I have to get ready for work but I promise that tonight I will write a longer piece on here, but in response to Lauren Bradley’s Vanity Fair article condemning Ellen Degeneres for sitting with President Bush, Bradley…
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Celebrating 1000 Twitter Followers With a Short Story!
This morning I woke up to find that I had received my 1,000th follower on Twitter! I promised everyone on there that I would write an original flash fiction story of 1,000 words (a word for every follower) if I got enough follows.
I am definitely a man of my word, so without further ado I present my freshly-written story “The Problem With Time Travel” :
“Do you want to know the problem with time travel?” Gaurav asked as he and his roommate waited for the PlayStation to update. Scott rolled his eyes and groaned. He had been listening to him ask ridiculous questions all morning.
“That is doesn’t exist?” he responded dryly. Gaurav ignored the condescension.
“No. The problem is is that if you go back in time to try and change the future it wouldn’t work. Same if you try and warn somebody in the future that something bad is going to happen. The best you could hope to accomplish is change a few minor details. Everything else that is supposed to happen will happen.” Scott turned and looked at him. Gaurav was beaming. He spent the vast majority of his days reading comic books, playing video games, and watching the same few sci-fi shows on Hulu over and over again. It was one of the few perks of being on disability. It also gave him time to think about some of the wildest things imaginable, and convince him that he was an expert in all things theoretical physics that did not actually involve real physics. That was where Scott, the actual scientist, came in.
“How do you figure that?” He regretted asking the second his lips closed. Gaurav’s smile brightened.
“Think about it. Say you went back in time twenty years, right? Everything that transpired to make today today in that twenty-year period has already happened. That means that the present is set in stone. Nothing you can do in the past will change the present.” Scott closed his eyes patiently.
“I’m sure if I dropped a nuclear bomb where this apartment is we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”
“No, but we could be having it in a different house. Some conversations that are meant to happen are going to happen. Even after a nuclear war.” Scott’s eyes opened.
“You’re saying that you and I talking about a hypothetical “problem” with fictional technology is meant to happen?” Impossibly, Gaurav’s smile widened even more.
“I don’t even know why you have a problem with it, Scott. You’re a physicist! You should be all over this stuff!”
“I had a hard week and it’s my day off. The last thing I want to do is talk shop.” He shook his head.
“But you just said that it was fictional technology. That’s not talking shop, roomie. Unless…” Scott stood up and slid his phone into his pocket. “Where are you going?”
“To grab a bite to eat,” he sighed, looking down at the TV screen. “It’s taking forever to load. Text me in a while and let me know what you want and I’ll bring you back food.” Before Gaurav could start talking his head off again he hurried out the door.
“I thought you said you weren’t coming in this weekend?” Dr. Barnes looked up from his tablet as Scott stepped into the lab. He tossed a Chik Fil-A bag into the trash.
“If I didn’t get out of that apartment there’s a good likelihood I wouldn’t be coming back here at all.” Barnes chuckled.
“Roommate problems again, eh?” Scott snickered.
“Every day.” They shook their heads together.
“That sucks, man.”
“Still,” Scott shrugged, “I think I know a way I can fix it.” He stepped over to the Tachyon Shower and started looking it over. Barnes hesitantly sat the tablet on his desk and walked over to him.
“You’re not serious?” Scott nodded. “Do you realize how dangerous that is?”
“I know what you’re going to say. Don’t worry, I have it all figured out. I was thinking about it all during lunch and I think I can make it work without a hitch.”
“Are you seriously thinking about going back in time and getting a different roommate?” Scott paused.
“Actually, I want to test a little theory that Gaurav was going on and on about to me earlier. He claims that what is meant to be is going to be no matter what.” He motioned towards the device. “If he and I were meant to be roommates, this will prove it.” Barnes was still hesitant.
“What are you going to do?”
“My ex is the one who introduced me to Gaurav in the first place. We met at the Halloween party last year at Franko’s. I’m going to go back a year, buy a costume, go to the restaurant and convince my younger self to not under any circumstances become roommates with Gaurav. Shouldn’t take me more than two hours. I did the calculations already.” He began entering numbers into the console. “And don’t worry. If you feel like anything has or is going wrong, shower yourself back a few minutes and stop me. Otherwise…” He pressed a button and quickly hopped into the device. He disappeared within seconds.
Two hours later he returned.
“Well?” Barnes asked, amused at the lion costume Scott was wearing when he reappeared. “How did your visit to 2019 go?” The other man looked excited.
“Better than I hoped! I forgot that I had been having doubts about rooming with him in the first place. It didn’t take me long at all to convince myself not to get the place with him.” He looked around and noticed that everything seemed exactly as it was before. “We all good here?”
“We are,” Barnes answered, relieved. ‘I don’t think we screwed up time at all.”
“Hopefully somethings have changed. I don’t ever want to listen to one-sided, hypothetical conversations about time travel, teleportation, aliens, zombies biting vampires from someone I live with again!” He started tearing off the costume, sweat dripping everywhere.
“What are you going to do now?””
“Go home and shower!” He tossed the costume in the trash. “And see who I’m living with these days!
At the apartment, Thuong and Scott sat in the living room waiting for the Xbox to finish updating.
“Hey Scott?’
“Yeah?”
“Do you know what the problem is with time travel?”
If a Zombie Bites a Vampire…
I know this is an oldie but a goodie, and that my answer won’t be much different than any other answer out there, but here’s my two-cents on the subject.
First off, we need to know what kind of zombie we are talking about. Obviously, a normal person in a trance isn’t going to do a damn thing to a vampire. Are we talking about a victim of severe rabies or other debilitating disease? Dawn of the Dead/ The Walking Dead “Classic zombie”?
We have to remember that a vampire is one of the undead. It’s essentially a walking corpse already. Therefore, in my opinion, a zombie biting a vampire is either going to piss the vampire off off or make him/her laugh.
If a vampire were to bite a zombie, it would all depend again on what kind of zombie it was. I don’t think the shambling, missing-limbs-version would benefit much from a vampire bite, but the human in the trance would be the next vampire-in-the-making.
I know there are a lot of people who think I’m wrong for whatever reason, but seriously. There’s not much you can do to a vampire!
Arby’s Initiation!
I am officially back in the food service industry again. Can’t honestly say that until you’ve received your first burns!
Don’t worry. Neither hurt anymore. But yesterday on that thumb, though…
The Dick Side of the Force
“Anger. Fear. Hate. The Dark Side of the Force are they.”
Mark Hamill must not have rewatched The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi recently. His latest insults towards Ivanka Trump’s young child wearing a Star Wars costume in a Tweet have pushed him over the edge.
You’ve been playing the Joker for so long, Hamill, that you’ve clearly lost your mind. Why on God’s black Earth would you insult a child wearing a costume? What the hell is wrong with you? I get the you are the typical liberal stooge that’s been infesting Hollywood for years, but just because you don’t agree with the current President gives you NO RIGHT to pick on his grandchildren. There was nothing political about it. Kids dress up all the time. And I guarantee you the vast majority of them don’t have a respected movie icon reducing them to near-tears because you’re still butthurt several years later that Clinton Number Two lost.
When you play a character that is known and loved all over the world, you have a responsibility to your audience. To set an example and be a role-model, the way actors and actresses were forever until politics polluted everything. Not be a raging dick-hound and embarrass yourself being political to kids who don’t understand the slightest thing about American politics.
You fucked up, Hamill. You have succumbed to the Dick Side of the Force. Emperor Clinton demands that you kneel before her, her apprentice.
And stay off Twitter for a while.
Fast Food Workers and the $15 Minimum Wage Question
I know I’ve only been working in the fast food industry for a few days, but let me tell you. It has been QUITE the learning experience. Especially since I’m training to be a manager, there is a shit ton on my plate that would overwhelm the uninitiated. Fortunately my background in retail management gives me a little bit of an advantage, but all the food stuff I was not prepared for.
It’s made me look at the fast food industry in a whole new light.
Instead of going on the long rant I normally do, I just want to address a couple of points. Do I think that fast food workers deserve 15 an hour? No. I do think they deserve more than minimum wage, for the sheer fact that there is so much more to the fast food industry than ringing up orders and frying burgers, but 15 is overkill. I made that much as a store manager in Michigan doing alllllllll the responsibilities a manager has to do. It would be a slap in the face for people who are working their first jobs to make more than most people have worked years to earn.
On the management end, however, I think that 15 is a very reasonable number. At least at the hourly shift manager wage. Not only do I have to learn every station, but I have employees to manage, sales numbers to keep up on and track, goals to meet, food temperatures to watch, registers to count down, customer service complaints, a lot of this all at the same time. No time whatsoever to stand around resting. In retail sometimes you can breathe a little bit more depending on the number of customers. There is too much to do in fast food.
Fast food workers do not get enough credit for what they do. I am a little biased. You know, since I am one myself, but before this I have heard people talk down about fast food workers and it really isn’t fair. They work in a fast, hot, stressful environment where it is quite easy to forget to use the bathroom or even grab a sip to drink. Sometimes there isn’t even time for either. It is among the most relentless of industries and its rough. So while I don’t feel like a dramatic pay raise is in order, I feel that companies need to start paying their people a little more. They’ve earned it.
Baby Name Guessing!
Let’s play a game. I know a lot of you are regulars and know that my fiancé and I are expecting a little girl in December.
What we haven’t revealed yet is her name.
I will give a few clues and let’s see if any of you when you’re bored can search around and try to figure it out!
Hint 1: It’s from a video game series
Hint 2: It is a character/family’s LAST name
Hint 3: It begins with either J, K, or L
First person to get it right gets a prize! So let the games begin!
