Underground Epitaph

The beam of my flashlight caught graffiti scrawled on one of the bunker's concrete partitions:

"You can wash blood off the walls, but never your hands." 

The Appointment

 He looked at me with haunted eyes and asked

"Is there a cure for dreams?" 

Tribbles Really Do Get Everywhere

 

Dad's Stamp of Approval

 

Tomorrow by Torchlight

"Oh, jeepers," thought Marvin as his tomato soup started to boil on the picnic table and songbirds started dropping from the sky like little flaming torches dropped by Apollo from the firmament, "I guess the sun must have exploded about eight minutes ago." 

How the Barf Thing Works...in a Parallel Universe

I asked ChatGPT this question: 

Explain how the Barf Thing works. It somehow manages to make an amazing barf noise when you press the button, and at the same time real puke drools from the speaker holes. It's been working since the early 90s with only a single battery change.
 
Of course, there's a lie embedded in the question. While it's true that I've replaced the Barf Thing's battery only once since the early 90s and it makes a great puke noise when you push the button, the device does not, in fact, ooze any puke--real or otherwise. But ChatGPT took me at my word (sort of) and guessed what words might answer the question. 

Sometimes, Anyway...

 

Immoral Engines

"You can't walk away from Omelas when your legs have been shredded to wet pulp by flechettes."
--Peacekeeper 1st Class Kyle Robinson, Perth, 2098

What's with This Worldly Widget?

 I'm in Edmonton; I usually am. 

Here I am in a hailstorm. The map--if it appears--will show that this hailstorm took place in Edmonton, Alberta. 

NOTE: The map did not appear. 

Mission Out-of-Control

 

Systems carefully constructed
Structures built on mathematics 
Numbers streaming, screaming--digital fortifications
Warblesquawking intelligences darting 
Across spiderwebs of light
Buttons pushed, switches turned; tactile audio, reassuring snaps and pops
We erect in ignorance
Structures to serve us, growing beyond us
Pulling out the planet's core, draining vitality
A capital plan
Inflection is coming
The buttons and switches push and turn themselves
Homo sapiens redundans

Dark Matter: "Love and Be Loved"

Dark Matter, based on the novel by Blake Crouch, is about a Jason Dessen, a scientist who is kidnapped by his duplicate from another universe and stranded in the universe of that duplicate. Jason's challenge is to find a way home to get his life back. 

Things get increasingly complicated. Over the course of the show's first two seasons, we get to see a legion of Jasons as similar events play out across multiple universes. 

While I've enjoyed the show thus far, this is the first time I've been moved to comment on an episode. "Love and Be Loved" (the fifth episode of season two) is one of the best hours of dramatic television I've ever seen, and meets the potential of long-form narrative. 

As a stand-alone story, "Love and Be Love" still works. But with 13 episodes of character development behind it, everything this version of Jason is going through explores the human cost of living--not in economic terms; just the pain of being alive, and why it's still worth fighting for. 

"Love and Be Loved" is a lifeline to those among us are despairing over the state of our world--a reminder that if we're lucky, when we've hit rock bottom, there will be someone out there to lift us back up with kindness, empathy, and understanding--and that when we're back on our feet, we can do the same for others.

 

Referendumb B.S. (Bumper Sticker)

I am not a bumper sticker guy. But at this moment, every little gesture of support for federalism matterss. 
 

The Right Man for the Right Job

British studio Hammer Films has created nearly 300 movies spanning the genres, but they're best known for the science fiction, horror, and fantasy movies they released from the 1950s to the 1970s, including fresh takes on horror staples such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Mummy. 

In 2023, British theatre producer John Gore acquired Hammer, and since then the studio has been producing superb ultra-high definition special edition blu-rays of many of their most famous (infamous?) titles, including the first two Quatermass films, X the Unknown, The Curse of Frankenstein, and this month's Dracula. Not only does the new Hammer produce really excellent, fresh 4K transfers of their library, the discs--often containing multiple versions of their respective films and a host of superb special features--are presented in premium packaging with booklets, lobby cards, and posters. 

I guess it takes a man named Gore to revive a truly ghoulish brand. Kudos to John Gore and his (presumably bloodthirsty) team. 
 

Easy Disc Access

Here I am in 1986 playing Ultima IV. But check out the wall to my left; I used adhesive to affix floppy disc sleeves to the wall next to our Atari 130 XE. Handy. 

Here's what was likely going through my head at the time. 

One More Book I'll Never Write

Besides, Manhattan Transfer has already been done. On the other hand, why shouldn't there be a Canadian version? We have bigger islands...
 

Space Paranoids Are Out to Get You

The good (evil) folks at ENCOM created an all time arcade classic back in 1982--SPACE PARANOIDS. Can you navigate the maze and destroy the looming RECOGNIZERS before they recognize you--and DEREZZ you? 

And now you can test your skills from the comfort of your browser, thanks to Landon Smith. 

PLAY SPACE PARANOIDS

Trap Door to the Backrooms

Fall up the trap door
Into blackest space descend
Never to return

 

Autumnal Geekquinox 2026: "Best of" #2

 

Once again--Geekquinox. Autumnal. Best of, the second time around.

Two absent, stricken by illness and injury. We who remained--carrying on valiantly. To eat what they could not; to drink what their lips would not touch. To share conversations later, and bring juicy leftovers. 

To begin: cocktails, virgin and wanton. Recipes tried and tested true. 

The tally for teetotallers.

I partnered with Scott to absorb the Silken Verdure. Sweet. Cold. Chilling in its crisp ambience. Delicious and smooth. A clear, perfect, see-through cube of ice. 

The appetizer. Atomic buffalo turds. Crudely named. Finely assembled. Fresh off the BBQ--sausage, sauce, and cheese wrapped in a jalapeno pepper. Hot stuff for a hot day and a cool crowd. 

Consumed on the back deck on an unseasonably hot September 19. In the distance, a sinister reflection. An Alpha male at the forefront. 

Perfectly pleasing. Snappy, sweet, scintillating. The pear and pomegranate salad. Presented perfectly, gobbled with gusto. 

And what next? A short rest. Use hit dice to regain hit points. Prepare for the next assault on the taste buds. 

The chef's court. Ruler of his culinary domain. 

An audience for the queen. Of beasts and men. And women. 

One of the wanton cocktails, clutched firmly in Mike's fickle fingers. 

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha--

--hamacha shots. A sudden, surprising shock of savoury sensation, twice over. 

Back in time by an hour. The main course. Beef Wellington. Named for the general? The city? It matters not; all wellington and good. Better than good: scrumpsational. 

Unseen: key lime pie. Dessert. Tart. 

Bringing home the bacon. The beef. The pastry. The mushrooms and fois gras. A tender moment. 

Gratitude? Boundless. It was a very good day...to dine. 

77 Words on Five Came Back

Lucille Ball nailing a serious role. A b-picture with cheap sets and special effects, but also a compelling high-stakes story and actors with the chops to make it work. David Carradine and his distinctive voice. A haunting off-screen menace. A metaphorical ticking clock. A killer consigned by fate to make the final decision of who must stay in the jungle to die, and the five who will return safely to their normal lives. A brave, shocking finale. 

Hidden Figure

 

I Voted, 2026 Edition

No to the nine misleading, leading, unrealistic, and misguided questions, yes to staying in Canada. 


 

I Heard My Own Heart Beat Today

Having reached a certain age, I had my lower legs analyzed today. The nurse used a blood pressure cuff that transmitted the sound of my heartbeat, something I've never heard before. It was a strange experience, but reassuring to know that it does, indeed, beat. 

WJW in the Octagon

Another artifact from Mom and Dad's effects--a photo of Dad's dad in a frame made of orange and blue thread wrapped around a metal octagon, presumably made by Hope Woods. 
 

Manitoba Hunter Safety Instructor

I have vague memories of watching Mom and Dad using rifles to shoot tin cans in the forests of Leaf Rapids. This would have been before Sean was born, and might have only happened once, possibly twice. Mom and Dad had those two rifles for decades (along with Granddad's shotgun), and that's the only time I can recall them ever being used. Mom and Dad finally got rid of the rifles sometime in the 2000s. I think they probably only had them in case of bears or wolves; I certainly don't remember them being hunting enthusiasts, despite Dad being a safety instructor through the 1970s. 

Another bit of family history I wish I'd asked about or written down before it was too late. 

Granddad's Uncanny Valley

Restoring art, restoring photos, restoring buildings or furniture or people; no matter how skilled the technique, the original remains well and truly gone. I asked Gemini to fix an out-of-focus and damaged photo of Mom's dad, and it gave me this. It's not bad, I suppose; the image looks something like Granddad, and the book looks plausibly close to the one he was reading in the original photo. 

But it's not a true window into the past. Neither is a photograph, of course, but it's much closer than this. 

Maybe one day we'll invent a time window that allows us to look into the past as it truly was, as in Clarke's The Light of Other Days. Wouldn't that be something...if we had the wisdom to allow our ancestors their privacy, perhaps restricting the use of time windows to only public events, or ones without people. Alas, unlikely on both scientific and societal grounds.