Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

Learning About Becoming an Assassin
August 10, 2006

I wrote a linklog post a while back that pointed to this “instruction manual” for being an assassin. I thought it was an interesting idea, even if the manual itself is lacking quite a bit. (And rightly so, because it shouldn’t be so easy to learn these things over the web.)

After a while, I started getting comments of people looking to become assassins. They were looking for training or something, I’m not exactly sure. I played along in my comments, telling them that they needed to find an “admission counselor” to get into our program. Obviously, they would not actually find such a counselor here, but they might spin their wheels trying to get into our exclusive (and reclusive) club.

Whether these folks have started taking this thing seriously, or are just playing along, I can’t say. It’s disturbing that there are so many reputed young people that have interest in this line of work. It’s disturbing that so many other folks seem to think they know anything about assassination. The comments both on the post and still in the moderation queue are replete with messages of, “It’s not like you see in the movies, fools.” As if those people even know. But why are these people even coming to my site based on a one-sentence link?

A Layman Cook's Dream
August 09, 2006

I’m siting in my car and I’m inspired to talk about daydreams.

If I could be paid to daydream - what a lovely and lucrative career. I know, you’re thinking, “Yeah, it would be great to sit around and do nothing all day - nice job.” But I’m talking about real creative work here, something of value that I think I can offer.

I’ve had a lot of dreams over the years. Many are profitable in and of themselves, if only there was someone with the time and determination to see them through to the end. One of my favorites is the one about the cookbook.

Moving In
August 09, 2006

Yesterday, Berta and I took a day off work to finalize the purchase of our new home.

We dropped off Abby at school/camp around 8am, then waited around at Manhatten Bagel until 9:15 before our walkthrough of the house at 9:30.

When we arrived at the house, the previous owner had three cars parked in the driveway and a ton of crap still sitting in the garage. Judy, our realtor, drove up shortly after we arrived, and we headed toward the house.

The seller followed us aroudn the house as we looked to make sure everything was still in working order. He would not stop talking. Judy told him, “I’ve done a few of these, I can probably manage on my own,” meaning, “go finish moving,” but he didn’t take the hint. I thought she was going to blow a gasket with all of this jabbering. I was irritated, but I figure that’s easy enough to do that I’ve built up a tolerance for my own irritation.

Apparently, he had some kind of family crisis overnight with his son being manhandled by his ex’s new boyfriend, and he hadn’t had any sleep, nor enough time to move, nor any luck getting a new moving van, since their original van wasn’t large enough to hold everything.

Anyway, aside from the garage and the refrigerator still containing stuff, the house seemed in working order. So we departed for our 10:30 signing of the papers. With about 45 minutes to kill, we stopped at Target and wandered around looking at various things in a weird “no place better to be” sort of pre-mortgage limbo.

The Ant Bully
August 07, 2006

The Ant Bully is yet another computer-animated ant movie that was released recently. The first two were Antz and A Bug’s Life, which were both released in close proximity in 1998 by Dreamworks and Pixar, respectively. Warner’s take on the common six-legged bugs with the Ant Bully is a tad different than the earlier two, yet with some similarities.

The story of The Ant Bully follows the bully himself, Lucas “Peanut the Destroyer” Nickle, who is abused by his “friends” and takes out his frustration on the ants in his yard. The ants subsequently take revenge on Lucas by shrinking him down to their size, and then put him on trial as the destroyer of their home. The queen of the colony sentences Lucas to become an ant and work in the colony to learn some empathy. And so begins his little adventure.