| Heh 2004-11-01 08:02:58 ET |
|
Apparently Debian (I don't know about the other Linux distros) has a whole manual for everything in the /usr/doc/ directory.
I'm currently reading up on modules.
|
| Remnants of Parade Past 2004-10-31 19:54:52 ET |
|
Well, so the parade happened. I was there with everybody's favorite SK member Tetesuro, Matt, Dernyn, Dernyn's friends (whose name I once again forgotten), Rufus/Rob, Fina, and SK's bastard child Enamon.
I went as a priest.
My feet hurt.
I'm too tired to write anything big.
It was really fun.
Once I'll get the pics I'll post up a link.
There are no clouds in the sky. I'm going to open the shades on(in? by?) my window and look at the moon and stars. Maybe the starry sky is like the concrete ground. When you look at the empty concrete ground outside you just see only concrete. Then, after seconds pass you start seeing bugs and stuff. Maybe it's the same way with the starry sky. At first you only see stars. And then you see things that are moving.
*insert bad Lovecraft joke here*
Hmmm..I wonder if there's anything in reality even remotely resembling the Starry Wisdom cult?
|
| Hocus Pocus 2004-10-29 07:02:19 ET |
|
I finished this Kurt Vonnegut(sp?) novel last night. It's called "Hocus Pocus" and Subkultures' own Tetesuro lent it to me.
It's really good and it's basically about this one guy's life. It's not too serious but it's not a comedy...
Which is why I find it completly fucking strange that the reviews of the book printed on the back side of the cover say stuff like "...a scream!" "...hilarious..." and "...comedy.." when the book isn't at all like that. I'm wondering if the book reviewers even read the book.
Oh and I finally found Pattern Recognition. It was in a box of printouts in my closet. Along with a dollar bill. Weird.
I'm probably gonna read the Catcher in the Rye next.
|
| Story notes. 2004-10-26 22:28:52 ET |
|
Okay, the story below thisentry ("The Owner of the House") is a very, very, very rough draft. I typed it up really fast. There are grammatical errors, spelling errors, logical errors, problems with story flow, etc. And the biggest problem is getting the idea through. But I'll finish it all up tommorow.
Comments, anybody? If you have them post them.
|
| The Owner of the House 2004-10-26 22:26:20 ET |
|
It was a late evening in October and it was cold and raining. The raindrops fell on the streets and rooftops of the town of Belleville and they played their drizzly jingle upon the numerous glass windows of the old houses that are in Belleville. And in one such house there was a room lit by various electric lamps which were placed around the perimeter of the room to accomodate for the lack of a central ceiling light. The numerous lamps produced a pattern of woven light which left angled shadows on the fine wood furniture of the room and its fine rug and the 2 people inside of it who were standing up, each holding a glass with a drink in it, and talking to each other in a casual friendly manner. One of the men, the owner of the house, was a plump man, in his mid-fifties, with black hair but bald in the middle, who possessed a slightly pear shaped body upon which he wore a reddish brown vest and black pants. He was holding a black wooden pipe in his right hand and used it as an extension of his hands which he moved quite often during the conversation. The man with whom he was speaking to, one Doctor Ellis Brown, was a thin, tall blonde man wearing a black suit with black pants and wore small hexagonal glasses in front of his eyes whose pupils were almost completly black. The conversation jumped from topic to topic, as most casual conversations do, and seemed to interest both men until the big grandfather clock in the hallway just outside of the room signalled 10 o'clock with its heavy bell chimes. At this notice of time the owner of the house moved over to his study desk and sat down into the black leather chair behind it, placing his drink on the table and the pipe into his mouth. Each of his arms gripped the arm rests and with one swift motion he pulled the chair, along with his body, a tad bit closer to the desk and looked at Doctor Brown. Brown took 2 steps closed to the desk until he was standing almost over the desk, leaned forward and his face took on an inquiring look. The owner of the house grunted, let out a loud bellow, and quickly downed a big gulp of his drink. Then for a few seconds he was silent as if waiting for the right moment. And when it came he began to speak.
"Ellis, my good friend, do you know the story of this house?"
Ellis Brown paused for a moment to gather up his memories and shook his head no.
"Ha, what a fine gig. I've known you lord knows for how long and I've never even once mentioned the story of this house."
He took a sip of his drink and adjusted his pipe.
"This house..This Odenraker house, was inherited by my mother when my father died. The old man was in the military and was guarding an ordinance warehouse when it caight fire and blew sky high. After that it was up to me and my mother to take care of ourselves. I left school and got me a job but I quit soon after my grandfather died. This was my grandfather on my father's side. He had lost all contact with his son and, after my son's death, became broken hearted and ashamed of not being involved in his son's life anddied of grief and regret. He was also rich and owned this house which my father had been renting from him up to the point of when he, that is my father, had died. My grandfather had changed his will right before his death leaving his entire estate to my mother. She lived on for another decade but then caught pneumonia and passed on/ I wasn't a dumb child and took on the task of managing my grandfather's bussinesses which he had left to my mother. But you probably already know all that. I've never known my grandfather but I would like to believe that he was agood man in his life. That might not be true but I can hope. Anyways, on to the story of the house."
He paused once more and took another sip of his drink. By now the glass was almost empty. The pipe had gone out and was promptly relit.
"This house dates back to the early 19th century. Old in American terms but fairly new by European standards. From what I can gather it was built by Eurodias Phree who commisioned the building of this house in 1805. He was a rich but unscrupulous merchant who had made his fortune through war profiteering during the Revolutionary War. He must have wanted to settle down in his later years or some thing like that and probably had commissioned this house to be built as his final resting place of retirement. I mean that in both ways. There was a grave marker created and placed somewhere in the yard because Eurodias wanted to be buried on his own property and not in some cemetary or burial ground surrounded by what he would call `commoners'. Alas he never had a chance to use the grave site because he was killed during a highway robbery a few years later. The house was then sold to Edmont Williamson. A figure of no great importance about whom I could barely find any reference in the archives of the Belleville Gleaner. He had lived in this house until his death, of tuberculosis, which he had acquired somewhere. By that time it was already the 1860s and the house was inherited by the son of Edmont Williams who was killed a few years later in Ghettysburg. The house remained without an owner and in a state of disrepair for a few years afterward until 1870 when it was bought by my great-grandfather on my father's side. I don't know much about Michael Odenraker and apparently neither did anybody else in the town. I can only trace my family history on my father's side up to him. He came to Belleville from somewhere with his young but mute wife. Soon after the neighbors started complaining about loud drumming noises heard in the middle of the night which stoppedsoon after. Then Michael Odenraker began to renovate the house with a group of workmen whom he hired somewhere. The house was made into its current form and all was fine and well until Michael's neighbors began to complain about explosive blasts which had shaken their houses and awoken them in the middle of the night. The authorities investigated but Michael Odenraker insisted that the blasts were not occuring on his property. After a week of blasts and numerous visits from the authorities the explosions finally ceased and the town returned to its peace and quiet. Then, in 1902, Michael Odenraker's wife died in childbirth giving birth to my paternal grandfather. Michael Odenraker dissapeared mysteriously 5 years later when my paternal grandfather, then only 5, was out of town with the servant's family. This period of time is strange in its historical record. A Belleville Gleaner edition that came out right after the dissapearance of my great-grandfather also mentioned that the house, this very house that we're in right now, had been demolished in the night. The edition of the Gleaner which came out the following week published a retraction saying that the house was, in fact, still standing. No explanation was offered for the previous story. Then the story gets more familiar. My grandfather was raised by the servant's family who, upon coming back to Belleville had found their master missing and his will leaving them in the care of his son. My grandfather strived and gained wealth, entered a marriage which had produced my father and then, after my father's death, had perished himself. Then my mother went and now I'm here."
The glass was now empty. He opened up a drawer in the desk and pulled out two bottles. One bottle of rum and one bottle of Coke and mixed the two in his glass which he then covered with his palm and shook the glass around mixing the two liquids.
Doctor Ellis Brown was non-plussed by the story.
"Is that the whole story of the house? It's really not that interesting I'm sorry to say. I mean it might interest a historian or an antiquarian but I'm neither."
The owner of the house stood up and placed his pipe and glass on the desk. He walked over to Ellis Brown and spoke:
"When I was young I had a friend come over to my house once when I was punished. We heard my mother come home and so my friend climbed outside through the window. I thought I heard the door to my room open and so I looked away. When I looked back my friend wasn't outside of the window anymore. She was gone. Completly gone. She dissapeared that day. Nobody ever discovered what happened to her."
He paused.
"But now - Now I think I know what had happened to my great-grandfather and to my childhood friend."
He walked out of the room and motioned to Ellis Brown to follow. Together they walked outside of the room and down the hallway. Then they went down a flight of stairs towards the first floor.
The owner of the house paused and turned to Ellis.
"Ellis, have I ever shown you the basement?"
"Yes, once or twice."
The owner of the house nodded and opened the door leading into the basement, flicked on a lightswitch and began to walk downstairs, beneath the ground. Ellis Brown followed.
Once in the basement the owner of the house walked up to an old closer, marked by an old door and opened it up. From the ground he picked up a flashlight and shined it into the closet.
"Now look."
He pushed against the far half of the right wall of the closet. The wood of the wall moved away from the owner of the house and, using his palms, the owner of the house slid the wall to the giht where it stayedafter a certain click was heard.
Ellis Brown was getting excited.
"A secret room? Is this what your great-grandfather was creating with the blasts?"
The owner of thehouse said nothing but motioned for Ellis to follow.
They stepped through the newly created doorway and Ellis Brown saw, in the light of the flashlight, that they were in some sort of passageway carved out of the ground. Here and there the walls were supported by wooden beams. The owner of the house kept walking on and Ellis Brown followed.
They kept going and going for what seemed like minutes until Ellis Brown suddenly spoke "By god, we must be beneath the old church and cemetary by now! How far does this tunnel go?"
The owner of the house shook his head in a "No" manner and kept on walking. Finally, up ahead, the light slowly revealed a wooden door. The owner of the house and Ellis Brown both picked up their pace to get to the door quicker. Once there the owner of the house pushed the door open and together they stepped through.
The room seemed to be carved out of white stone in sharp cubic angles. It wasn't very tall but it was still large in width and length and a lot of space was taken up by bookcases, standing next to each other in a parallel fashion, filled with books of an indeterminite age. Ellis Brown turned around to survey this hidden away library room in his wide amazement when he suddenly noticed that the doorway through which they had entered was gone.
The owner of the house smiled and spoke:
"Yes, I panicked too when I noticed that the first time I was here. But don't worry. I had found a way out."
He walked past some bookshelves and turned left. Ellis followed and discovered the owner of the house standing by a door. The owner of the house opened up the door and Ellis and he walked through the doorway into one of the bedrooms of the house.
Ellis Brown looked around and realized that the doorway in which he was standing in was the doorway connecting the bedroom to the halway with the grandfather clock.Behind him he could see the hallway, and the clock, and the flight of stairs down which he and the owner of the house had descended minutes earlier.
"How... How is this possible?" he cried out.
The owner of the house smiled a knowing smile and spoke:
"I asked myself the exact same question when I had discovered the library room and its strange properties myself. I recieved my answer in that room when I began looking through the volumes stored there. Most of them were in some gibberish but a few of them I could read. The library room was created by Michael Odenraker after renovations to the house were complete - "
"But the doors! How could have we arrived here from there?! And the first doorway! Itr simply dissapeared! And so has this one! Where did we come from to enter this room?!"
The owner of the house once more smiled a knowing smile.
"Let me finish. The library room was built by Michael Odenraker after he had finished renovating this house. I had found fragments of Mochael Odenraker's diary which showed that when he moved into this house he was highly interested in the occult. Mainly in dreams. He believed that dreams were a phenomena of the psyche that, whule being created by the mind, was alos a place. A physical location. You see, the books. In the library room. Some of them change as you read them! This house, this house which had collapsed in 1907, whose fragments were seen by what must have been the entire neighborhood! This house which only days after had reappeared as if nothing had happened! Michael Odenraker had dissapeared, yes. But into himself! This house itself is a creation of his dream! The house that was destroyed by the renovations done to hide his strange practices from the prying eyes of his neighbors! This house is an extension of Michael Odenraker's dream place! It's the place where his dream intersects with out physical reality! The windows! The windows! My childhood friend left through the window! But not to the physical world outside fromwhich you came in! But to the world of Michael Odenraker's dreaming! He dreams and through his dreams this house exists! I have spent my entire life living in the dream of my great-grandfather come to physical reality!"
The outburst changed the owner of the house in appearance. He became frantic and withdrawn and possibly violent. Ellis Brown had enough and even though he had experienced inexplicable things just minutes ago he felt a strong urge to flee the place, the house. He rushed out of the bedroom, away from his raving mad friend, and down that flight of stairs, and through the front door.
The grandfather clock chimed 10.
|
| New story 2004-10-26 21:07:46 ET |
|
I wrote a quick story an hour ago.
I'll retype it now for SK (don't ask why I have to retype it. Long story.)
This is the first draft. It needs to be edited. Heavily edited.
It should be up here within 15 minutes.
|
|
