Probably not the first person to say this, but...
Preston Parker, dammit, what the hell is wrong with you, kid?
A story that has become way way WAAAAAAAY too common... Seminole wide receiver with a promising future, maybe the most talented offensive player last year... was busted in Palm Beach Gardens with a .45 and a bit of the green devil-weed.
Set aside for a moment what might be the more immediate mystery --- what the hell you need a truck-stopper of a sidearm in Palm Beach freaking Gardens, an area where shooting a birdie still really is a golf term.
I had really hoped, perhaps naively, that FSU players would finally reach the point where they get the very complicated notion that if you try NOT crapping out your life for a few cheap thrills for just three or four years, you stand a good chance of getting VERY LARGE PILES OF MONEY.
Now, I've never tried weed. I've only been in the situation where it was around a few times and never really felt compelled to spark up. However, from what I've heard and seen, I have to imagine that when presented the option of some smokeysmokey NOW or a $10 million signing bonus in two years, I think that'd be one of my easier decisions to come across.
I had hoped that the addition of Terrell Buckley to the FSU staff would help get the "knock that crap off, it's for your own good" message through to some of these kids. I can understand how if you're a 19 year old black elite athlete, it might be easy to dismiss nuggets of wisdom that come in a daggum-coated candy wrapper from the 118 yr old mouth of Bobby Bowden. But I was kinda thinking Buckley could have a special closed-door session that consisted of him saying "Alright, today's lesson is: Knock that Crap Off. See this Super Bowl ring? Good. Knock that crap off! Any questions?"
Sunday, April 27, 2008
a great SNL Reagan skit
NBC's gotten pretty militant about pulling down YouTube clips, but at least they post some of the cool old SNL clips on Hulu. Here's one of my faves, a classic from late in the Reagan years.
From some of the stuff I've read, the idea that the fuddy-duddy may have been all an act isn't actually all that far-fetched.
From some of the stuff I've read, the idea that the fuddy-duddy may have been all an act isn't actually all that far-fetched.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
ha ha huh?
This one's especially dedicated to the liberal teachers and admins at a certain private school I know.
So, let me get this straight...
* You think that George Bush is the reason why gas prices go up... and that's what you tell the millionaire children of Saudi princes who have bodyguards at your school, and the growing population of Venezuelan ex-pats.
* You can look at the sentence "Republicans are always making sweeping generalizations about whole groups of people" and not see this as weak logic.
* You've dedicated your professional careers to a place built on the idea that a private business can do a better job of providing an education than the federal government --- so much better that even though parents pay school taxes anyway, they will choose to spend an extra $20,000 a year for what you're selling... and yet you think the same federal government should take over the health care system to fix it.
* You've dedicated your professional careers to a place built on the idea that people who succeed in business should be able to purchase the finest educations that only they can afford, and students should have to pass tests to make sure only the acceptable are allowed at your business.
* Slips of the tongue and misstatements are clear signs of stupidity for the likes of Reagan, Quayle, Bush, etc., and you would know because when you speak several times a day to small groups every day of the week, you NEVER have slip-ups or misstatements.
* You think Bush must be a slack-jawed yokel... and if you had a student graduate from Yale (with higher grades than John Kerry's), then get his MBA from Harvard he'd be the biggest feather in your cap. (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/06/07/yale_grades_portray_kerry_as_a_lackluster_student/)
* When you learn (likely here) that Al Gore said in 1992, "A zebra does not change its spots.", you understand it as being a slip in the tongue. When you hear that Dan Quayle never actually SAID "Being in Latin America makes me wish I knew Latin", you don't correct the next person who claims he did.
* A president is elected under close and possibly suspicious circumstances. He brings almost no experience into the job, got breaks in life from his dad's political connections, has an abrasive vice president, cut taxes for the rich, gets us involved in a war the administration grossly underestimates and fumbles nearly every step along the way... if this is George Bush it's a sign he's to be ridiculed, if it's JFK he was one of the greats.
* You criticize the federal government's record in disaster relief, education, crime prevention, road and bridge work, social security, and just about every other undertaking they've done... and wonder why those silly Republicans are resistant to hand over more of their lives to the federal government in the interests of "fairness".
* Week 1: Make fun of the days when the entire academic community knew the world was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, and maggots are spontaneously generated from old meat. Week 2: "Everyone knows" global warming is a new phenomenon that man's primarily responsible for and that trees and bats and snakes and deer all began as one cell and got their forms based on what was in the air around them. Anyone who ponders otherwise is to be ridiculed and shouted down.
* You think Bill Moyers can come out of the Kennedy administration, Chris Matthews from the Carter administration, and Stephanopolous from the Clinton administration... and that's not a sign of media bias... but Karl Rove being a guest to speak about campaigning on Fox News is a travesty.
* You think polls are a clear indicator of what's right... unless, of course, the polls show most Americans support the death penalty, support gun rights, or believe in God, in which case they're obviously imbeciles.
* You send children to English where they learn that 1000 years ago wine was made readily in England, yet global warming isn't cyclical.
* You send children to Social Studies where they learn that 150 years ago in England you were expected to be working in a factory by age 14 and everyone burned coal for heat, yet somehow we're polluting more now.
... and you say you're teaching kids how to think critically? Really??
So, let me get this straight...
* You think that George Bush is the reason why gas prices go up... and that's what you tell the millionaire children of Saudi princes who have bodyguards at your school, and the growing population of Venezuelan ex-pats.
* You can look at the sentence "Republicans are always making sweeping generalizations about whole groups of people" and not see this as weak logic.
* You've dedicated your professional careers to a place built on the idea that a private business can do a better job of providing an education than the federal government --- so much better that even though parents pay school taxes anyway, they will choose to spend an extra $20,000 a year for what you're selling... and yet you think the same federal government should take over the health care system to fix it.
* You've dedicated your professional careers to a place built on the idea that people who succeed in business should be able to purchase the finest educations that only they can afford, and students should have to pass tests to make sure only the acceptable are allowed at your business.
* Slips of the tongue and misstatements are clear signs of stupidity for the likes of Reagan, Quayle, Bush, etc., and you would know because when you speak several times a day to small groups every day of the week, you NEVER have slip-ups or misstatements.
* You think Bush must be a slack-jawed yokel... and if you had a student graduate from Yale (with higher grades than John Kerry's), then get his MBA from Harvard he'd be the biggest feather in your cap. (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/06/07/yale_grades_portray_kerry_as_a_lackluster_student/)
* When you learn (likely here) that Al Gore said in 1992, "A zebra does not change its spots.", you understand it as being a slip in the tongue. When you hear that Dan Quayle never actually SAID "Being in Latin America makes me wish I knew Latin", you don't correct the next person who claims he did.
* A president is elected under close and possibly suspicious circumstances. He brings almost no experience into the job, got breaks in life from his dad's political connections, has an abrasive vice president, cut taxes for the rich, gets us involved in a war the administration grossly underestimates and fumbles nearly every step along the way... if this is George Bush it's a sign he's to be ridiculed, if it's JFK he was one of the greats.
* You criticize the federal government's record in disaster relief, education, crime prevention, road and bridge work, social security, and just about every other undertaking they've done... and wonder why those silly Republicans are resistant to hand over more of their lives to the federal government in the interests of "fairness".
* Week 1: Make fun of the days when the entire academic community knew the world was flat, the sun revolved around the earth, and maggots are spontaneously generated from old meat. Week 2: "Everyone knows" global warming is a new phenomenon that man's primarily responsible for and that trees and bats and snakes and deer all began as one cell and got their forms based on what was in the air around them. Anyone who ponders otherwise is to be ridiculed and shouted down.
* You think Bill Moyers can come out of the Kennedy administration, Chris Matthews from the Carter administration, and Stephanopolous from the Clinton administration... and that's not a sign of media bias... but Karl Rove being a guest to speak about campaigning on Fox News is a travesty.
* You think polls are a clear indicator of what's right... unless, of course, the polls show most Americans support the death penalty, support gun rights, or believe in God, in which case they're obviously imbeciles.
* You send children to English where they learn that 1000 years ago wine was made readily in England, yet global warming isn't cyclical.
* You send children to Social Studies where they learn that 150 years ago in England you were expected to be working in a factory by age 14 and everyone burned coal for heat, yet somehow we're polluting more now.
... and you say you're teaching kids how to think critically? Really??
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
glad we're addressing all the serious concerns here...
Okay, so I don't want this to turn into another one of those "secular world is chipping away at what it means to be (conservative protestant) America" blogs, because those are mostly boring unless you happen to be really clever and sarcastic (hah!)...
however, couldn't resist sharing this one..
http://www.nbc10.com/news/15897848/detail.html
What the crap... a high school football coach can't even silently participate in a pre-game prayer led by his teammates, and certainly can't guide the young guys in a few words in advance of the game.
People who fight these fights are concentrating their considerable efforts on the wrong freaking battles. Let a high school football coach huddle up his players and ask the Creator to please consider endowing the kids with a little clarity of mind so they don't get crippled out there. If the biggest transgression against your little snot factory is a coach bows his head when some of the players pray together, the kid's got a pretty damned good life.
however, couldn't resist sharing this one..
http://www.nbc10.com/news/15897848/detail.html
Court Rules Against Football Coach In Prayer Case
A New Jersey school board was within its rights to tell a football coach he cannot kneel and bow his head as members of his team have a student-led pre-game prayer, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday
The judges agreed that the East Brunswick Board of Education's policy barring school staff from joining in student-led prayer was constitutional.
What the crap... a high school football coach can't even silently participate in a pre-game prayer led by his teammates, and certainly can't guide the young guys in a few words in advance of the game.
People who fight these fights are concentrating their considerable efforts on the wrong freaking battles. Let a high school football coach huddle up his players and ask the Creator to please consider endowing the kids with a little clarity of mind so they don't get crippled out there. If the biggest transgression against your little snot factory is a coach bows his head when some of the players pray together, the kid's got a pretty damned good life.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Damned If You Do (pt. 3)
"Marissa, I don't want to have that fight now. I'm having THIS fight now." The frustration of trying to convince her wasn't helped by the traffic that was already accumulating around town for the big game in a few hours time.
She sounded unconvinced.
"Look, I don't know what he's up to, but somehow Bill sent me a message, dated tomorrow, telling me to bet on this long shot underdog. I think he's got some inside information or something, and rich older brother finally decided to throw me a bone here. This isn't coming from me, it's coming from the one who always said you were too good for me. Don't think of it as wiring me $1000, think of it as investing in Bill's insight."
Somehow he had achieved a rare small victory. Either from persuasion or frustration, or equal parts of both, she agreed to add to his savings, all of which was now going to be placed on the underdog CF State, and he was for the first time in a while cautiously optimistic because he thought this mysterious message from his brother might be his way out.
As game time drew near, Coach Cunningham sat in the office next to the locker room and gathered his thoughts on what he might say to rally his team. Though he'd seen quite a bit of challenge in his 19 years calling the shots, when not in front of the boys he admitted to himself that this might have been the most mismatched, most pressure-filled scenario he'd ever had to gameplan for. As he went over a few potential words to the boys in his head, he had one inescapable whim of a thought. He picked up his phone and called an old friend from childhood who had the less than reputable hobby of making sports book.
"Mark, am I still looking at taking lambs to the slaughter here?"
"Funny thing you should ask that now," said the entrepreneur, "no one believed in you until a couple of hours ago. Now we've seen a little money come in from someone out there who really thinks you've got some talent hidden there somewhere."
"Guess I have to tear up my 'It's us against the world' speech now", said Cunningham.
"What's that, #3? Just give them #4, 'people out there are counting on you.' Just promise me no one is going to give 110 percent. That's my job."
Jack settled into his seat in the stadium. Twice during the early part of the game he'd tried to phone his brother to get some explanation as to the cryptic message dated tomorrow, but he was told Bill was busy with some damned new equipment they thought might be malfunctioning.
The game looked dismal early, yet just as UCA would seem to get their feet on their rival's throats, the slightest misstep or lack of concentration proved to keep the game close and Jack's anxiety high. CF State was down by 5 but with scant time left and UCA controlling the ball, it seemed nearly done. The only complication being that UCA wasn't controlling the ball, and CF State recovered with enough time perhaps for one last push. One shot to pull off the seemingly impossible --- maybe even to buck Jack Jenkins's fate.
Dontrell sprung off the line, and within three paces had already shifted into a higher gear and left the young man tasked with covering him hopelessly lost. The end of this play would also be the end of the game, the end of the season, and if he could catch it the end of rival UCA's storied winning streak. Thoughts flashed through Dontrell's mind as he charged towards the end zone with short huffs and long strides.
He thought about his two years of running track in high school, before the coaches explained to him that his frame was filling out to a point where the 100 yards of football held more promise for college scholarship than the 100 meter dash. Still, the training of launching out of the blocks served him well here. He thought of how the play was drawn up to depend on him, and how with the final seconds ticking off the clock, the glory and the pressure that would come with this catch. Finally, his mind rested on the words of his coach.
"People out there are counting on you." Yeah, right. People were probably about to make tons of money off his talent. The college, the boosters, the coach, the networks... they were all counting on him alright, counting their dollars. The reason why football was a better career path for him than track was because they could bleed more green blood out of him as a football player. He was sticking his neck out here for some gambler to make a buck. Dontrell brushed away the negativity, he had a task at hand and had better get to concentrating.
The ball was too damned high, he thought as he saw it spin in the air. He leapt, aiming with one last chance to somehow extend his body and pull it down while still landing in bounds in the back of the end zone. With the defender far enough behind to be an afterthought, he reached out, the ball touched the tips of his fingers, and somehow rolled away as he crashed to earth in the corner of the end zone watching the winning touchdown roll off the plams of his outstretched hands. He was a quarter of a step too slow, and the replay confirmed it, CF State had lost.
Most of the entire stadium's 86,000 temporary residents fell silent, stunned and immobile. It was good camouflage for Jack Jenkins. Jack was dejected. "Just my damned luck," he said. He was out $120,000.
She sounded unconvinced.
"Look, I don't know what he's up to, but somehow Bill sent me a message, dated tomorrow, telling me to bet on this long shot underdog. I think he's got some inside information or something, and rich older brother finally decided to throw me a bone here. This isn't coming from me, it's coming from the one who always said you were too good for me. Don't think of it as wiring me $1000, think of it as investing in Bill's insight."
Somehow he had achieved a rare small victory. Either from persuasion or frustration, or equal parts of both, she agreed to add to his savings, all of which was now going to be placed on the underdog CF State, and he was for the first time in a while cautiously optimistic because he thought this mysterious message from his brother might be his way out.
As game time drew near, Coach Cunningham sat in the office next to the locker room and gathered his thoughts on what he might say to rally his team. Though he'd seen quite a bit of challenge in his 19 years calling the shots, when not in front of the boys he admitted to himself that this might have been the most mismatched, most pressure-filled scenario he'd ever had to gameplan for. As he went over a few potential words to the boys in his head, he had one inescapable whim of a thought. He picked up his phone and called an old friend from childhood who had the less than reputable hobby of making sports book.
"Mark, am I still looking at taking lambs to the slaughter here?"
"Funny thing you should ask that now," said the entrepreneur, "no one believed in you until a couple of hours ago. Now we've seen a little money come in from someone out there who really thinks you've got some talent hidden there somewhere."
"Guess I have to tear up my 'It's us against the world' speech now", said Cunningham.
"What's that, #3? Just give them #4, 'people out there are counting on you.' Just promise me no one is going to give 110 percent. That's my job."
Jack settled into his seat in the stadium. Twice during the early part of the game he'd tried to phone his brother to get some explanation as to the cryptic message dated tomorrow, but he was told Bill was busy with some damned new equipment they thought might be malfunctioning.
The game looked dismal early, yet just as UCA would seem to get their feet on their rival's throats, the slightest misstep or lack of concentration proved to keep the game close and Jack's anxiety high. CF State was down by 5 but with scant time left and UCA controlling the ball, it seemed nearly done. The only complication being that UCA wasn't controlling the ball, and CF State recovered with enough time perhaps for one last push. One shot to pull off the seemingly impossible --- maybe even to buck Jack Jenkins's fate.
Dontrell sprung off the line, and within three paces had already shifted into a higher gear and left the young man tasked with covering him hopelessly lost. The end of this play would also be the end of the game, the end of the season, and if he could catch it the end of rival UCA's storied winning streak. Thoughts flashed through Dontrell's mind as he charged towards the end zone with short huffs and long strides.
He thought about his two years of running track in high school, before the coaches explained to him that his frame was filling out to a point where the 100 yards of football held more promise for college scholarship than the 100 meter dash. Still, the training of launching out of the blocks served him well here. He thought of how the play was drawn up to depend on him, and how with the final seconds ticking off the clock, the glory and the pressure that would come with this catch. Finally, his mind rested on the words of his coach.
"People out there are counting on you." Yeah, right. People were probably about to make tons of money off his talent. The college, the boosters, the coach, the networks... they were all counting on him alright, counting their dollars. The reason why football was a better career path for him than track was because they could bleed more green blood out of him as a football player. He was sticking his neck out here for some gambler to make a buck. Dontrell brushed away the negativity, he had a task at hand and had better get to concentrating.
The ball was too damned high, he thought as he saw it spin in the air. He leapt, aiming with one last chance to somehow extend his body and pull it down while still landing in bounds in the back of the end zone. With the defender far enough behind to be an afterthought, he reached out, the ball touched the tips of his fingers, and somehow rolled away as he crashed to earth in the corner of the end zone watching the winning touchdown roll off the plams of his outstretched hands. He was a quarter of a step too slow, and the replay confirmed it, CF State had lost.
Most of the entire stadium's 86,000 temporary residents fell silent, stunned and immobile. It was good camouflage for Jack Jenkins. Jack was dejected. "Just my damned luck," he said. He was out $120,000.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Damned If You Do (pt. 2)
Jack turned into the entrance to the parking garage for PERSPECTIVES, his brother Bill's corporate headquarters. The overnight security guard shuffled momentarily, more out of surprise of seeing anyone come in at this hour as opposed to any particular interest in Jack's old ride. Jack mentally scrolled through a couple of responses, finally only half-seriously intoning "BILL wants me." The guard made a quick call up to the boss's office, and then wordlessly reached over to hit a button, the effects of which included letting him in and only temporarily distorting the signal beaming Two and a Half Men to his portable rabbit-eared television.
Jack knew his way around the office building. Though he'd only been there a couple of times, it was the kind of office laid out in such a way that you knew when you were headed in the general direction of the confines of the distinguished CEO and proprietor. It was only because their relationship had continued to be reasonably civil that Jack didn't completely bristle at the glossy displays on the wall heralding the journalistic documentation of his brother's success.
"Jackie, I want to show you something... come on back here to our development area. You want a drink or something? You look like you've been run over."
"Well it is after midnight, I was getting my beauty sleep, don't you know, Mr. Chairman", Jack responded.
Bill walked along quickly, quarter-turned towards Jack, who followed a few paces behind. "So, has Marissa gotten around to dumping you yet?" There wasn't much that could cause Jack to miss a beat but that had done it. He blinked a bit and stared at his brother. "Ahhh. Oops, sorry 'bout that. Fish in the sea, so forth. Anyway this will get your mind off figuring out who to blow your dinner money on."
With that he pushed open the door to a moderate-sized work area. Pristine white computer equipment filled the back third of the room, it looked rather like a medical device hotwired into an auto garage's diagnostics display, with a few random sets of wires thrown in for good measure. One section hadn't even had its cover replaced, and various green and black circuit boards were stacked vertically inside.
"Nice equipment," said Jack, "but I bet it still can't pick the winner of the third race at Pimlico."
Bill smiled. "No, probably not. That's not exactly what we had in mind for her, though. Actually to be frank, even I don't really know all the applications for what we've managed to put together here. You see..." Bill was about ready to launch into his speech when Jack's phone chimed indicating he'd received a text message. He pulled it out and took a quick glance.
"What's it say?" his brother asked.
"It just says 'PROOF'. It's from your office. Did you send this note to me?"
Bill half-grinned. "Not yet."
"What we've... what we've stumbled across here," Bill said, as if confessing a certain degree of success through sheer chance, "is a system that can send a text message to any capable receiver, not only anywhere in the world but at any TIME... present, future, or even past."
"Here... take a look at that message on your phone. What time was it sent?"
Jack said, "Supposedly about two minutes from now. Though I can't figure that out. Must be set wrong or something."
"Nothing's wrong with your phone," said Bill with a smile as he walked over to the operator's chair in front of the system's screen. "It's working just fine. And here... is... your.... PROOF." With that he typed the word in, put in some information, and sent the note to Jack's phone in the past.
Bill went onto explain to Jack that they originally set out to design a new system by which you could write a text message and send it at a later date instead of immediately. So when someone tells you their birthday is July 18th, you can program in to send them a text message of HAPPY BDAY at any time, and set it to send on that day rather than having to remember. He acknowledged it was an admittedly small idea, but then it was a string of those small ideas that had made him a small fortune in patents and product offerings.
Earlier that day, one of his newer engineers was "re-jiggering" the system when she noticed something odd... She mis-entered the date and mistakenly instructed the computer to send a note to the day before rather than 5 minutes later on the test phone by her side. He said she was even more confused when she looked at the test phone and saw it seemed to have received the message successfully the day before.
"I don't understand it entirely myself," said Bill, "but the best as I can figure... the entire computer network, all transmission of data is binary...."
"Ones and zeroes, ones and zeroes..." Jack interrupted.
"Yeah. Well, coordinates in time in the future are all ones and zeroes too, tomorrow's just another date to a machine. Somehow, it seems... in the entire continuum of things, yesterday was too."
"You tried to build a way to save messages to send them to the future, and accidentally stumbled across a way to send them to the past too." Jack summarized. Bill nodded once and smiled.
Jack took a moment to ponder the admittedly weighty idea. He was understandably skeptical. "I have to voice the obvious questions, of course..."
"You mean why don't we send a message back and prevent 9/11, or Pearl Harbor. Yeah. Well, first you need to have the target number you're going to send it to. You don't have the President's cell number on you, do you?" Jack turned up his palms in mock apology to acknowledge the joke. "There's also the pesky little notion of what you would say. 'Hi I'm from the future and I'm contacting you to tell you what evil's about to befall you.' Hmmph. Oh, and you have to do all that, believably, in 8 letters or less. It seems that's about all we can get through. I guess after that you're technically on to the next instant."
"If you're on the precipice of... a new era of unlocking access to the fourth dimension..." Jack began, choosing his words carefully.
"...then where is all the information from the future back in our history..." finished Bill. "I don't know. But then, who would? Edison had more than a thousand patents and no formal education to speak of. Shakespeare used thousands of words no one had ever seen or heard before. They told Edwin Drake he was crazy for drilling in the ground to find oil."
Jack smiled. "You've been rehearsing that last little bit, haven't you?"
"Well," his brother smirked, "I have to have my Nobel Prize speech ready. Anyway, I know whenever I'm standing on the precipice of et cetera et cetera blah blah, I could use a good stiff slug in me. Scotch?"
"Oh hell yes. Yes, yes, yes. Capital idea old chum." Jack responded.
"I'll get some, hang tight here." Bill said, and left the room.
Jack sat by himself in the room in the quiet office, alone with the hum of the machine and the glow from its display screen. Then it occurred to him what he had to do.
He walked over to the terminal, sat down, and promptly sent a message to himself a day before. It said, simply, "BET CFST".
END OF PART 2
Jack knew his way around the office building. Though he'd only been there a couple of times, it was the kind of office laid out in such a way that you knew when you were headed in the general direction of the confines of the distinguished CEO and proprietor. It was only because their relationship had continued to be reasonably civil that Jack didn't completely bristle at the glossy displays on the wall heralding the journalistic documentation of his brother's success.
"Jackie, I want to show you something... come on back here to our development area. You want a drink or something? You look like you've been run over."
"Well it is after midnight, I was getting my beauty sleep, don't you know, Mr. Chairman", Jack responded.
Bill walked along quickly, quarter-turned towards Jack, who followed a few paces behind. "So, has Marissa gotten around to dumping you yet?" There wasn't much that could cause Jack to miss a beat but that had done it. He blinked a bit and stared at his brother. "Ahhh. Oops, sorry 'bout that. Fish in the sea, so forth. Anyway this will get your mind off figuring out who to blow your dinner money on."
With that he pushed open the door to a moderate-sized work area. Pristine white computer equipment filled the back third of the room, it looked rather like a medical device hotwired into an auto garage's diagnostics display, with a few random sets of wires thrown in for good measure. One section hadn't even had its cover replaced, and various green and black circuit boards were stacked vertically inside.
"Nice equipment," said Jack, "but I bet it still can't pick the winner of the third race at Pimlico."
Bill smiled. "No, probably not. That's not exactly what we had in mind for her, though. Actually to be frank, even I don't really know all the applications for what we've managed to put together here. You see..." Bill was about ready to launch into his speech when Jack's phone chimed indicating he'd received a text message. He pulled it out and took a quick glance.
"What's it say?" his brother asked.
"It just says 'PROOF'. It's from your office. Did you send this note to me?"
Bill half-grinned. "Not yet."
"What we've... what we've stumbled across here," Bill said, as if confessing a certain degree of success through sheer chance, "is a system that can send a text message to any capable receiver, not only anywhere in the world but at any TIME... present, future, or even past."
"Here... take a look at that message on your phone. What time was it sent?"
Jack said, "Supposedly about two minutes from now. Though I can't figure that out. Must be set wrong or something."
"Nothing's wrong with your phone," said Bill with a smile as he walked over to the operator's chair in front of the system's screen. "It's working just fine. And here... is... your.... PROOF." With that he typed the word in, put in some information, and sent the note to Jack's phone in the past.
Bill went onto explain to Jack that they originally set out to design a new system by which you could write a text message and send it at a later date instead of immediately. So when someone tells you their birthday is July 18th, you can program in to send them a text message of HAPPY BDAY at any time, and set it to send on that day rather than having to remember. He acknowledged it was an admittedly small idea, but then it was a string of those small ideas that had made him a small fortune in patents and product offerings.
Earlier that day, one of his newer engineers was "re-jiggering" the system when she noticed something odd... She mis-entered the date and mistakenly instructed the computer to send a note to the day before rather than 5 minutes later on the test phone by her side. He said she was even more confused when she looked at the test phone and saw it seemed to have received the message successfully the day before.
"I don't understand it entirely myself," said Bill, "but the best as I can figure... the entire computer network, all transmission of data is binary...."
"Ones and zeroes, ones and zeroes..." Jack interrupted.
"Yeah. Well, coordinates in time in the future are all ones and zeroes too, tomorrow's just another date to a machine. Somehow, it seems... in the entire continuum of things, yesterday was too."
"You tried to build a way to save messages to send them to the future, and accidentally stumbled across a way to send them to the past too." Jack summarized. Bill nodded once and smiled.
Jack took a moment to ponder the admittedly weighty idea. He was understandably skeptical. "I have to voice the obvious questions, of course..."
"You mean why don't we send a message back and prevent 9/11, or Pearl Harbor. Yeah. Well, first you need to have the target number you're going to send it to. You don't have the President's cell number on you, do you?" Jack turned up his palms in mock apology to acknowledge the joke. "There's also the pesky little notion of what you would say. 'Hi I'm from the future and I'm contacting you to tell you what evil's about to befall you.' Hmmph. Oh, and you have to do all that, believably, in 8 letters or less. It seems that's about all we can get through. I guess after that you're technically on to the next instant."
"If you're on the precipice of... a new era of unlocking access to the fourth dimension..." Jack began, choosing his words carefully.
"...then where is all the information from the future back in our history..." finished Bill. "I don't know. But then, who would? Edison had more than a thousand patents and no formal education to speak of. Shakespeare used thousands of words no one had ever seen or heard before. They told Edwin Drake he was crazy for drilling in the ground to find oil."
Jack smiled. "You've been rehearsing that last little bit, haven't you?"
"Well," his brother smirked, "I have to have my Nobel Prize speech ready. Anyway, I know whenever I'm standing on the precipice of et cetera et cetera blah blah, I could use a good stiff slug in me. Scotch?"
"Oh hell yes. Yes, yes, yes. Capital idea old chum." Jack responded.
"I'll get some, hang tight here." Bill said, and left the room.
Jack sat by himself in the room in the quiet office, alone with the hum of the machine and the glow from its display screen. Then it occurred to him what he had to do.
He walked over to the terminal, sat down, and promptly sent a message to himself a day before. It said, simply, "BET CFST".
END OF PART 2
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Damned If You Do
Dontrell sprung off the line, and within three paces had already shifted into a higher gear and left the young man tasked with covering him hopelessly lost. The end of this play would also be the end of the game, the end of the season, and if he could catch it the end of rival UCA's storied winning streak. Thoughts flashed through Dontrell's mind as he charged towards the end zone with short huffs and long strides.
He thought about his two years of running track in high school, before the coaches explained to him that his frame was filling out to a point where the 100 yards of football held more promise for college scholarship than the 100 meter dash. Still, the training of launching out of the blocks served him well here. He thought of how the play was drawn up to depend on him, and how with the final seconds ticking off the clock, the glory and the pressure that would come with this catch. Finally, his mind rested on the words of his coach. No one believed in them. No one thought they would even make it this far, and certainly didn't think they belonged in this championship game. No one thought they were as good as UCA. No one except Dontrell and his coach. It was the extra push he needed in his step.
The ball was too damned high, he thought as he saw it spin in the air. He leapt, aiming with one last chance to somehow extend his body and pull it down while still landing in bounds in the back of the end zone. With the defender far enough behind to be an afterthought, he reached out, the ball stuck to the tips of his fingers, and he crashed to earth in the corner of the end zone cradling the winning touchdown in the palms of his outstretched hands. The replay confirmed it, CF State had won.
Most of the entire stadium's 86,000 temporary residents roared, jumped, and hugged. Among the few not particularly celebratory was Jack Jenkins. Jack was dejected. "Just my damned luck", he said, speaking only to his left palm, which was covering his face while his head shook in disbelief and disgust. One 20 year old young man's catch had just cost Jack $119,000, his home, his old car, and perhaps all of his very few remaining favors from family and friends. Perhaps as importantly, the improbable win had cost Jack the last vestige of hope to somehow dust off what had become an unmistakeably crappy life. Had Jack been honest with himself, he would have acknowledged that it was largely his own choices along the way that led to him being The Great Bill Jenkins's screw-up little brother. But admitting that would be like admitting that relying on a shady way out of a shady situation often yields only the shadiest of results. Jack had spent enough time biting the slim remains of his fingernails and employing every conceivable use of the F word, the stadium had mostly emptied. Jack slunk out and back to spend what might be the last night in what until just now had been his house.
Marissa having finally left him the week before, Jack sat in a torn folding chair with his two remaining friends on the kitchen table --- a black revolver and a bottle of Early Times whiskey. His thoughts continued to come back to an even darker way to break his seemingly unbreakable spiral. His silence was interrupted by a song.
"Happy Days are Here Again". He'd chosen it as the tone on his cellphone, not because of any optimism, more out of a sense of sarcasm and irony. It was his brother, Bill, calling.
"Jack, I want you to come by my office. I've got something to show you. It's pretty, well... I can't quite explain it but I think I've really got something here. And, well, since you're the only guy I know who's probably up at this hour... anyway just get on over here when you can."
END OF PART 1
He thought about his two years of running track in high school, before the coaches explained to him that his frame was filling out to a point where the 100 yards of football held more promise for college scholarship than the 100 meter dash. Still, the training of launching out of the blocks served him well here. He thought of how the play was drawn up to depend on him, and how with the final seconds ticking off the clock, the glory and the pressure that would come with this catch. Finally, his mind rested on the words of his coach. No one believed in them. No one thought they would even make it this far, and certainly didn't think they belonged in this championship game. No one thought they were as good as UCA. No one except Dontrell and his coach. It was the extra push he needed in his step.
The ball was too damned high, he thought as he saw it spin in the air. He leapt, aiming with one last chance to somehow extend his body and pull it down while still landing in bounds in the back of the end zone. With the defender far enough behind to be an afterthought, he reached out, the ball stuck to the tips of his fingers, and he crashed to earth in the corner of the end zone cradling the winning touchdown in the palms of his outstretched hands. The replay confirmed it, CF State had won.
Most of the entire stadium's 86,000 temporary residents roared, jumped, and hugged. Among the few not particularly celebratory was Jack Jenkins. Jack was dejected. "Just my damned luck", he said, speaking only to his left palm, which was covering his face while his head shook in disbelief and disgust. One 20 year old young man's catch had just cost Jack $119,000, his home, his old car, and perhaps all of his very few remaining favors from family and friends. Perhaps as importantly, the improbable win had cost Jack the last vestige of hope to somehow dust off what had become an unmistakeably crappy life. Had Jack been honest with himself, he would have acknowledged that it was largely his own choices along the way that led to him being The Great Bill Jenkins's screw-up little brother. But admitting that would be like admitting that relying on a shady way out of a shady situation often yields only the shadiest of results. Jack had spent enough time biting the slim remains of his fingernails and employing every conceivable use of the F word, the stadium had mostly emptied. Jack slunk out and back to spend what might be the last night in what until just now had been his house.
Marissa having finally left him the week before, Jack sat in a torn folding chair with his two remaining friends on the kitchen table --- a black revolver and a bottle of Early Times whiskey. His thoughts continued to come back to an even darker way to break his seemingly unbreakable spiral. His silence was interrupted by a song.
"Happy Days are Here Again". He'd chosen it as the tone on his cellphone, not because of any optimism, more out of a sense of sarcasm and irony. It was his brother, Bill, calling.
"Jack, I want you to come by my office. I've got something to show you. It's pretty, well... I can't quite explain it but I think I've really got something here. And, well, since you're the only guy I know who's probably up at this hour... anyway just get on over here when you can."
END OF PART 1
Friday, April 4, 2008
stay tuned...
I've been rolling an idea around in my head, and as a result I've got about 2/3 of an idea for a short story "done". Hope I can get it to work...
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