|
|
We didn't stop them at first. Didn't realise the threat they posed.
"They're harmless." we decided, and let them have their little cons and websites.
Then it changed.
As far as I can tell, I'm one of the few hundred 'norms' left worldwide.
Barricaded in the rotting ruins of my home.
I can hear them outside, sometimes, keening cries 'YIFF YIFF YIFF' echoing through the empty streets.
On my bed are two things. one, a tattered bodysuit, patched together from curtain scraps and carpet. In a pinch, you could say it looked like a man-shaped fox.
The other, a blued revolver.
A choice to make.
I close my eyes, and reach out.
The barrel is cold in my mouth.
I looked from the pistol up to the writhing mass of fake fur and semen stains in front of me. Six bullets. Five for them, one for me. It wasn't going to be enough. But it was all I could do.
|
% ____________
/ \ ____
/ ___--// \ \ / \
//// | _ __ \ \ / \
__________ / ||_|_ | \| / /\ \ I'M MICROSOFT
/ ______\ ||_|_|| |_/ / \ \ BOB
/ / \ \ \ ______ | / \___\
|| | /__| \|___/ / \ / | I'M GOING
|| | | /_(| || /_/ \ /| || TO FUCK YOU
| | || _\ ||_//| \__||||||__ BUT GOOD
| || | __| /___/ | \ | | \
||||| /__| ____ | |\ | | \____
| \_____\ ----\____| | \ | | |___
/\____| \ | | \ | | | |
/ \ _ //-------- \_____| | | |_
/ \ /___ | | |___| |
| |/ \ | | _____| | |
| / | / __\ | |__/_______| |
| | | / / \ |___/| | |
| |____| / / \ ____ ______ ________|__|_____ __|
| |____|/ /| \___ / _-\__/_/____|| |___|
| \ / | _____|__//___________||_______________|____
| \ / || |
|____\___/__/ | |
_| | _____________________________________ |
| \ | | | |
| \___________| | | |
| | | | |
|______________| | | |
|
> hey jenndawg call me I miss u like crazy
> i love u i really love uuuu hun i
> really do i miss u love u omg I keep on
> thinking about u i im feeling sad with are u
> i dont know ur number to call u and plz
> E-mail ur number so i can call u omg hun i
> miss u i really do week after week im been sad
> cuz you not here i miss u so much
> plzzzzzzz i really miss u i want your
> number u dont have myspace i can commete u I
> dont remember ur number cuz i lost ur number
> i ur not on line cuz ur busy im going nut
> with out u i want to celerble christmas with
> my dawg here with out u ita not the same with
> out u you keep on IMing me every 2 mouth and
> say you miss me how i can get in touch with u
> we both are busy how i can ask u with we can
> hang out again how i have no fucking way to get
> in touch with u accped E-mail
> after i left west essex i was sad and upset
> cuz i dont know when i can see my dawg and talk to
> my dawg how get in touch and Lindadawg not
> talking to me and i cant get touch with her and
> u i have now im missing when we alway did 3 way
> i missing u always call my cell i miss everything
> i miss when u ask me to hang out and befor
> thanksgiving u ask me if we i was to hang out
> with u and i said no cuz i was busy and when
> you and lindadawg when to collage i feeling sad
> cuz i dont see my dawg anymore and i still
> remember u sign my 2005 year book and i look at it
> i am calling ur nameeeeeee JENNDAWGGGGGGGGG WHERE
> ARE
>
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
>
> PLZ GET IN TOUCH WITH ME
> IM GOING NUTS WITH OUT U
>
> LOVE U
>
> STEVEDAWG
|
All the articles were old as shit, so I got rid of them. I don't know what I'll do next with the site. The whole point of it was originally to keep links I like visiting in a convenient location. The article system was just something I coded to occupy space, and then wound up writing several hundred of them along with the other editors here at Kadath.
I guess you could visit the gallery or the disused oekaki board. There is also a library with a few interesting reads, and the Zeitgeist is pretty funny.
Enjoy your stay.
|
Friends and countrymen,
I know that in this day and age, it is frightfully easy to be poorly read. And because I hate illiteracy, I have taken it upon myself to share with you some of the most educational passages I have found in a book by E. L. Doctorow, called Ragtime.
"As it happened Houdini's unexpected visit had interrupted Mother and Father's coitus. There was no sign from Mother that it was now to be resumed." [10]
"When the entire house was asleep he came to her room in the darkness. He was solemn and attentive as befitted the occasion. Mother shut her eyes and held her hands over her ears. Sweat from Father's chin fell on her breasts. She started. She thought: Yet I know these are the happy years. And ahead of us are only great disasters." [10]
"The key to the defense of Harry K. Thaw would be that he had become temporarily deranged by the story she had told him about her ruination at the age of fifteen. She was an artist's model and aspiring actress. Stanford White had invited her to his apartments in the tower of Madison Square Garden and offered her champagne. The champagne was drugged. When she woke up the following morning the effulgence of White's manhood lay over her thighs like a baker's glaze." [20] (Historical footnote: That's probably not how it happened.)
"The dignified visitors rode the shoot-the-chutes and Freud and Jung took a boat together through the Tunnel of Love." [33]
"Gradually Evelyn relaxed and her flesh shook and quivered under the emphatic skill of Goldman's hands. Goldman rubbed the oil into her skin until her body found its own natural rosy white being and began to stir with self-perception. Turn over, Goldman commanded. Evelyn's hair was now undone and lay on the pillow about her face. Her eyes were closed and her lips stretched in an involuntary smile as Goldman massaged her breasts, her stomach, her legs. Yes, even this, Emma Goldman said, briskly passing her hands over the mons. You must have the courage to live. The bedside lamp seemed to dim for a moment. Evelyn put her own hands on her breasts and her palms rotated the nipples. Her hands swam down along her flanks. She rubbed her hips. Her feet pointed like a dancer's and her toes curled. Her pelvis rose from the bed as if seeking something in the air. Goldman was now at the bureau, capping her bottled emolient, her back to Evelyn as the younger woman began to ripple on the bed like a wave on the sea. At this moment a hoarse unearthly cry issued from the walls, the closet door flew open and Mother's Younger Brother fell into the room, his face twisted in a paroxysm of saintly mortification. He was clutching in his hands, as if trying to choke it, a rampant penis which, scornful of his intentions, whipped him about the floor, launching to his cries of ecstasy or despair, great filemented spurts of jism that traced the air like bullets and then settled slowly over Evelyn in her bed like falling ticker tape." [53]
"In this regard, as in most others, Evelyn Nesbit was ahead of her time. Her former chief lover Stanford White had been a fashionably burly man, and her husband Harry K. Thaw though not as large was nevertheless soft and wide, but her new lover, Mother's Younger Brother, was as lean and hard as a young tree. They made love slowly and sinuously, humping each other into such supple states of orgasm as they found very little reason to talk the rest of the time they were together. It was characteristic of Evelyn that she could not resist someone who was so strongly attracted to her." [70]
"At night in bed Mother held him and tried to warm the small of his back, curled him into her as she lay against his back cradling his strange coldness. It was apparent to them both that this time he'd stayed away too long. [...] She was in some way not as vigorously modest as she'd been. She took his gaze. She came to bed with her hair unbraided. Her hand one night brushed down his chest and came to rest below his nightshirt. He decided God had punishments in store so devious there was no sense trying to anticipate what they were. With a groan he turned to her and found her ready. Her hands pulling his face to hers did not feel the tears." [93]
|
__ 1. THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TWO
/ /\\ FAGS IS A STRAIGHT LINE
/ / \\
/ / \\__________ 2. ANY STRAIGHT LINE SEGMENT CAN BE
/ / \\ /\\ BENT IN HALF INTO A U
/_/ \\ / /
___\\ \\ ___\\____/_/_ 3. A PINK TRIANGLE CAN BE DRAWN AROUND
/____\\ \\ /___________/\\ ANY GAY MAN
\\ \\ \\ \\ \\ \\
\\ \\ \\ \\____ \\ \\ 4. ALL RIGHT ANGLES ARE POINTY
\\ \\ \\ / /\\ \\ \\
\\ / \\_\\/ / / \\ \\ 5. IF TWO LINES SOMETHING SOMETHING
\\ / / /__________\\/ INTERSECT SOMETHING SOMETHING
/ / / / SUM OF THE INNER ANGLES SOMETHING
/ / / / SOMETHING INVARIABLY MUST INTER-
/________/ /\\ / SOMETHING SOMETHING HITTING THE
\\________\\/\\ \\ / SAUCE
\\_\\/
|
|
(Disclaimer: Information purposes only. I hereby disavow any and all liability should anyone build one. Don't build a spud gun - you'll put your eye out and maybe even have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of your life. Seriously, don't build one. You want to live to be eighty and still have four limbs and two eyes and a fully functional digestive track, right?)
This last 4th of July it was my good fortune to be invited to a party in the city of Azusa. Azusa is one of those rare towns where fireworks are perfectly legal, so needless to say, the party was tenanted by plenty of people who had giant, 15-lb. boxes of fireworks.
One of the people at the party brought a spud gun. It was about 5' long, made of black schedule-40 ABS plastic piping and assorted adapters and fittings. Ignition was done by means of a Coleman lantern starter (basically a flint gizmo operated by quickly turning a thumbscrew). He let me fire it a few times - dry, with no spud - and I was fairly impressed. He even launched a spud once, but it only flew about fifteen feet. (The hairspray he was using was apparently subpar for explosive purposes.)
Still impressed, earlier this week I took a trip to a nearby hardware store and bought a 3"-1.5"-3" ABS wye adapter, eight feet of 2" pipe, a 3"-2" reduction bell, and 1.5" and 3" cleanout adapters and plugs. I also got some ABS cement to "weld" it all together.
After I got it home, I assembled the High-Velocity Delivery System Mk. I. It took about 30 minues and I made a bit of a mess with the ABS cement, but the finished product looked solid enough. I let it cure overnight per the advice of many Internet sites.
The next day, I bought a pezioelectric lantern starter, one of those little plunger-type jobs with the red pushbutton. After about half an hour of drilling holes, inserting screws, soldering wires, and fastening things in place with electrical tape, I had a completed spud gun. I could press down the button on the igniter and generate a nice spark between two screws I'd installed a little ways back of the wye-joint in the combustion chamber. However, after multiple attempts at injecting hairspray and deodorant through the wye, I couldn't get the stuff to ignite. I could unload for five seconds and it still wouldn't take.
Today it occurred to me that maybe it wasn't that I wasn't giving it enough propellant, but that perhaps too much of it was escaping out the barrel. So I hung the plastic cap from my trusty Right Guard bottle over the business end of the cannon, injected about 1.5 seconds worth of deodorant into the chamber, screwed in the cleanout plug, and pushed the little red button. BOOM!!!
The plastic cap went flying. The report was rather loud, so I high-tailed it back inside lest the neighbors see what I was doing and call the cops. (It sounded like, well, a small bomb going off.)
Here are my observations:
- There is a huge wealth of information on the Internet about spud guns. Most of the sites appear to be the works of high schoolers and contain so-so information.
- The best site is probably the Spud Gun Technology Center, run by a fellow by the name of Goldmann. He's a professional engineer and can build you a spud gun to order, anything from simple hairspray jobs to advanced pneumatic models to the amazing SP9004 all-aluminum, breech-loading, propane-powered, laser-sighting spud cannon. He even sells rifled barrels for use on ABS and PVC rigs.
- Firing a new spud gun before you've let the cement cure (usually 24 hours) is a great way to separate the pieces from one another and possibly catch yourself on fire. Overenthusiasm is contraindicated with spud guns. They need a day to cure. In the mean time, it is fun to admire your craftsmanship!
- Although silencers are possible to build, it is not advisable to fire a potato cannon within city limits, either dry or loaded, unless you have tolerant neighbors or an unusually quiet gun. The noise made by rapidly combusting propellant can be VERY, VERY, VERY LOUD. Not enough to deafen you, and it probably (PROBABLY!) won't be mistaken for a real gun firing, but it's best not to have the cops called. Shit, they'll make you explain things!
- Lots of people say that PVC is the better material because, unlike ABS, it is actually pressure-rated (usually 180PSI or thereabouts). However, ABS has a safer failure mode than PVC (it just rips open lengthwise like a paper bag, whereas PVC explodes into shards, like glass). In fact, Goldmann has tested ABS rigs and found that they can withstand upwards of 300PSI even in freezing temperatures.
- Lots of people say AquaNet hairspray is one of the best propellants. I disagree. Try blowing AquaNet across a lighter and you'll see what I mean - the flame is noticeable but really nothing special. Right Guard, on the other hand, produces a flame large enough for you to feel heat. Hairspray will gum up your firing chamber, whereas Right Guard will not. Finally, if you take your rig out to the boonies to get off a couple rounds, you can't really spray hairspray under your arms if you start getting a little hot. :)
- It is very useful to keep a soldering iron, solder, 22-24 gauge solenoid (not stranded) wire, electrical tape, and a pair of reasonably large channel locks around. The electrical stuff will make it easier to construct the ignition system. The channel locks will help you uncork the cleanout plugs, which are likely to jam in place, especially if you use hairspray in your rig. Rumor has it that a little vaseline around the threads will keep the plugs from jamming.
- Wrapping your spud gun with duck tape may make you feel better about a potential failure but you are probably wasting your time. The amount of kinetic energy necessary to rupture schedule 40 pipe is a hell of a lot more than duck tape is going to withstand. In fact, a fellow who deliberately detonated his gun by filling it to 120PSI and then shooting it with a .22 even said that duck tape didn't do a damn thing.
- Spud guns can be every bit as dangerous as real guns in the wrong hands. A potato with a muzzle velocity of 200MPH can rip holes through plywood, sheet metal, and your neighbor's wall. A tennis ball shot out of a 2.5" barrel can not only pass through a chain-link fence, but wind up with 1/4 of the green fuzzy stuff getting skinned off as it passes through. Distances of 200-300 yards have been reported with standard tuber load, and even an unloaded unit with a little fuel can shoot a dragon-snort of flame out the business end. People have wound up losing hair and sustaining other injuries as a result of careless misuse, and that's just what we HAVE heard about. In short, a spud gun is as much a toy as a gun is, and should be treated with EVERY BIT AS MUCH RESPECT. Yes, it is possible to be killed by one of these things. At 200MPH, a potato might as well be a brick.
- In case that last bit still isn't sinking in, let me explain it in simpler terms. These things are a lot of fun but their construction and use can carry very heavy consequences depending on where you live and how you use them. You're probably better off flying model airplanes.
So, these things are pretty dangerous if you don't handle them properly, but they are also a lot of fun if you do handle them properly. I'm looking forward to taking mine down to the quarry or somewhere like that where I can fire it off without having to worry about nosy neighbors.
Oh... by the way... if you want to link to this specific article:
http://www.kadath.org/?art=111
|
|
|
