It Never Works That Way

“…she filled up my answering machine with the sounds of walking on rocks and breathing, THAT’S IT…  WHY CAN’T HE DATE A SMART GIRL?”

–Dragonia, on her son’s choice of companionship

Sometimes I Do Too

Opal (from bed, to the air): Empress, is Ace reading his book?

me (from my chair, a few feet away): Yeah, Mom.  I’m reading my book.

Opal:  (settles down comfortably) …Sometimes I forget you’re not really there.

Twelve Leagues

“When he had gone seven leagues the darkness was thick and there was no light, he could see nothing ahead and nothing behind him.  When he had gone eight leagues Gilgamesh gave a great cry, for the darkness was thick and he could see nothing ahead and nothing behind him.  After nine leagues he felt the north wind on his face, but the darkness was thick and there was no light, he could see nothing ahead and nothing behind him.  After ten leagues the end was near.  After eleven leagues the dawn light appeared.  At the end of twelve leagues the sun streamed out….  Shamash saw him, and he saw that he was dressed in the skins of animals and ate their flesh.  He was distressed, and he…  said, ‘No mortal man has gone this way before, nor will, as long as the winds drive over the sea.’  And to Gilgamesh he said, ‘You will never find the life for which you are searching.’  Gilgamesh said to glorious Shamash, ‘Now that I have toiled and strayed so far in the wilderness, am I to sleep, and let the earth cover my head for ever?  Let my eyes see the sun until they are dazzled with looking.  Although I am no better than a dead man, still let me see the light of the sun!'”

The Epic of Gilgamesh (t. N.K. Sandar), as quoted in The Universal Myths:  Heroes, Gods, Tricksters and Others, Alexander Eliot

Happy Father’s Day II

“If you put ‘Secret War’ on your phone and I see it, it’s not a secret anymore.”

–Jack, handing my cel phone back to me after talking to his Mom on it

Good Answer, But No

Ace:  Zeus punished Prometheus for giving fire to mankind by having him chained to a rock with his arms and legs spread out, so he was helpless.  And then every day, a giant eagle would soar down from the sky, tear open his body with its beak, and eat his liver.  But it didn’t kill him.  Prometheus was immortal, and every night his liver would magically grow back.  So every day the eagle would come again, and every day Prometheus would have to suffer through that same awful, excruciating pain, over and over and over again, forever. [pauses]  He was rescued eventually, though.  Someone else set him free.  Can you think of who that might have been?

Jack:  His girlfriend?

Knife to the Gunfight

Jack: My castle has a super-magnetic floor between the inner and outer walls, that when activated pulls all metal armor and weapons down onto it, making it so that they can’t move.  And the inner chamber has a computer system that sweeps the area for enemies and then fires on them with these turrets if it finds them.

Ace: My castle has rolling logs.

The Son King

Jack (assessing the diplomatic status of the city-state of Tyre):  It says they’re Hostile.

Ace: That doesn’t mean they’re hostile to you.  They’re hostile to everyone.

Jack: I am everyone.

Ace: Oh ho!  (laughs) L’état, c’est moi, huh?

Happy Valentines Day

“I like cheeeeeeeeeese.  And uniiiiicorns.  And baaaaaaaaaaacon…”

–Dragonia, after an extra-dirty vodka martini and half a bottle of Mumm Rosé Brut

Playing The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

Jack:  [squints at rail map with indications of moving enemies]  “Nnnnnh…  That may not end well.”

[pushes Save Game button]

—

Ace:  “I’m not gonna blow the whistle.  Screw the whistle!  You want a hero who knows how to blow the whistle, or you want a hero who knows how to blow it up??”

Well, Yes

“She speaks English!”

–Jack, on being addressed by Queen Elizabeth I in the diplomacy screen of Civilization 5

Best Quote of the Weekend III

“I got a leg cramp so bad this morning I thought I was gonna pee myself and then die.”

-me, to Jack (and then Jack, over and over and over…)

Goodbye Sealand

“…And so in every way, Sealand is exactly what it is, and nothing that I expected it to be.  And it remains somewhat opaque to me, despite all my description.  Jack comes first; work comes second; all of my obligations come third, and that leaves time to explore the environs a distant fourth, if on the list at all.  I am mystified by the seeming lack of people my own age, by the absence of places I’m used to thinking of as integral to a local scene, but I’ve had no time or energy to place into solving those mysteries. I raise my eyes to the horizon and there are the same vistas and landmarks there I’ve seen a thousand times before, but all at new angles now:  familiar things presenting unfamiliar sides of themselves.  No doubt it will unfold as it should.  There is the day to day fight, and sometimes there is beauty, if you know how to take beauty where you find it.

We shall see what Magic there is in Sealand.

And if there is no Magic in Sealand—  then perhaps we shall make some.”

–The Book of the King, “Sealand (part 3)”, October 17th, 2003

—

“Do you recall how, when we strove upon the balcony, you mocked me?  You told me that I, too, took pleasure in the ways of pain which you work.  You were correct, for all men have within them both that which is dark and that which is light.  A man is a thing of many divisions, not a pure, clear flame such as you once were.  His intellect often wars with his emotions, his will with his desires…  his ideals are at odds with his environment, and if he follows them, he knows keenly the loss of that which was old-  but if he does not follow them, he feels the pain of having forsaken a new and noble dream.  Whatever he does represents both a gain and a loss, an arrival and a departure.  Always he mourns that which is gone and fears some part of that which is new.  Reason opposes tradition.  Emotions oppose the restrictions his fellow men lay upon him.  Always, from the friction of these things, there arises the thing you called the curse of man and mocked-  guilt!

“Know then, that as we existed together in the same body and I partook of your ways, not always unwillingly, the road we followed was not one upon which all the traffic moved in a single direction.  As you twisted my will to your workings, so was your will twisted, in turn, by my revulsion at some of your deeds.  You have learned the thing called guilt, and it will ever fall as a shadow across your meat and your drink.  This is why your pleasure has been broken.  This is why you seek now to flee.  But it will do you no good.  It will follow you across the world.  It will rise with you into the realms of the cold, clean winds.  It will pursue you wherever you go.  This is the curse of the Buddha.”

Taraka covered his face with his hands.

“So this is what it is like to weep,” he said, after a time.

–Sam (the Buddha), Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny

If It Isn’t, It Should Be

Ace:  Hope you’re feeling better.

Schnallity:  Feeling like shit.  But what can ya do…

Ace:  Die.  Eventually.

Schnallity:  Isn’t that a new Juila Roberts movie?  Eat, Shit and Die?

–Skype exchange

But I Thought Those Were My Strong Points

“You think too much and you read too much, and you give yourself too many scenarios.  Just get it done.”

-Opal, offering me her advice on how best to select a moving company

On the Other Hand, the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

“The writer has made the oft-repeated statement that this show will cost 98 cents to shoot.  Please keep him out of my office.  I know that he will try to convince me that this show will cost 98 cents to shoot.  I can’t afford to take the time to explain to him why it will cost more than 98 cents to shoot.  I have been down this road with him before.  Tell the writer that if he insists on arguing budget with me, in the future I shall have to restrict him from my couch.  He will no longer be allowed to sleep on my couch or to come in and stand on my desk.  I will have him taken away by the ‘Civil People.’  He will also be denied the right to eat any leaves off my secretary’s plant.  He shall have to find emotional nourishment elsewhere.”

–staff comment on an (original series) Star Trek script, as quoted in The Making of Star Trek (Stephen E. Whitfield)