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Realm of the InterNutter

Thoughts, stories and ideas.

Crowded Days Ahead

Chaos is seeing her shrink, today. We're all going to a funeral, tomorrow. I have no idea what Wednesday holds, but it's bound to include looking for more Beta-readers for Beauties, and possibly working on Chaos' very first book. I should have the time by then.

I need to figure out a way to make an iced coffee that I can tolerate, because there's no way I can drive as much as I'm driving, this week, without caffeine. One that will (a) last, (b) not go off during the day, and (c) be keto-friendly. Because sugar is bad.

We do have xylitol, but as far as I'm aware, there's no diet iced coffee on the markets. Shy of ordering a double espresso soy latte to go at the shrink's coffee shop, I really don't know what to do.

Meanwhile, I have a family to chase and I really don't know how I'm going to get today's Instant done or when.

This entire week is going to be sideways.

I'm pondering sending off KFZ to my last e-submissions A2B without the "X meets Y" because I'm blowed if I can think of two things that encapsulate KFZ accurately. I'll just leave the whole thing without that aspect.

And I solved the coffee problem. I made twice the usual amount of coffee (and doubled the typical amount of xylitol) and used plain old almond milk to top it all off. And my two-mug teapot to mix the coffee in. It's currently in two recycled Powerade Zero bottles so I can drink on the fly.

And I shall probably have to stop in at the BP on the way there, so I can get myself some more Powerade Zero just in case I need me some electrolytes.

And now I simply must prepare my laptop for travel.

Challenge #01537-D076: No Place Like It

It was a Trucker's Drinking Hole, beer on tap and lachrymose songs on the Juke Box. It didn't matter that 16 wheelers were replaced by space haulers, some things never changed. -- Anon Guest

After months of monotony, hauling whatever the cargo was, even an AI would crave variety from the humdrum. And this place was the one-stop shop. Inebriants for those on rest cycle. Stimulants for those just stopping by. The inevitable tones of Cryin' Joe Bardnaw on the jukebox, jukebox

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New toys

Beloved bought me a vinyl turntable, yesterday. While I was out with Chaos and gently stewing in my own juices, Beloved was rearranging the front room to include surround sound, once more1. Beloved, who claims to be tone deaf, has turned into an audiophile overnight.

So now I own a record player that doesn't take twenty minutes to warm up2 and is compatible with most of the other technology in the house. Plus there's a chance I can bootleg save

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Challenge #01536-D075: Dire Times at the Dog and Duck

It was one of those places that people went to, to drink as much as possible in the shortest time. There were tiles well above head height, the floor was tiled and covered in sawdust, at shift change staff hosed it out and put down fresh sawdust. -- Anon Guest

There wasn't a menu. There weren't interesting bottles on the back shelf. There was barely a back shelf, which held a bottle of suspicious pickled eggs, which also held a pickled vermin

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Social Obligations

Chaos is attending a party, today. This is a chance for me to network with other Parentals, and social interaction practice for a chronic introvert. No, not Chaos. Think again. Yep. Me.

Chaos is going to be fine. She'll just leap in while I'm still solving five-dimensional social conversation math. I'll wear my little SPG gear pin just in case there's a fellow Steampunk nerd there. I always have high hopes of making a new, nerdy friend.

And if someone asks... and

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Challenge #01535-D074: Action and Consequence

There is a minor but critical distinction between being right and being not wrong. -- RecklessPrudence

Someone had graffitied a museum's promotional poster. The poster, being about a dinosaur exhibit, featured the ever-popular T-Rex. The graffito read, He's a chicken, I tell you! A giant chicken![1]

There was no need to arrest the offending graffiti artist because the local paleontological fans had already corralled them and were having a Well-Actually contest. Lyr hung back and observed, just in case things got

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Slow start

Since nobody gets out of bed before 5:30 anyway, I'm re-setting my alarm to that time and not waking up early for half an hour of heartbreaking inertia. And that's all I have this morning. Inertia has me in its wicked claws today.

I woke up at around 3 and tried and failed to get back to sleep. A combo of Beloved's snoring and the various little annoying lights in the room kept me awake. The phone makes the body lotion

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Challenge #01534-D073: Wyrd Customs

"How normal is this occurrence that there's automated vocal procedures to talk about the demonic presence?" -- RecklessPrudence

This lot of magicians had graduated through technology and out the other side, never once stopping in at Global Pollution Station for a long debate about how dangerous pollution was, when you really got down to it. Shayde was impressed. Not many worlds actually noticed the long-term effects of certain technologies and decided to look at other ways to do things while the water

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Struggle to juggle

I think I should probably try to do a "head space" comic per day. As well as the other stuff. I've learned I can only handle animation in small doses, so maybe five frames a go is my limit. And I still haven't posted the progress pix for the latest art piece I'm working on.

I know that it looks like a bag of suck at the moment, which is why I haven't posted it.

Bag of suck or not, I feel

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Challenge #01533-D072: Sufficiently Confusing Circuitry

The Magic/More Magic switch. Details here. -- RecklessPrudence

Rael, fresh into independant JOATing, stared at the switch on the homebrew cabinet. A human had to have made this. The pencilled annotation on the toggle switch had two options. Magic and More Magic. Experimentally, he flipped the switch to More Magic and rebooted the kludge of a machine.

It worked perfectly.

Rael was not content to receive a handful of Seconds for this much work, and took the outer casing off to

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Murgledy...

I know I'm getting to sleep. I know I'm sleeping the night... but it's not working as much as it used to. Maybe it's the change of seasons. Maybe it's the time I spend reading in bed. Maybe I just need a coffee. Whatever it is, I'm not as fully "charged" as I'm used to.

Which means I'm back to functioning on low battery.

I know how to do it... I'd just rather not. You know?

My shrink gave me more homework,

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Challenge #01532-D071: Unseen Flaws

"What? What is it?" "Give me a minute. I've been an idiot and I'm trying to compensate." -- RecklessPrudence

"No, no, no, no, no!" Paper snowed from its fountaining upwards. Judging by the look of things, inspiration had been going in entirely in the wrong direction. "It's all shit! It's nonsense! Rubbish! Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish..." And then Maester Kadfel fell to sobbing at her desk.

Thaldrik fielded as many pages as he could catch, and laboriously rounded up the others. Months of

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Challenge #01531-D070: Danger in an Underground Cavern

This is an [ancient race] construct, and it's a great honour to be murdered by it. We're gonna try and avoid that, anyway. -- RecklessPrudence

"Atlantis is real," breathed Carraway.

"Yes, yes. We have established this. However, that sixty-ton construct is coming our way and it could easily squash us flat with one limb. Run, Carraway."

Carraway was still entranced, even though his feet moved away from the impending threat of the moving machine. "It's so beautiful. And functioning after thousands of

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So much to do

I'm still doing the read-through of Beauties, and aim to get to the halfway point before the end of the day. Each chapter takes fifteen minutes away from other things.

Other things like writing my Instant, or working on the first five hundred words of the new book, Rael. And I haven't even written the nut notes.

They'll evolve as time goes by.

I've always needed nut notes to keep things straight. As I introduce people, I'll take notes.

And everything is

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Challenge #01530-D069: Wit of the Ages

Stuff found written on walls. -- Knitnan

Corridor 3278B had been marked as a Paradox Hazard by the local representatives of the AI Alliance, thus causing something of a traffic snarl in the adjacent byways. Since she was in the neighbourhood, Officer Lyr Marken investigated, reading everything there that was still legible.

She found it easily. Beautiful, artistic script that read, Everyone writes on walls except me!

Lyr instantly went for the first suspect, dialling up Ambassador Shayde's personal comms. "Ambassador Shayde

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