The Omnicron Imperative (Part III)

(Continued from Part II)

The remaining attacker overcame his initial shock at the unloaded weapon and exposed a mouthful of golden teeth. He began his downward killing stroke and unleashed the traditional ululation of triumph as was the custom of his tribespeople. He did not notice Captain Awesome had swung his improvised weapon until it had already struck him squarely in the right temple.

Individually, dime-store sparklers and throwing snaps are harmless fun for children.  But when hundreds and hundreds of the poppers are combined with the crushed up casings of sparklers and crammed inside of a tube sock, he knew from his Master's Degree in chemistry, the result is an explosive mixture that could vaporize a human skull.

The attacker's cry of joy was cut short as the impromptu mace impacted its target and detonated turning everything north of his lips into a cloud of bone fragments and goo.  The sword clattered to the ground and what remained of him swayed backwards and crashed onto the debris-littered floor.

Captain Awesome dropped the smoking remains of the sock onto the corpse and lowered his sidearm.  He opened up the Webley, refilled five of the six empty chambers, then gave the cylinder a good spin before returning the weapon to its home in his custom made boot holster. He hated dry-firing the gun but it was worth it to see the grin on his opponent's face just before he wiped it off. Permanently.

Upon completion of final training all members of Team Alpha Ninja Omega Niner performed one ritual that distinguished their group from the hundreds of other independent covert ops organizations in America : each graduate ceremoniously crippled their primary weapon in some small but critical way. 

Some chose to replace their firing pins with a soft metal that would wear down with time.  Some took a rotary filing tool to their gun's sights.  None of these modifications disabled the firearms but this process significantly reduced their reliability or accuracy at critical moments, forcing each ANON team member to become either master improvisors or instantly dead.

This is why they are the best of the best.

At the ceremony for then-Cadet Awesome, instead of filling in one of the chambers with lead solder as planned, he swore an oath to always carry one round less than his Webley could hold so he would not have to damage the antique firearm.   It was his own choice, however, to randomize the cylinder after he loaded the gun so even he didn't know where the missing round lay. A colleague once asked him why he handicapped himself even further than the team charter dictated.

"To give the bad guys a fair shot," he replied with a grin.

Looking around at his handiwork and helping up the filling station patrons he noticed that each of the attackers bore a tattoo on his right palm of a violet poppy wrapped around a swastika.

He grunted with recognition, pulled out his encrypted cell phone, snapped a picture, and pressed SEND.

(To be continued...)

The Omnicron Imperative (Part II)

Continued from Part I

His grandfather, a successful oilman and landowner whose ranch encompassed most of Western Texas and portions of Southern Oklahoma, first taught him to fire a handgun on his seventh birthday. He was a natural. After a couple of wide shots he was flawlessly plunking tin cans off of rocks at 75 yards with the Webley Mark VI service revolver.

Later, after the ammunition had run out and the cans had been reduced to a fine metallic fuzz they began the long horse ride back to the jewel-encrusted racing helicopter. The old man, swelling with pride and deafened by the near-constant gunfire over the last several hours, failed to notice the pack of rabid mountain lions rapidly flanking them on their left. The younger Awesome yanked the revolver out of his grandfather's holster quick as a coked-up rattlesnake and dispatched all five of the creatures in under three seconds.

The excitement was too much for his grandfather's aging heart and he collapsed off of the stallion and half into the shallow mountain stream they were crossing. With his final breathes he bequeathed the antique firearm to his grandson, notarized and signed over the deeds to his vast business and land holdings to him, and gave him a brief but thorough tutorial on how to load the horses into the helicopter and fly it back to their closest mansion.

His grandfather was gone but he kept practicing as a way to honor his memory. By the time he was eight he had won several county-wide speed and accuracy competitions. By the time he was ten he was blacklisted from all shooting contests nationwide because he was simply too good.

The Webley remained his constant companion over the next three decades. He had long ago lost track of how many hundreds of thousands of rounds he must have fired from his trusty sidearm over the years, but the eidetic memory of his reflexes and muscles recalled every single shot.

He lept behind a display as he yanked the weapon from the top of his left Italian snakeskin riding boot and shot five of the would-be thieves between the eyes, just as he did those mountain lions all those years ago. The remaining man raked the aisle uselessly with his AK-47 while Captain Awesome crouched safely behind the racks of beef jerky and discount bullet proof jackets.

As bullets and shrapnel shredded bags of corn chips and shattered jars of pickled eggs around him he scanned the nearby shelves for something he could improvise as a weapon. He found what he needed and quickly gathered the supplies for his counter-attack.

The Afghani's third magazine went dry and he searched his garments for another. Finding none, he unsheathed his razor sharp scimitar and slowly crept his way around the bodies of his fallen comrades and the still prone hostages. He raised the curved sword over his head and jumped around the corner into his prey's aisle where he found himself staring into the barrel of the old Webley. Captain Awesome smiled and calmly pulled the trigger.

Click.

(To be continued...)

Three Mini Projects

The weekend started off slow but I did manage to throw together three quick projects... Well, two and a quarter, I guess.

The first was building a replacement key and wallet holder for the kitchen.  The original one did not fit with the new kitchen modifications - too country.  I scavenged the pine shelves and metal hardware from the original unit and built a new back for it from a leftover maple piece I rescued from a discarded table many months back.  The stain/sealant combo was leftover from other projects as well.  Total cost: one chip brush.

The second was a set of wooden blocks for my son's second birthday.  Whenever he is in the garage he always wants to play with the leftover wood pieces (from a recent railing installation) laying on the workbench so giving him his own official set is a cheap and easy gift.  All of the pine, poplar, and oak blocks and dowels were either small hunks of existing scrap, leftovers from old projects, or taken from larger boards that were too warped to use for big jobs.  The missus suggested I include some arches, so I will crank those out tomorrow, sand the lot of them, and figure out a way to fit everything into the five dollar plastic bin for the one and only time they are all in the same place.

The third mini project you may have already noticed.  I have started a short story called The Omnicron Imperative.  I got the idea to write this based on the over-the-top writing styles of some of the action/adventure authors you see in the sidebar on the right (Cussler, Meaney, etc.) .  It is basically my way of ripping on the formulaic "Top secret team of covert badasses save the world through sheer awesomeness sprinkled with pseudo-science."  I realize it's silly - it's supposed to be.  I'm not sure how long I will carry the "story" through - my attention span is short but randomly variable.  Enjoy!

The Omnicron Imperative (Part I)

[Editor's Note 10/29/10: This whole thing was just supposed to be a short rip on the writing style of certain over-the-top action schlock novels.  The whole thing started as an inside joke between me and a friend of mine that loaned me a Cussler book (The Chase), and it sort of ballooned into this...  It is not meant to be funny, per se, nor is it supposed to be a serious attempt at a novel.  Think of it as a mockumentary of all the bad "super awesome team of super rich handsome people save the world again" books that are out there.  I may never finish the story... it just depends on time and motivation (what doesn't?).  Enjoy.]

Captain Wonderful Q. Awesome, formerly a member of a secret elite counter-terrorism agency simply known as Team Alpha Ninja Omega Niner, expertly piloted his chrome-plated 1896 Velocitymobile into a vacant spot at the desolate, dusty filling station.

The familiar ramshackle structure was his preferred stop for refueling his unbelievably priceless Brass Era road machine. McGinty's was not only the single filling station left in 2010 America that stocked the imported brand of bituminous coal and kerosene the car's steam boilers and headlamps demanded, the owner did not mind when he paid his bill with gold doubloons he always seemed to have on him. He always slyly winked and told her to keep the change anyway.

His boots clocked up the wooden steps as he removed his leather riding goggles to reveal the most exotically colored eyes ever to be blessed upon a human being.  It was impossible to tell exactly what hue they were because to stare into them for too long would be to fall in love.

Many women had tried to win the heart buried inside of his handsome, rugged exterior but he only had room in his life for two loves.  The first was making soft plinking noises behind him as its gleaming steam plant cooled in the gentle autumn breeze.  The second was America...

Little did he know that he was walking into a situation that would test his training to its very limits and force him to choose between the two.

As soon as he creaked open the door to the service station he felt a certain wrongness he couldn't quite put his finger on.  Usually his entry was accompanied by an array of soft thudding sounds as the proprietress and any female customers in the store simultaneously swooned because he was so handsome.  It happened this time, too, of course, but this time the sound of the group collapse was different - it was tinged with fear.

He quickly took in his surroundings.  The six be-robed sword-and-AK-47-wielding Mujahideen that were in the process of holding up the service station paused to look around confusedly at their now semi-conscious hostages.  That brief delay was to be their last.
 
(To be continued...)

Puzzle News

In case you haven't heard, the United States Cyber Command just came out with their emblem.  Here it is on the left.  A higher resolution image can be found at Wikipedia.

Wired magazine held a contest of sorts offering tickets to the spy museum in D.C. or a Wired t-shirt for the first person to decode the message "encrypted" in the inner ring. 

Three hours later the solution was found and there were lots of disappointed people.  I was one of them.

I wasn't disappointed that someone had found the answer to the puzzle so quickly, it was just the solution required not so much brainpower as it did a Google search for hash algorithms. 

Sour grapes?  Eh, maybe.  But I prefer puzzles that can be solved with some paper, a pencil, and a lot of thought which is why I make mine as though I expected a 19th century (or early 20th century) citizen to give them a go.  No computers required.

I really don't mind spending a lot of time on puzzles that have that kind of feel to them.  The Kryptos puzzle on the grounds of the CIA headquarters is one that I look at from time to time.  I will probably never crack it, but who knows, right?  Another one that I mess around with on and off is the Kahn's Cons Puzzle at puzzlemonster.com.  I have been "pretty close" to figuring this one out for literally years now...  Grrr.

Speaking of puzzles, the last Secret Puzzle has been found by jimmydunes!  Here is what he recently found pasted to the bottom of the art supplies table I built for him last year:

I will post this with the rest of the Secret Puzzles in the sidebar on the right.  As usual, there is no prize other than "Braggin' Rights" for the Secret Puzzles.  The Puzzles for Charity, however, are another story...

Good Luck!

Guest Bedroom Project (Part II)

The printer/scanner stand was built and it and the new desk were stained. I had enough leftover material to make an additional little side table for my wife's office.  I used every single one of my 1 1/4" Kreg screws and every drop of wood glue I had.  Here are the pieces.

The dark stain was leftover from the Desk Restoration project - I have quite a collection of half-filled stain and paint cans in the garage so I really need to use this stuff up before it goes bad.  I used a gloss sealant for the same reason.  The little side table will remain unstained and unsealed.  The total time for this portion of the project was 4 hours and the total cost was $125.  If I had to buy the stain, brushes, desk slide hardware, and whatnot it would have cost significantly more.

The old desk was dismantled, cannibalized for parts, (such as drawer slides and hinges) and taken out to the dump.  It was very happy-making to chuck the pieces into the giant dumpster.

Sadly, a bookcase that Agmorion and I made about a million years ago also needs to go.  The shape and footprint is all wrong for the new room, you see.  Hopefully someone at the local thrift store can get some use out of it.  Although I like to put puzzles on stuff that I make before it goes out into the world, I won't be doing that with the bookcase.

What I did do, however, is create a Secret Puzzle for the new desk.  It is a 5" by 7" oak plyboard plaque that I screwed to the underside of the keyboard shelf.  Since the desk is not going out into the world for discovery, I present the puzzle below.  I will also post it in the Secret Puzzle Page (link in the sidebar on the right).  Good Luck!

I was going to include this next picture as part of a Playroom post but it fits just as well here. 

What you see here is a portion of a whole mess of books that needed to go away to make room for all the changes upstairs.  Hundreds of pounds of never-to-be-read reading material went to the thrift store since the books didn't meet my fuzzy definition of a) timelessness (reference books or classics) or b) irreplaceablity (out of print books like my 1947 copy of Cycles: The Science of Prediction or How to Be a Superhero).

So gone are the Onion compendia and the extensive Dilbert collection and the Simpsons episode guides.  Bye bye to an unbelievable number of programming reference guides and SAMS Learn Whateverthehell in 24 Hours books.  Farewell to books on learning shorthand (garage sale find... shut up), history books from the 50s, bad novels, and most of my old college books.  Again, I hope the people shopping at the thrift store can find some use from them.

(To be continued...)

Guest Bedroom Project (Part I)

As part of making the upstairs more useful we have decided to turn my basically abandoned den into a guest bedroom.  This project will have three main parts: replacing the computer desk, painting and applying mold inhibitor, and adding new furniture.

The existing desk is an L-shaped particleboard monstrosity we have been toting around for a very long time. It is nearly impossible to move, it is damaged in parts and takes up way too much space to share with a bed in that room. 

It's gotta go, that much is obvious.

Well, that's fine but the computer still needs to live there as do the scanner and printer.  It would be a real cabling hassle to move the modem and router so those need to stay put as well.  These needs pretty much nail any replacement desk to the right side of the room.

A full sized bed will share the space with the computer desk.  The bed will need to be centered in the room to prevent guests from clonking their heads on the sloped ceiling... You know, as I write this it occurs to me that we might need a futon in there instead of a traditional bed.

Sigh.  Whatever.  We'll badly plan, design, and build that bridge when we come to it.

I have been looking forward to throwing together a new desk for a while now but time, money, resources, and/or the will to do it has prevented that from happening. Time is of the essence here because a number of projects need to get done within the next 3 weeks so this is going to be a pretty simple design.  A “Shaker” style computer desk, if there is such a thing.

We got my wife's very simple desk from an unfinished furniture store.  Well, I mean, the store itself was finished... it didn't have only three walls or no roof or something like that.  The furniture inside was unfinished, you understand. Not tables with 2 legs... stop looking at me like that. 

We just wanted something 1) simple 2) made of real wood and 3) cheap for the office/bedroom downstairs.  It was the first two.  It was not the last one.  As a matter of fact, they must get a lot of sticker shock induced comments in the store because they had on their marquee for many months "DO NOT JUST COMPARE PRICES COMPARE QUALITY".  Comes off either elitist or desperate, IMHO.

I definitely could do better price-wise by at least $100, and that includes a small printer stand. As for quality, I guarantee you it would be good enough.

After this long and unnecessarily verbose preamble, there really isn't too much to write about that the pictures doesn't say itself:

• I used the same type of pine prefab top as I did for the Art Table project. 
• The legs are not tapered, made of poplar, and are held in place with pocket joints. 
• I cannibalized the keyboard slides from the old desk. 
• I decided not to build a monitor stand like the old desk had to keep the price low.

The total construction time so far has been 2 hours. Total cost for all materials (wood and pocket joint screws) for this part of the job has been about $70.

Not bad.

Tomorrow I should be able to build the printer/scanner stand and stain both the pieces. I guess we will call the Guest Bedroom Project about 20% complete for now.

(To be continued...)

I'm Cottony Soft, Dammit!

So there I am blearily standin' there thinkin', "Anger?  That can't be right... Oh.  I'm an idiot."

Site Update, Puzzle News

I will be making some cosmetic changes to the site soon.  Nothing big... mostly "stuff in the sidebar" type additions.

I finished Sacred Stone by Clive Cussler.  Well, by "finished" I mean I quit reading it about 60% into the book.  Usually I can force my way through most stuff, but jeez... I totally agree with a lot of the hilarious one star reviews on Amazon, especially the one about the sandwiches...  I don't want to spoil them for you.  Check them out for yourself, if you would like.

Hmmm, what else... Oh, yeah, here is another hint for the Puzzle for Charity:

Hint #2 (Posted 2136 062410): The words and designs on the corks don't mean anything

Remember, everyone: the Prize Pool will remain at "Braggin' Rights" (otherwise known as "zero dollars") until a 501c charity has been suggested and agreed upon.  Like I have mentioned, there is no cost, and there is no catch.  Once a small, registered, legitimate 501c charity has been chosen, the Prize Pool will start to ramp up at a rate I have not decided upon yet.

Why don't I just pick one myself, you ask?  Meh, more fun if you do it, I guess.  Leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail if you have a suggestion.

You can find the current Puzzle for Charity in the sidebar on the right.  Good Luck!

Wait... Who Did What Now?

Ok. This one takes a bit of explaining and suddenly shifts gears a few times so stay with me.

We are members of a local pool club so my wife bought the boy some water toys that are more appropriate than the bath toy selection we normally bring with us. She bought a set of something called “Toypedos” which are a set of colorful, torpedo-shaped underwater throwing/diving toys.  They are remarkably hydrodynamic and travel forever if you flick them just right. The package says you aren't supposed to throw them at anyone. Sureokwhatever.

Anyway, my kid loved them to the point where he clumsily carried the whole set with him for days afterwards. Occasionally, he will take a toy to bed with him when it is time for his nap. These were his toy of choice for a little while.

He was sick this week. Nothing serious, but he had a high fever as a side effect of an ear infection, so he spent the past two days at home with Mommy instead of going to daycare. Mommy decided to take advantage of his extended naptime to take care of some e-mails and other computer-based stuff.

My wife and I occasionally get e-mails from our church telling us about current events, requesting volunteers for things that need to get done, the church's vision for the future, etc. The last one we got (entitled Vision) she couldn't read because it was in a more recent version of Word than she had on her computer so she sent it to me at work for me to convert. I did so and sent it back. My wife then sent me a short, one-line email telling me how the poor sick boy was doing.

Well, at least she thought she did. Fast forward to tonight.

My wife was taking care of some of the decorating for Vacation Bible School at the church when the pastor approached her with a look of genuine concern on his face and asked if “if I was okay”. My wife replied, in a confused and now-borderline-concerned manner “He's fine... Why?” He says “Well, I got the e-mail you sent and I didn't know what it meant...” The one-sided conversation lurched along in a very awkward manner for about 20 seconds before it hit my wife what had happened.

She had accidentally sent the pastor the infinitely cryptic message, entitled “Vision”: “He went to sleep with his toypedos at 2pm”. This apparently caused the pastor to deduce that I was ill – down with a case of the toypedos, I guess. He never heard of that (maybe vision-related?) illness, so he looked it up, but nothing he found made any sense whatsoever, so he thought he would ask her to see how I was doing.

She cleared things up, but I shudder to think of the possible connections he could have made while trying to parse the sentence “He went to sleep with his toypedos at 2pm” into a reasonable, logical reflection of his worldview. I can come up with a few family-friendly guesses from his point of view, but they are all very unlikely or completely insane.  One guess involves hostages and secret codes, for instance.

Unfortunately, I can come up with quite a few family-unfriendly ones as well... I don't think she helped the matter by sending him the photo above. If the sermon next Sunday turns out to be a fire-and-brimstone style rant entitled “Shame on You, You Horrible, Horrible Person” that seems to be directed entirely at me, I will know for sure what he believes really happened...