A Cephalopodmas Vision?

POV of the Hunter

A silver medallist in a women's race took a "gender test" and failed.

She's not a man and she's never had a sex change. She has "abnormal chromosomes." Abnormal enough for her to be stripped of her medal.

So, what? She took too much man-ness across the finish line? That's considered an unfair advantage? In the future, will sex be determined by footrace?

Released February 8, 2005:


. . . and released December 5, 2006:


My prediction for next year:

Senator Tim Johnson's recent medical troubles have forced a lot of people to look at the fragility of the new Democratic majority in the Senate. It's got me to thinking . . . there are a lot of senators. Do you suppose a right wing nut, similar to the one who mailed white powder to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Jon Stewart recently, might decide assassination of a senator might not be so hard to pull off?

Good morning.

So I've got myself a headache. The past couple days, my aunt and I have been tending to Victoria the cat. The experience has taught me that I can never be in any medical profession.

Victoria's got a tube in her neck right now, whereby my aunt and I put food, medicine and water into the kitty. Doctors still don't have any idea why she won't eat. She just seems to not want to. Whenever I put food in front of her, she looks at me like I've made some juvenile joke she's in no mood for.

And I just don't seem to have a head for keeping track of the various medicines and when they need to be administered and how. It's a struggle--I constantly have to re-read the instructions, and frequently have to start over, cutting the pill, crushing it, warming the water, putting the pill powder and water together and into the syringe, and go.

At least she's started passing waste again. Well, it didn't seem like such a good thing when I opened the door to her room yesterday and discovered the diarrhoea-scape. After much scrubbing, I managed very little cleaning. Then my aunt came home and took a crack at it and somehow got that white carpet spotless again. But oh, the time consumed. I went to Tim's last night to numb my brain with Oblivion a bit, but that was the first day in about a week I hadn't worked on the "Moving Nameless" fanfic, which is now at twelve pages. So I think I'm mainly doing well. Except for the fact that I still have most of my Christmas shopping to do . . .

Why can't there be more stories like this?

In 1986, Bob Briggs was director at the Cetacean Institute in Sausalito when Doctor Gillian Taylor, the institute's assistant director, disappeared.

These days, Bob manages a Denny's in Bakersfield. He and I recently sat down over All-American Slams and coffee to discuss Dr. Taylor.

How long did you know Gillian Taylor?

A long time. She and I went to school together. We got our degrees in cetacean biology the same year. We were close, we studied together several times. She was sort of my, you know.

Girlfriend?

(laughs) I guess you could call it that.

What do you remember about Dr. Taylor's behaviour, shortly before she disappeared?

Well, she'd been acting pretty emotional and, you know, out there for a while. It was like she was going through early menopause or something. She would yell at me and then be really quiet for a long time. Is menopause the right word?

Er, 1986 was also the year the Cetacean Institute released George and Gracie, the only humpback whales ever held in captivity.

Yeah. Yeah, well, we'd been taking a lot of heat from the fishing authorities and a few liberal groups for holding the two whales.

Yes, my notes say there was a lot of concern regarding the tank. At only 15 thousand cubic metres, there wasn't even enough room for the whales to turn around.

Oh, that wasn't really the problem. The problem was money. We couldn't afford all the shrimp we had to dump in there to keep them alive. Gillian had a . . . Well, she was really emotional about seeing the whales go. She loved those whales--she'd stand over the tank and talk to them sometimes. I think she really thought they loved her. I should've seen the red flags, in retrospect.

You think her disappearance was directly related to her feelings for the whales?

Well, I don't know, but it would be a real big coincidence if it wasn't, right? I tried to soften the blow when--when we knew we were going to have to release them. I said to her one day, it's not like they're people. It's never been proven they're that smart.

How did she react?

She flipped out. Told me she didn't--how did she put it?--how much she cared for someone--it wasn't based on her estimate of their intelligence. It was sort of embarrassing. It was like she really thought those whales were her kids, or--or something.

You're referring to her status as a registered sex offender. Those kids she'd allegedly molested a few years earlier.

Uh, maybe, I mean, I don't know. The judge had been pretty easy on her, I guess because she was a woman, but I figure, she was a little fragile. I think not being around kids she transferred her--her obsession to the whales. It's weird because she was very religious.

So she didn't want to be parted from the whales? Even if it meant keeping them in those conditions?

We took good care of those whales, okay? I don't want anymore--I don't want to hear anymore about that. But, yeah, she--she was really paranoid near the end. She seemed to think whalers were going to immediately find them out there. Of course, maybe they did--we lost track of the whales pretty quick, even though we'd tagged them.

When was the last time you saw Dr. Taylor?

Just after George and Gracie had been removed. We'd kept secret from her the real removal time, so she was really surprised when she showed up for work to find them gone.

Why did you keep her in the dark?

She'd been so, like I said, hysterical lately, we didn't want to deal with her. And I figured if she had to watch them go, I'd have to watch her bawling . . . Boy, was she pissed. She slapped me. Called me a son of a bitch, last time I saw her. You know, I was her boyfriend for eleven years and we never even got to second base? I tell ya--well, I guess she's gone now, so. That's that.

Er, yes. Well, thank you for talking to me to-day. I'll let you get back to work.

It was nice talking to you.

Here's my ranking of the 2006 movies I've seen (though imdb lists some of these as 2005--even V for Vendetta which came out in May 2006). Looks like it was a year of mostly bloody, unhappy drama and broad satire;

1. Tideland
2. The Proposition
3. The Departed
4. The Prestige
5. Marie Antoinette
6. Casino Royale
7. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
8. Clerks 2
9. Art School Confidential
10. An Inconvenient Truth
11. The Illusionist
12. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
13. Hard Candy
14. Little Miss Sunshine
15. V for Vendetta
16. Superman Returns
17. Friends with Money

Two movies didn't make the list because I didn't like them enough;

The Devil Wears Prada
Bobby

Even if size doesn't matter, this is still pretty unfortunate for Indian men, I must say. Indian men are going to be taking so much shit now.

I was fantasizing to-day about interviewing Diddy and asking him, "Is it all right if I call you 'Penis'?" When he said no, I was going to go on, "Okay. So who's diddling your diddy these days? Your uncle?" Every question would in some way make reference to the fact that his new name sounds like a word a paedophile would use to refer to a little boy's penis.

Just thought I'd share. Victoria the cat's home and still not eating, but at least she used the litter box. The doctors say she was eating the kitten food they gave her, so my aunt's going to buy some of that. Victoria does seem happier, though. She purrs when I pet her.

Now I've got eight and a half pages done on the fanfic thing. I still haven't thought of a title. The two main contenders right now are Moving Innocent and The Two Loves of a Nameless Lady. Part of me wants to go with The Two Loves of What's-Her-Name. I want something intriguing without sounding stuffy and self-important. I'll keep thinking.

I still need to do Christmas shopping. Yes, I declared war on Christmas. But I see no reason not to abuse the native customs of my conquered island.

Let's see . . . There's been some cat drama around here lately. Victoria the cat's been in the hospital for a few days since we noticed she'd stopped eating and using the litter box, and was throwing up what little we could get her to swallow. The doctors still aren't precisely sure what's wrong with her. They thought it might be a fatal virus causing a liver problem, but now they seem to think it's a liver problem caused by stress and change of diet--my aunt had changed the cats' food three times in the past couple months in the hopes of getting them to lose weight. And stress may indeed have been a factor, since Victoria seemed to get bad after I'd taken her in to get her claws capped and she'd had a nasty encounter with a candle when I brought her home. She'd seemed very affectionate when I brought her out of her carrier, but unfortunately she decided to rub her face on the leg of a wobbly three-legged table on which my grandmother had decided to put two skinny, wobbly candles, one of which immediately fell and struck Victoria between the shoulders like an arrow.

Yes, the cats here have capped claws. It's better than declawing, but it does kind of bug me that my grandmother's so Republican about her furniture as to put the couch's welfare over the cats'. Taking Victoria in, I reflected on how Republican mentality helps make the world a shitty place in even little ways. Yeah, I'm a partisan motherfucker. So much for my presidential run.

Here're Keith Olbermann and Sam Seder discussing the Wondrous Lesbian Cheney and Her Babe of Hypocrisy. Every time I wonder if Stephen Colbert is a straw man, all I need to do is remind myself of the elephant horse jockey. Or the vicar in a tutu, if I want to reference Morrissey.

For some more food for thought, here're several people patiently explaining to Deepak Chopra that it's not absurd for a brain to want a banana. Sometimes I think religious people just need more hobbies. It's disappointing--I'd pegged Chopra as being more benign than that.

Well, I think I'll go work on that "Moving Nameless" fanfic while listening to Olbermann. Progress has been a little slow--I've only gotten seven pages done. But then, part of me thinks this is a transitory period that needs to be slow and contemplative. Never underestimate the usefulness of daydreaming, I always say . . .

The Decemberists counterattack Stephen Colbert! Green screens everywhere are burning!

I'm not a Nelly Furtado fan, but this was pretty damned funny, inasmuch as it pretty much confirms that many of our modern vocal talents aren't especially, well . . . talented.

That wacky Orson Scott Card is at it again. I've never read Ender's Game, but it baffles me this guy ever wrote anything that some people I respect consider to be intelligent.

I finally got a chance to see Final Fantasy XII yesterday--Tim bought the game and I watched him play for a couple hours. It seems pretty good. A lot of the gameplay has gone very MMORPG, Tim tells me--something it inherited from FF XI. I haven't played any MMORPGs, so I can't say if I think it's a good thing. I do rather like that there are apparently no random encounters now.

I was struck by a few similarities to Final Fantasy IX, like the emotion symbols above people's heads to indicate types of available interaction. And the villain is reminiscent of Kuja--though he's not as sexually ambiguous, he's certainly as vain. In fact, is name is Vayne.

I find it a little amusing that the protagonist's name is Vaan, so it seems to be a matter of Vaan v. Vayne. "V, V, V,", "Evey, Evey, Evey." Okay.

I was disappointed to see that Nobuo Uematsu isn't in charge of the music, though two of his themes appear at the beginning. Including, I was very cheered to note, the theme to Final Fantasy, which traditionally appears in the end credits of every game, but was conspicuously missing from Final Fantasy X. I guess they put it at the beginning of the new one to make up for it.

Well, that's that. So who's ready for Final Fantasy XIII?

"If we used chemical fuel rockets like the Apollo mission to the moon, the journey to the nearest star would take 50,000 years. This is obviously far too long to be practical, so science fiction has developed the idea of warp drive, which takes you instantly to your destination. Unfortunately, this would violate the scientific law which says that nothing can travel faster than light.

"However, we can still within the law, by using matter/antimatter annihilation, and reach speeds just below the speed of light. With that, it would be possible to reach the next star in about six years, though it wouldn't seem so long for those on board."

I don't know about you, but Stephen Hawking is making this Trekker blush this morning.

File this in the great big bin of Sci-Fi Channel bad ideas; The Wizard of Oz "re-imagined" as boring crap. Apparently it's supposed to be dark and hip--post cyberpunk, you might say, or cyberpunk without all the bothersome weirdness.

What the fuck. I've had tapioca pudding more exciting than the way these television producers think. Dorothy Gale's now "DG"? DG? Seriously, I see that and I think, "Donkey Gong."

At least last night's Heroes was kind of good. I didn't make a big effort to catch it so I missed the first ten minutes. But it was a little better. I still think Sylar was Claire's buddy. I pretty definitely saw a different face under that hat.

On a much brighter note, I finally saw The Departed on Sunday. What a great example of a modern film noir--oddly clever tough guy dialogue, existential and fatalistic themes, and even a little expressionistic camerawork. The actors were all good, too. Jack Nicholson was essentially reprising the Joker, only with more opportunities for viciousness.

There's a lot I could say about movies if I wasn't so sleepy and needed to get up in five hours. I keep meaning to mention I saw Borat a few weeks ago and thought it was a brilliant, fascinating joke at the expense of some of the dumbest people in America. It was something of a safari through the wilderness of the small minded citizens here. As I said to a friend, it's one thing to hear about a tiger, but that doesn't prepare you for actually seeing one.

Declaration of War on Christmas

In the course of human societies and civilised communities of recognised sentient beings there may come, as now comes, just reason and cause for those of intellect and conscience to violently and firmly sever ties with a some time happy holiday.

Let an unbiased, objective, and alien universe observe the following grievances perpetuated by the period, between one and twelve earth days in the latter portion of the Gregorian year, known as Christmas, Yule, Christianica, and All Jesus Yam Feast (in this document henceforth referred to as Gluttonstice);

*) Aphrodisiac talismans of myriad wickedness in shape, flavour, and texture known as candy canes.

*) Enforced placement over residential fireplaces of sock-like garments symbolising the oppressive boot of Gluttonstice's Capitalist God King.

*) Copious forced ocular induced impulses to bloodshed in the form of red coloured objects pornographically draped on trees, stair rails, lamp posts, and children.

*) Grotesque mental degeneracy of Gluttonstice's currently elected president, Archduke Jesus Christ.

It is for these grievances that the forgers and signers of this declaration do hereby openly declare war on Gluttonstice, some time known as Christmas, effective November thirty, two thousand and six in the year of our Dancing Robot. This conflict shall be manifested by wilful replacement in retail establishments of "Happy Christmas" with "Happy Holidays" and cold denial of Christian hymns for the singing of in public schools.

Signed;

Commodore Superior Count Setsuled

A few barrels of pigs' blood, dumped on the GOP, might also do the trick. It'd be satisfying, in any case.

I dreamt a few nights ago that I was trying to retrieve a dead woman's head from a bird's nest, high in a large tree. As I was climbing up the tree, a voice from below warned me I would die if I even looked at the head. I looked down to see that the speaker was a Dia De Los Muertos style skull with red eyes glowing like Christmas tree lights. It was being carried by a little girl who seemed distracted. And that's all I remember.

I put aside the Big Project temporarily as I work on a piece of fanfic for Sonya Taaffe's "Moving Nameless", a short story found in her Singing Innocence and Experience. Maybe I needed to do this because this smaller project was a lot easier to get a full bodied grasp on, and thus, I think, get a better perspective on the comics making thing. The story came to me very naturally as I was reading "Moving Nameless" as both an argument against and an augmentation of some of that story's ideas. Then it seemed to flesh itself out on its own. Yesterday I finished doing the layouts and completed page one.

Robert Altman's dead. I feel sorry I didn't get a chance to see A Prairie Home Companion.

Last night I instead subsisted, sort of, on the new episode of Heroes, which was mostly so bad it put me in a rage. Here were characters I cared about from earlier, better episodes, suddenly made to speak in a language of agonising platitudes--"Believe in yourself!", "You're pretty special!", "Trust yourself and be happy!", "Popularity, blah, blah, blah!" GRAWR, I'm crushing your head, I'm crushing your head! Hey Claire, your best friend is Sylar when he wears a baseball cap . . . Er, okay, don't no-one notice. Why are you leaving Peter behind in a pool of his own blood? Oh, so you won't be allowed to go back to him. Why are we wasting time with this abrasive subplot about the annoying "spirit guide" kid accompanied by what I'm sure someone thought was an appropriately ethnic never-ending loop of hand played percussion instruments? Oh yeah, because it all sucks donkey kidney!

I ought to've known better than to start watching a show in which Jeph Loeb is in any way involved. At least from now on I can feel a little more informed about hating him.

Of course I'll be watching next week, though, like a schmuck . . .