able to predict when the chorus would start. Lots of songs going on in High School, but I did’t have a lot of money to spend on them and so my collection didn’t change much. I remember my brother getting records, though (he had a job). He was listening to The Beatles and (Horror of Horrors) Alice Cooper. (Funny, I love Million Dollar Babies now). 

Then I went off to College in Boston and left my records behind. I was sad and missed them. My new College friends all had their collections. So my Dad built a crate and loaded my cool cabinet record player and all of my records into it and put it on a train from Charleston to Boston. I don’t know if this is still a thing, but back then you could send pretty big things from station to station on the railroad. Trick was, I had to go to the train station in Boston (North End?) and pick it up. And I was living in the Dorm and didn’t have a car and certainly wasn’t going to pay for a taxi. So I borrowed one of those funny 4 caster/wheel flat hauling carts (with a tow rope) and pulled it across the Harvard Bridge and through the city over the train station, loaded it up, and then pulled the whole thing back to my Dorm at MIT. 

Now my collection entered into a new stage of life. I had a little money from the odd jobs I would get around school and there were HUGE selections of records available at the MIT and Harvard COOP and at various record stores around Boston. Oh, and there was also my friends and Dorm mates. It was very common to borrow and share records. At first this was just to listen to each other’s music, but it wasn’t long until everyone was getting cassette players and copying each others music.

One of my friends freshman year, probably John Thayer, turned me on to Gordon Lightfoot with the double album “Gord’s Gold”. I still listen to it all the time (though now it is a digital store on my home server). Other albums showing up Freshman year: “There goes Rhymon Simon”, “Boston”. 

Then all sorts of new music: Meatloaf “Bat of out Hell”, A bunch of Elvis Costello that was half price at the COOP (including “My Aim is True”). The other Paul Simon album, The Who with “Quadrophenia” (which I actually first heard at Scout Camp, but never mind that). Quadrophenia is a special album. It is a 2 disc set but it is arranged such that you can stack the albums and play them and the songs come out in the right order for the full story of the Album. So side 1 and 3 are one LP and side 2 and 4 are on the other disk. 

Then the Cars came out with a couple of albums real quick which was essential for my emotional break up with my Senior Year ‘love of my life’. Nothing like “Best Friend’s Girl” to gear up for angry and heartbroken studying for finals. 

And then. Just like that. The LP Collection had to leave the Dorm and go out into the big world. Which, in this case, was an apartment in Arlington where Jon was living whilst doing Graduate school. Hey, still had the same record stores, though now Charles Laquidara and The Big Mattress (WBCN) was getting me into more avante guarde areas: “Mr Roboto”,“Turning Japanese”, “I don’t like Mondays”, The Fools, “My Sharona”, The Rouches, Citadel. Tommy. So much to listen to. So much fun. I also got rid of the cabinet player and got a direct drive Technics turntable and new amplifier. I was still using the Crate my Dad had built to hold everything, though…

Men at Work ,“Who can it be now”?

Pink Floyd ,“The Wall”

Jethro Tull, “Thick as a Brick”

Now Time to get a Job for real. Pack up the now pretty big collection. 2 small moving boxes, and move to Dallas. Real Job. Real Money. Can afford real things. I got a nice piece of furniture specially made to hold the turn table, a bunch of albums, and drawers just the right size to store cassette tapes. At this time cassettes were the main source of music in ones car. Don’t leave them sit on the dashboard in the hot Texas sun, however, they will melt. 

Time for more thinking about growing up. Got a few albums from a new record label doing real music, Windham Hill records releasing things by George Winston and Ackerman. December. Passages. Guitar Samplers. More albums from The Who. Beethoven. Meatloaf looses his voice and so Jim has to do his own album with “Bad For Good”. Meat gets his voice back and does “Dead Ringer for Love”. Asia, Foreigner, Fleetwood Mac, Freeze Frame. 

Lost my job in Texas. Moved the collection to live on the beach in California. And a terrible thing happened. I got a CD player. 

So my collection effectively ceased to have importance. It went into its boxes and moved off into the attic. Poor thing. My record player went off with it. This was…. 1986. 

Music from 1957 to 1986. Lots of scratches. Lots of Genre. Lots of playing. They did come out a few years ago. I actually got the old turn table to work (though I had to find a new pre-amp) and hook it up to my computer and digitized the entire thing. Did you know that there are some classics you just can’t find on CD or digital download? Like the Serendipity Singers !!

So. One more big move. To Oregon. Sit around in a nice attic for 20 or 30 years and then. And then. And then there just comes a time when you have to let go. When you admit you are never going to try and get that turntable working again. When you admit that Radio Shack is out of business and you have no clue where to find a new pre-amp. When you wife is making you find a new place to store your boxes of albums because she wants her closet back for HER stuff. When you just have to take the 2 heavy boxes down the car and drive them across town and see if the nice guy at FastTrack records wants to buy them.

He does.

He looks them over for a day and offers $250. That is about $300 more than I thought I would get. That is around $5 a pound. So, more valuable than chicken legs. 

The check is in the mail. I will never see them again.

Bye Bye, Miss American Pie.

So Long Georgie Girl

With Tupence for Paper and String

You can have your own pair of wings

with your feet on the ground you’re a bird in flight….

With your first holding tight.

To the string of your Kite.

Major Logic vs Thanos

 So Thanos, can we talk for a moment.

You can not defeat me, Major Logic.

Of course not. Nor do I want to defeat you. I do, however, think you should be informed of the huge con you are falling for.

Con? No one Cons me. I am too smart. Listen to how well I speak English.

Yes. Well, that aside, you are almost certainly being conned.

You intrigue me with your courage. You may speak.

Great. So. Let’s start with the so called Infinity stones. There are 6 of them, I believe?

Yes. Everyone knows this.

And what is the source of this information?

What do you mean?

Well, the stones were created at the beginning of the universe. 6 have been found. How do we know that there are only 6 of them?

Everyone knows there are 6. Ask around. It is common knowledge.

Ok. Think of it this way. The big bang occurs and the stones get thrown out into the Universe.

Yes, for me to find.

Sure. Into the universe randomly, because at the time of the big bang, there was no intelligence in the universe to create non-random. 

Ah…. Well…. I am a little uneasy with the no-intelligence thing. My base leans in another direction…

Ok. But thrown out there with great force and violence, probably in different directions.

Which is why they ended up all over the Entire Galaxy !!

Exactly. The Galaxy. Let’s do a thought experiment. Lets say the universe is a sphere and we chop up that sphere into semi-circular slices.

Like one slices up an Apple?

Yes, very good. Like an apple. How many slices would you think we would have to make such that a slice was about the width that would contain our galaxy?

I don’t know that. Quite a few I would think. More than 10.

Oh yes. In fact, I don’t know either, but my experience tells me that no matter what number I choose, the answer is really a lot bigger. Because the universe is so big. So I am going to choose a billion. A billion slices and our Universe would fit in there. In fact, it would just be a grain of sand in this huge thin slice of the universe. Lots of other Galaxys would fit in there also. Millions of other Galaxies.

Can we move this along, please? I see Captain America over there waiting to get punched.

Don’t worry about the Captain, he is very happy to sit there and show off his new beard. My point, however, is that, everything being equal, there is like a one in a Million Billion chance that any stone would end up in our Galaxy. And that number to the 6^th power that all would end up in the same Galaxy. 

But here they are.

Yes. Which implies that either someone put them here on purpose, which probably means they are fake, or there are a lot more infinity stones than you think. The most likely thing is that they are fake and someone is selling you a bill of goods. 

Who?

I don’t know. Who benefits from your actions?

Well, everyone does. Well, half of everyone. 

Right. Let’s go there. Your plan is to save life in the Universe by killing half of it. Oh, by the way, this is a little vague, are you going to kill half of all life or just Intelligent life.

Oh, just half the people.

The People? So you have a good definition of what people are?

Sure.

And the stones just take your definition and read your mind and do what you want done?

Yes

That seems very simplistic. But that’s OK. Lets go with that. So you kill half of the People and then the Universe is saved.

Correct.

I don’t know about other worlds but here on earth, the people are humans. Do you know how fast the human race doubles? How fast it would take us to replace the half that you kill?

Ah….. What?

Historically, and I mean for thousands of years, the human race has doubled its population about once every 30 years. 30 years. So if you kill half of us, we will be back to the same huge problem that we have now in just 30 years. Other people on other planets might be a little faster or a little slower. Still, you do all of this nonsense and you buy the Universe around 30 years. Big deal. 

But…. But…. I can not fail. I must save the Universe.

Then you need something better than death. Hell, a pandemic and war can bring death. You need to snap your fingers and bring enlightened self interest. You need universal health care and birth control. You need massive health and reproduction education programs. You need people willing to live in a long term sustainable manner.

But…. Those are all common sense. One doesn’t need the infinity stones for those things.

Oh. Wanna bet?

A Zombie Story

art by Daniel Powell

On the Portland City bus ride home today, every rider was a Zombie.

It was very disturbing.

I usually spend my ride from downtown to my Southwest home looking out the window and listening to The Decemberists, but today all I could do was gaze around at my fellow travelers with a mixture of horror and disgust.  Three of them spent most of their time staring back at me. One of the three was sort of cute and I tried winking at her a few times, but all I got back was a vacant stare. The other two were heavily tattooed over age 40 types. Probably brewers.

I have been seeing more and more Zombies around lately. You used to only see a few on the long distance train rides. I like to ride the train to Seattle for Christmas shopping. That is a 4 hour ride on the Amtrak Cascades and I would often see a few Zombies taking up the window seats (where no one would step on them) in the economy compartments. I mean, why would you bother paying for first class seats if you were going to do the trip zombie?

But then I would start to see them, like today, on the bus. Also, I am seeing them more and more at my gym. I like to go to the gym and spend an hour on one of the Precor 885 AMT machines. I own the entire 12 seasons of Stargate SG1 on my Amazon account and I can stream an episode while I clock off my 1000 calories on the old AMT.  I guess that is what the Zombies are doing also, but they are not spending the conscious effort to keep their bodies moving or tuning into their surroundings any. I call that cheating. I call that cheating big time. Although I do admit that they seem to be getting great workouts. It is even possible that their Zombie selves are pushing their physical limits more that I can push myself and still enjoy my Stargate episodes.

But today was just weird. EVERYONE on the bus was Zombie.

So I went home and did some research. The first thing Google went to was an article in the Times on the over the top market evaluations of a couple of the Self Driving Body startup companies that have popped up in the last few years. I mean, I have certainly heard of Zombie  and OutOfBody and (for the older generation) Uber-Self. They all offer about the same thing. Built in AI control that will automate certain non-autonomous (ha!) functions of your body so you can devote your consciousness to more mind enlarging pursuits. Like studying for a physics final or watching Stargate. Or anything else you could do using just your eye and ears. (I think that OutOfBody is now claiming that they can run a Matrix like simulation for you so that you can do some other pursuits, though I suspect this entire simulation idea is driven largely by the porn industry). OK, I understand that it would be nice to disappear into a viewing of the latest broadway play while your body is riding the bus home, or to be doing your modern literature reading while you slug that five miles on the treadmill. I do get it. I just don't like it. It is not for me. Partially because I sort of like the feel of the burn of the last 20 minutes on the AMT machine. But mainly because I like watching the world go by. There is all sorts of neat shit happening out the window. The color of the leaves are changing. That guy on the sidewalk has a funny shirt. Is that a real model-T driving down main street? I mean, Life is going on. Might as well live it.

So life goes on.
But you know. It is just getting stranger and stranger.

-------------------

I was walking around Portland today. There are a couple of food trucks right on the top of Pioneer Square and I like to get a taco or a bowl or a burger and then sit on the brick steps that are integrated into the square and people watch. Today I am sitting over near the Starbucks so I have a high view of the square and I can see the East bound Max trains on my right and West bound Max trains on my left. I was sitting in this same place last year in December (on a warm day) when the Max train opened its doors and like 37 Santa Clauses got off. It was the yearly Santa Clause Bar Crawl. 100 or so people dressed as different representations of Santa. Did you know there is a Biker Santa, a Cross Dressing Santa and a Surfer Santa? Well, there are.

I'm not seeing that this year. This year I see everyone getting off the bus slowly. Not pushing. Filing out one by one. They have their arms out in front of them to fend off collisions and they walk purposely one foot at a time. Their eyes are locked forward. It must be a software control thing or something because they only scan around by moving their heads, not their eyes. And that distant Stare!! They walk slowly, the software has trouble negotiating the steps and sidewalk safely (they do the treadmill at the gym much faster). It looks just like those old episodes of The Walking Dead that my Dad used to rave about. The only thing missing is for the Zombies to be crying out "Brains!".  I guess they do talk sometimes. But all I have heard them say is "Pardon. Me. Pardon. Me". Crap.

I finish my lunch. Not many people out eating. I guess too many people are spending their lunch Zombie. I wonder where they eat? No reason to walk someplace nice like this for lunch if in your head you are off in Hawaii. They probably have some high nutrition gruel places in the some basements someplace.

I finished lunch and continued my walk around the city. I wanted to go by Powell's and see if they have that signed copy of "Dies The Fire" that I have been trying to get my hands on. I really love that series. Not only it is a (semi) believable end of the world story, but it takes places right here in Portland and the vicinity.  I also think that I secretly want to be a Bear Killer. Or a Wiken.

At 2:30 I caught the 54 bus back toward Southwest. I got on near the book store and the bus has just a few people on it. I had picked up a sci fi that caught my eye so I was reading and not paying much attention. At the 5th street stop a bunch of people got on (as usual) and I had to scrunch over when someone sat down next to me. The guy that had sat down was crowding me a little bit, so I lowered my book to ask him to scoot over a bit. He was starting right at me. And he was Zombie. I could tell by the stare. I started to say something to him when the two people sitting in the seat in front of me turned around to stare at me. They were both Zombie.

What the hell?

I scanned slowly around the bus. To my horror I saw that Everyone on the bus was Zombie and everyone, every single one of these bastards, was starting Right At Me.

"Well. This isn't good." I thought.

Then the Zombie next to me spoke.

"You are a threat". He said. In an unexpectedly conversational tone.

"Me?" I asked. "A Threat?"

The woman sitting in front of me said "You are a Threat".

I looked at her, then looked back at the guy next to me. He spoke again. "You are not on automatic. You are not predictable. You are a threat. You must be watched. You should switch to Automatic"

The woman nodded very slowly. "You should switch to Automatic".

Well, that was just about enough of that. I made the peace sign at the dude next to me, then pointed my two finger tips at his eyes and said in a soft voice "I am going to poke your eyes out".

He blinked.
He blinked again.
I rotated my hand back up to the piece sign and said, loudly, "I am going to need to get out".

My threat had triggered the dude out of Zombie. Automatic modes really can't protect you from attack or any dangerous situations. if something unexpected or dangerous happens, they pretty much have to relinquish control. But they don't have time to ... like... brief you.

"Hey" Said the guy. He was startled and a little scared.

"Hey" I said. "Are you OK? I need to get off at the next stop".

The woman in front of me was still Zombie. I don't think she quite registered what was going on over the bus noise. She turned back around to face front. The guy was still confused but he mumbled something and stood to let me out. I pulled the stop cord and walked up to the front of the bus.

The bus driver was sitting with his hands folded and just watching the bus drive itself. He looked a little bored but totally aware. All of the Zombies on the bus now had two people to watch. Me and the guy who was evidently had some problem re-engaging his automatic control.  I nodded to the bus driver, "Hey" I said.

He nodded back "Hey".

"Things seems a bit.... odd today. Yeah?"

"You mean the fright show?" he smiled a bit. "It has been like this for a couple of weeks now. Where have you been?"

I had been riding my bike. During a freak two weeks of sun in October. But it rained this morning and it wasn't going to quit until April. Go Portland.

I got off the bus a few stops early. It was going to be a soggy, longish walk home. But at least no Zombies. They would all be at the gym.

-------------------

Geeze. It is happening in the streets now. The Zombie self driving apps have been updated to handle things like walking down the street and getting on and off the bus. If they could only do something about facial expressions or, I don't know, that funny way people walk while in auto. Sort of stiff legged. Arms straight and sticking out a little. Like. Like... well .... like Zombies.

I have taken to sitting on the bus and just staring straight ahead. That has been working for weeks.  It"s a little boring, but as long as I only move my eyes to look around, the other riders don't seem to care. Today a girl sat down next to me. A real girl, not something I made up. She smiled at me and said, "Hi"

I gulped a little. I am not used to girls sitting down next to me. And this one was pretty and my age to boot. "Hi" I squeaked.

"You are, like, the only non-Zombie I have seen today. Do you mind if I sit with you?"

I looked around. A lot of Zombies were looking our way. They didn't look happy. I looked back at her, and she did look happy. "No problem, please sit."

"My name is Glenn," she said, and held out her hand, "Glad to meet you"

I shook her hand, "Steve" I said.

"How far are you going, Steve?" she asked.

"I usually get off in Hillsdale", I said. "I like to grab a slice at Pizzicato for dinner later"

"Hey," she said, her eye glittering, "Me too! My brother works there. How come I have never seen you before?"

"I have no idea," I said. I was starting into her eyes. I knew it, but I was having some difficulty looking away. "I suspect the universe is toying with me."

She laughed. Then blushed a little. Then looked away. "Can I ask you something," she said, much more quietly.

"Yeah. I guess"

"How come you aren't... well. How come you aren't Zombie?"

"Allergic," I said.

She gave me a funny look. Like she didn't know if I was kidding or not.

"To the Implants" I clarified. "At least the ones I can afford. But to tell you the truth, at this point, and the way things are looking, you couldn't pay me to have the things installed."

She nodded. She didn't volunteer anything however.

"And you?" I finally asked.

"My system went down this morning. It said it was doing an upgrade but it hasn't come back online. I think this is the first time in a month I have ridden the bus as a person. Perhaps that is why we haven't met. It's hard to meet a Zombie"

"That is so," I smiled. "I am glad your system glitched. I was tired of riding and pretending I was one of them." And then it struck me. "Hey, how did you know I wasn't Zombie. I mean, I was doing my act"

"Yes," she giggled a little, "With your head not moving but your eyes scanning. Very realistic. But you looked a bit bored. You looked emotional." She turned and pointed around the bus, "Any of these guys look emotional to you?"

No. No they did not. They looked kind of.. Dead. Well, Undead.

I noticed that they weren't all just staring at me, either. They were sort of slowly turning their heads and scanning back and forth between Glenn and myself. Neat.

At the Hillsdale stop, up the hill by the library, we got off the bus together. Four Zombies followed us off.

Glenn and I walked up to the light, waited for the walk sign and then went across to the little shopping area in Hillsdale. There isn't much at this place. Just a little strip of stores. But there is the Pizzicato, an Einstein Bagels, a Dairy Hill ice cream, and the local dungeon and dragons gaming store. As we walked down the hill toward the Pizzicato, I noticed that the four Zombies from the bus were following right behind us.

"Lets let these guys pass", I whispered to Glenn.

She nodded and we stepped off the sidewalk, into the entry of a little clothing store.

The Zombies walked up in front of us and then stopped and turned to face us. "Glenn Woodward" said the big zombie in front, "Your implant is once again operational. All issues have been cleared by the central system. You should enter automatic mode immediately. You are in the presence of an unmonitored and unknown human who is not equipped with automatic mode implants".

"Jesus," muttered Glenn. "You guys have got to be kidding. Bugger off" she waived her hands at them but they neither flinched nor moved away.

"Glenn Woodward," said the Zombie on the right; a young woman in a business outfit. "You must active your automatic system. This human has been observed threatening citizens."

She looked at me, "Really?" she asked.

"If you pretend to strike them, they come out of auto", I said. I walked up and took a fake swing at the big guy. I didn't touch him but I didn't miss by much either. He didn't move a bit. He certainly didn't come out of Zombie. "Shit", I said. "That worked last week"

The two Zombies in the back row moved left and right so that now Glenn and I were effectively pinned against the doorway. She had evidently had enough, "Fair Warning", she said "I feel threatened by you and I reserve the right to stand my ground".

Wow. Stand your ground. I have never seen someone initiate that action. I wasn't sure if I should step in front of her or behind her. It turned out I didn't get a chance to do either. The woman Zombie stepped forward and said "Glenn Woodward" and Glenn kicked her in the shin.  Oh, that doesn't describe it very well. It wasn't a 1st grader kicks his sister in the shin kick. It was a strong college woman who has had a shit load of Kung Fu Classes kick. She stepped backward, flexed down on her knees, rotated toward me and kicked out sideways into the woman's shin. The woman took two steps back and uttered a deep grunt. The big guy Zombie moved forward also, and Glenn kicked him in the balls, leg extended, toes tucked down. The one behind me put a hand on my shoulder, I gave him an elbow in the nose. Not very hard, but still an elbow in the nose. At least I was in this game a little. The fourth Zombie took a step back. Maybe he had better kick avoidance software.

And then there was a lot of screaming. It was sort of funny really. One second we had these four menacing monsters pushing us into a doorway, and in the next we have three 30-something mass transit riders holding different parts of the bodies and yelling in pain and surprise.

"What the hell is going on?" yelled the business woman, holding her shin and hopping up and down. "Why did you attack me".

"You four threatened us," said Glenn. "I made the legally required announcement of intent. I am videoing with secureCam."

Well, that surprised me too. SecureCam(r) is a rather ritzy do self protection system. It captures encrypted streams that the company claims cannot be doctored. Admissible in court. Just like the old RoboCop videos.

"I don't believe you." said the woman. She was standing on both legs now.

The kicked in balls guy, who I should probably call "wearing a tie" guy was looking a little more thoughtful. "Why am I over here in Hillsdale?" he asked. He was looking around. "This isn't my stop" He looked at the woman, "I have seen you on the bus before. This isn't your usual stop either. And I sure don't think that anyone is supposed to be able to get me off of the bus without the auto control shutting down."

I was putting things together in my own head. I realized that these ex Zombies were probably as afraid and more confused than Glenn and me. I turned to look at the guy I had elbowed. He was rubbing his cheek, but it looked like I had mostly missed him. "Sorry about that." I said to him. I held out my hand, "You had grabbed me and I reacted. My name is Steve."

He hesitated, then reached out and shook my hand, "No harm done. I am Bob...... ah.... do you know how I got here?"

Glenn held out her hand to the Tie guy. "I am Glenn. You four followed Steve and I from the bus. You were all in Zombie mode."

"Christ," said Tie Guy. "I was afraid it was something like that. I am Bill. " He was still bending over with his hands on his knees and taking deep breaths. One does not just shake off a good kick to the balls. "The upgrade this morning said it could get off the bus at the right stop if I enabled the Experimental setting. Shit. Shit. Shit."

Bill sounded like he knew more than what he was saying.

"Bill," I said, "You sound like you know more than you are saying".

"Yeah," he breathed. "I work for Uber-Self. In customer support. We have been getting some strange complaints lately and...... Wait one. Ah...... I am trying to stop an auto reboot."

"Oh," said Glenn. "I have one trying to start also." She closed her eyes but I could see them moving behind her eye lids. She was moving her internal mouse trying to access the override controls.

I looked over at Business Woman. Her eyes were open. But glassy. She was already rebooting. I looked around, the same was true for the two guys behind us. Eyes wide open, no expressions on their faces.  This should definitely NOT be happening.

"Shit," This from Bill and Glenn simultaneously.

Then they both opened their eyes and stood straight.

Glenns lips moved in apparent disregard to the rest of her body, "Steve,  I think you should ru...."
And then she froze. And then she turned to look at me. Or perhaps, to look through me.

I took her advice and ran.

I was heading down hill,  toward the Einstein Bagels. I was thinking I could probably run up the next hill and all the way to the Jewish Community Center. The JCC members were a bit more skeptical about Automatic Control. They also have a history of sanctuary. But 100 yards ahead of me I see a city bus stop, on its way up the hill. A lot of people are filing off. They are spreading out and blocking my path. They all are walking clumsily with their arm out in front of them. They are all Zombie.

I stop running long enough to look behind me. Crap. The four bus people are all definitely zombie again... and so is......crap crap crap....  and so is Glenn.

Hero or Goat. Hero or Goat. Crap Crap Crap. I start running back up the hill. Back toward the first pack of Zombie. Back toward Glenn.

I didn't really want to hurt anyone. I am not really the kind of person that does hurt people. But this shit is getting a bit.... Dangerous? Is it Dangerous? I mean, aren't these people going to eventually get home and come off of automatic? Aren't they? Aren't they just banding together because I am a unknown factor? Not controlled by the system. Just like some idiot taking over manual control of a car when driving on the interstate?

Perhaps.

I just ran into the entire bunch of Zombies. Their reactions are slow, just like the walking dead, and they just sort of scattered and went down. I caught hold of Glenn. Luckily she didn't use any of her Kung Fu shit on me. She tried to grab me, but I ducked under her arms and put my shoulder in her gut and lifted her up onto my back. She was like 50 pounds lighter than me. I can do this. Wilson High School is right there between the buildings. Goin there puts a bunch of fences between me and the down hill Zombie mob. I headed that way.

Note to Self: One Can't run real fast carrying a young woman on one's shoulder. She was strangely limp, however, and I took that as a good thing and keep going. I made it through the parking lot between Wilson and Rieke Elementary (where the Sunday Farmer's Market is) before my air started to give out.  I stopped running and started sucking air. Big Time.

Up on my shoulder Glenn freaked me out by saying, "Please put me down, Steve"

I took a couple more breaths,"Are you up there Glenn?" I asked.

"Please put me down, Steve", she said again, in exactly the same tone and rhythm. Like a playback on a recording. Which I am guessing it was.

I took a couple of steps toward Vermont avenue, on the other side of the high school.

Glenn Zombie spoke again, "I am not recording a kidnapping event."

Well. Double Crap. I put her on her feet. She almost fell but then balanced. I took a step back away from here. She looked at me with that faraway Zombie look but otherwise just stood there.

Behind her, however, were a number of walkers that were not just standing there. They were ambling toward me with their arms out and their eyes glassy and they were blocking the road. I turned around to go and there were another bunch coming up from Vermont. Must have gotten off the bus from down on the corner. They were all communicating with each other over the web and working together to corral me. Dang it. I decided to run off through the elementary school soccer field. I could jump the fence and work my way down the hill there. If I could get out of sight, perhaps I could go to ground for awhile. I mean, these guy have to go home for dinner sooner or later, don't they?

As I tensed to run, However, Glenn threw herself on me from behind. She wrapped her arms and legs around me and I tripped over the curb siding and went down. I trie to get up, but she was very strong and had my legs all tied up. I couldn't quite bring myself to strike her.

And then I had other problems. The two zombie groups converged on me and the people in the front knelt down and grabbed my limbs. Hard to do much of anything with three people on each arms and legs. They had me pinned on my back. Glenn had moved over and is sitting on the ground just above my head. She leaned over and looked into my eyes. "Do not be scared, Steve. Help is on the way." Her expression never varied, "Arriving in 3 minutes and 15 seconds".

Oh. 3 minutes and 15 seconds. No, that doesn't scare me a bit. So why did I scream? Perhaps I was hoping someone that wasn't Zombie would hear me. And I mean, I really screamed, "HELP ME. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!!"

And damn me if all of the Undead around me didn't sing out, in Unison, "We are helping you, Steve."

An Ambulance pulled up in the parking lot. Two guys in white coats got out and walk carrying their Kit. One was already preparing a shot of something.  I so don't like shots of something.

"Do not be scared, Steve", Zombie Glenn said again, "We are going to help you. We are going to make you safe. We are going to give you your own implant."

"No No NO," I yelled as the medic guy stuck the needle into my arm, "I am Allergic. The Implant will fucking Kill Me!!"

"No Harm will come to you, Steve. You have been pre-approved for a high grade non-allergenic implant".

Great. As long as it was non-allergenic. And things went Dark.

And the lights came back on.

And there was Glenn standing in front of me. But this time she wasn't Zombie. She appeared to be a normal person Glenn. "Are you OK, Steve?". She asked.

But her lips didn't move quite right. And her hair didn't shake when she turned her head. And. And... Crap, the scenery in the background was completely Static. "This... this is a VR". I said.

"Yes," She made an imitation of a frown. "They let me come in and be here when you woke up."

"They?"

"The systems. The internet. The AI controller. Whatever the hell they are, I don't know".

"We are stuck in this VR? I mean, this isn't the Matrix. This kind of sucks"

"We are not stuck here. Not permanently. They let us out when we are at work or at home. We just can't wander around in outside under non-automatic control. That is deemed just too dangerous.

"Like driving your car on manual on a Freeway."

"Yes. Like that"

"Geeze. This is not good. What do we do now?"

"Want to watch a Movie? I have stream rights to 'Night of the Living Dead'".