Phantasmo Cheese Factory

Unsolicited replies

2012-01-24T22:44:00.000-08:00

It's funny how people that ban visitors complain about nobody caring or thinking about them or visiting their journals. Anyways, here's some thoughts on what I read, and they're in no way intended to be mean or offensive:

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Gardenia #163

2011-12-16T00:05:00.001-08:00

"Your Greatest Fan"
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Skybeyondthesky

2011-12-07T22:40:00.001-08:00

Skybeyondthesky by shireveningsilk and Chakatheaven yahoo group

This is the best furry story I've ever read. The author didn't put their name on it, but it's great. The reader wades through the opening with a mind full of questions, and the writer only brings more questions with their answer. I kept wanting to read more to find out what happened next.
The main character seems to be some sort of guinea pig, and she discovers an alien probe of some kind. It delves in to spirituality, reproduction, and other factors of life, establishing a believable world that seems uncomfortably like our own.
Although nothing was clearly identified in terms we can understand (the names of species, geography, vehicles, etc.) it's perfectly acceptable in terms of how a...(vole? groundhog?) would see the world. No real criticisms came to mind as I read through it, so I awarded a whopping 20 kudos points. (I'm serious, that first section before the break is good enough to print.)
It was all well and good until I reached the part about the guy at the desk. Needs work. Besides the points in the checklist, there's the problem of slapping too much description on the characters all at once (I didn't grade too harshly because I fall prey to that myself), and I almost see hints of a Mary Sue on the description (I suspect the writer is fat and wishes to be a thin guy that overeats?), again, no cheese points for that, either, but it makes me wonder. The quasi-female was an interesting twist. I awarded a kudos for not being stereotypically shapely and so forth.
I momentarily questioned the need for the part about the guy whistling a video game song, but then I realized it doesn't specify which song, and so it just brands the guy as a nerd, which is cool.
I'm not sure what the girl sees in Mr. Complete Slob. Although she's flat chested, and they're probably right for each other, the guy sounds like the kind who would leave food crumbs and chips all over his chest, and have Anime porn all over his desktop. I don't buy the thing about her wanting his food - she has a replicator. My only guess is she's trying to use sex to steal his security clearance and do something illegal with all those space probes they're sending across the galaxy.
To the author's credit, the guy is clueless in the realm of love, especially with a flat chested dame who might not be his species anyway. Which makes me wonder even more what she sees in him.
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A Small Disappointment

2011-12-07T22:35:00.000-08:00

A Small Disappointment by Eric Vary
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

I'm shocked as hell to see this story on the Winds of Change website. I had no idea what the connection is, or why it's here, but I found it an interesting Vary-ation on the normal stuff he posts at forums and in comics.
It was short, so there wasn't too much to review, really.

Small Disappointment is pretty much your standard transformation story. Unfortunately, that means that the transformation "wave" ends up being described a lot like the hero is going through a bad case of diarrhea. The hero here is running and running home after the wave hits him. Kind of like how you'd be running after ten bran muffins and a big walnut ice cream smoothie. Is running home really going to help you when you're transforming into a duck?
As the story goes along, it's sort of a Mary Sue type of wish fulfillment type of tale, not much substance to the characters and the like, except for the protagonist.
The ending got a bit strange. One minute he's working at a grocery store or something, and he starts changing from his otter form to the form of a duck, and he panics and runs off to a pond. Then he tests out his wings and flies around. While the idea of running from your job and having fun or whatever has pathos to it, it usually results in this:
"Hello, Oren! This is the boss. You're fired. You see, you left your post today and it was very busy..."
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Slave foxes

2011-12-07T22:34:00.000-08:00

Slave foxes by Daniel Davis at the Chakatheaven yahoo group

This was a fun story to read. It opened up in a way that reminded me of Doctor Who episodes, and it was well written enough to not distract me from my artwork. I awarded five kudos for the opening. Even though there was some info dumping, it was effective because it told a story instead of lecturing to the reader.
As it went on, it actually got more exciting. I liked reading about the horrible slave environment, and the cruelty of their Egyptian-esque captors. It's believable, and again reminds me of Doctor Who for some reason (except I don't think the Doctor is making an appearance). More kudos for the excellent story that carries you along the paragraphs.
Unfortunately, the story breaks down at the "present day" after the drownings. The section could have used a better transition. The previous segment transitioned with the mention of the water holes and such, but the same abrupt method of scene changing didn't work after that because there was nothing significant connecting the two paragraphs.
As I read onward, I figured out why I was reminded of Doctor Who. The characters are unusually cooperative with the slave masters. When you think about it, it kind of makes sense, really. Slaves get better treatment if they cooperate. The slave masters act nicer to them because they don't fight back. Unlike about 80% of science fiction about slavery, this one recognizes how slaves and slave masters would really behave. You don't fight back unless you want to die. People don't moan and complain and whine about the slavemasters, they plot out their day-to-day affairs to ensure that they don't get beaten as much. It seems weird, but that's probably how it was done. I awarded another five kudos for the fact they didn't spend every waking moment planning escapes and overthrows. Not everyone can afford such things without fear of corporal punishment.
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Shattered States

2011-12-07T22:32:00.000-08:00

Shattered States: Morning Mayhem by The Nomadic Dragon
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

This transformation story centers around a pilot. He lands his plane and finds out everyone's transforming. Typical transformation story.
I awarded five kudos for not using terms such as "morph" in the story for more than 3/4 of the page.
I also appreciated the fact that the fireman was not a dalmation. I gave a half kudos for that.
Another thing that was great about this story was the fact that people continued their business normally despite the transformations. Fires were still extinguished, plane wrecks were still being attended to. Unlike other transformation stories, this one seems to be set in the real world, where people still have to deal with the day-to-day, transformed or not. Nobody in this story took a holiday from their work the moment the transformation thing happened, they just kept going, pretending it wasn't happening, just like real people. I awarded ten kudos for that.
Overall, this was one of the better constructed transformation stories I've read, and since it was so short, it actually ended up with excess kudos (or negative cheese points), which is rare in most furry fiction.
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Seven Years

2011-12-07T22:31:00.000-08:00

Seven Years by Lilly Rose Blossom at Fanfiction.net

There's nothing more boring to me than a cute baby story, and this is basically what this particular piece boils down to. I've seen cute babies, and seen one grow up in my house, and I know for a fact that they can become obnoxious quickly.
While the author does establish that it cries and disrupts lessons, the plot of the first few paragraphs lack real dramatic conflict. Netyri is allowed to bring the baby in, and they squeeze it.
Furthermore, they're in the jungle in the middle of nowhere. Why does there have to be a rule about no babies in class? Shouldn't it be a case-by-case judgment, like "You can bring it in if you can get it to shut up while I'm teaching" or something?
As I read down further, I saw that Grace ended the class and told her this very thing, but the excessive formality seems ridiculous in this situation.
When the sky people showed up, I finally got a sense of dramatic conflict, which is a shame because the author could have explored the tensions between Neytiri and Grace a bit further and had a bit more verbal swordplay or something.
As I read through the story, I realized that Jake was not listed as Neytiri's mate (or the baby's father), which I found nicely unique, but someone else who ends up getting killed, so I awarded a kudos for that.
At the end, Tsu tey rescues her baby, and I can see where this is going. Well, except for the baby. Maybe she has an abortion before Jake arrives? Not sure.
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Avatar Held Back

2011-12-07T22:27:00.000-08:00

Avatar Held Back by MaD.HaTTeR.Le'MeI at Fanfiction.net

Judging from the first few paragraphs, I think the author was holding back on his English skills. Either that, or he should have held back on his drinking binges.
In other words: If you like stream of consciousness novels, you'll love this!
The author has haphazardly tossed a ton of great ideas down on this patch of virtual canvas, Jackson Pollock style, in a way that is both ambitious and unreadable.
If the author is not a native English speaker, I can excuse a lot of this, but otherwise I can only wonder how creative writing classes at the retarded folks' home managed to make its way onto the internet.
This story is so bad that I can't even draw and listen to the text reader, I'm too busy adding up points for the next writing problem I've run across. Every single line is a goldmine of grade-A literary cheese. Instead of grading this, I'm just going to give it an honorary cheese master award and present some of the cheesiest sections for your perusal.
I was hoping the author received some writing help on chapter 2, but it turned out to be just as bad. The hero breaks out from his prison, and I got no sense of geography.
The hero gets captured by the Na'vi, but other than that, I really didn't understand what the hell was going on.
The part about the hero's prolemuris friend had some good pathos to it. The author managed to establish this character, and its friendship with the hero, so the death scene was actually effective.
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An Affinity for Earth

2011-12-07T22:25:00.000-08:00

An Affinity for Earth by Angelgirl113 at Fanfiction.net

This is one weird story. I liked how it broke away from the run-of-the-mill canon fodder to pursue other concepts, such as the protagonist having plant powers. I awarded a kudos for that, and the creepy thing mentioned below.
I liked how well the author depicted her evil mad scientists. In some fan fiction, evil scientists end up being described like an absurd caricature of Dr. Frankenstein. In this story, however, the experiments are a lot darker, reminding me more of things that were done by Nazi doctor Joseph Mengle. I therefore awarded a kudos for making the villains actually scary.
I think the reader would feel sorrier for the heroine if the author actually described the character actually suffering through one of the torturous experiments. The villain seemed less threatening when they only managed to get the needle stuck in before being interrupted by the victim's rescuer.
That being said, I've seen worse attempts at suspense. This one isn't that bad, so I didn't count off for it.
What I did find implausible is that the "I'm a human trapped in a Na'vi body" argument would actually hold water, and actually count in terms of "human rights" laws. The only reason why I didn't count off for that is that I could imagine the rescuer was actually bluffing, and nobody was actually backing him (meaning he'd soon get clobbered by the scientist's thugs and put the heroine into another dangerous situation). I mean, a lot of people didn't escape the camps, so if the author wants this story to have a real sense of scary suspense, the rescue attempt could end up unsuccessful, and she'd have to rely on her own cunning to sneak out.
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Gardenia #162

2011-12-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

"EWE're Being Watched"
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Gardenia #161

2011-11-21T00:11:00.000-08:00

"All of us serving EWES"
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Gardenia #160

2011-11-14T22:16:00.000-08:00

"At The Bank"
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Open letter to Microsoft

2011-11-09T23:12:00.000-08:00

Dear Microsoft,
Your "upgrade" of Internet Explorer actually makes your product worse. In your newest version of IE, you have removed my favorite features from the program in order to make your software more like Firefox, which makes people even less likely to use your product. I could just as well use Firefox.

1. I used to be able to click "page source" and go directly to a notepad editor displaying the html, which I could edit to my heart's content. Now that you decided to format it exactly like Firefox, the html is read only, and I have to directly open files in notepad, which takes extra time.
2. I used to be able to delete a html file while viewing it, and the html file would close automatically. Now, just like Firefox, the html file stays open even when the file is gone. I don't want that.
3. The search option in your new IE is just like Firefox, which means it does a "realtime" search of the html page as you're typing. I find that more of an annoyance than a convenience. There's nothing more annoying than being constantly told that your search query doesn't exist because you're not done typing.
4. You redesigned all the icons, including the refresh symbol, so they're harder to read.
5. You put a non-removable "Live Search" tool on your browser so that it tortures you with error messages when you open web pages on your desktop while you're offline. This fact alone has forced me to choose Firefox over your browser. The internet search tool is as unremovable as Win 32 files.

I will discover more faults with your product as I am forced to use it now that my computer has been upgraded.

Gardenia #159

2011-11-06T20:48:00.000-08:00

"Ewes Bank"
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Gardenia Part 158

2011-10-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

"Check In Desk"

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Second Hand Dreams of Five Kittens

2011-10-18T20:19:00.001-07:00

Second Hand Dreams of Five Kittens by Allen Fesler

(From the Chakatheaven yahoo group)

This story appears to be a continuation of the original Folly Curse novel, but it's difficult to tell. It begins with the character's names (not introduced), which is never a good sign.
We start with a scene of the protagonist trying to resolve some kind of emotional issue regarding amnesia and killing someone, which I really didn't understand, and the author didn't adequately describe. Was this a chapter from something? If so, I couldn't figure that out. I awarded a cheese point for that.
The plot abruptly skips to a scene onboard some kind of ship, where students are discussing technobabble for warp core engineering. Amidst the discussion, a stranger tells them the faults in their project plans, then treats them to a long, boring lecture, which the characters eagerly listen to for some reason. I guessed that the stranger was Neal in disguise, since nobody else in this story universe seemed to be that boring, and I was right.
Later on, we see Neal competing in a starship engine building contest. I don't see why he'd be going back to school when the previous installments describe him as perfect in everything, especially this category, but whatever. It's not like there's a clear connection between Folly The Curse and this one anyway.
As expected, Neal again bores the reader to death with an in-depth explanation of everything he's doing, and people just listen with rapt attention instead of telling him to stick a sock in it.
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A Sense of Duty

2011-10-18T20:12:00.001-07:00

A Sense of Duty by Scott Anderson
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

The story begins with a domestic scene regarding Major Tom, who seems to be a pilot. Hmmm.
As the story progressed, I found few things to complain about. Whoever this Scott Anderson person is, he did the research, and I found the story about the pilot believable. It even hinted at adultery, which is a surprisingly sophisticated plot twist in this type of story. That and the fact that it was largely about humans made this one stand apart from its counterparts. I awarded ten kudos for the first half of the story.
As the story continued, I sensed something interesting about to happen, but didn't get much near the end of the chapter but something that seemed to be more hinting at an affair. Not knowing much of anything about the military, the rules of managing the troops and such seemed plausible, and I didn't have much to complain about in terms of realism or writing.
As expected, the story hit some bumps when it reached chapter 2. The conversation in the cockpit seemed a bit unrealistic, considering they're in airplanes and one has to use a radio. It went from a realistic conversation to a semi unrealistic one, to one that would never happen on a radio.
The transitions between the general's scenes and his family are so-so. I can't completely say that they lack transitions, but they also don't have a break in between paragraphs to include a change in thought. I didn't grade off on this, though.
After this, we get the transformation story. It seemed a bit rushed, really. I mean, they watch TV and suddenly they transform as they're watching news reports about it. I'd say that's sort of a movie cliche.
On the other hand, I liked how the author strings the suspense along. The first thing I wanted to know is if the guys in the airplanes would transform and crash their airplanes and die, but instead we go back to the family, which builds suspense.
And then it got better.
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Scientific Considerations

2011-10-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

Scientific Considerations by Brian Eirik Coe
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

The story begins with a sort of Mr. Maggoo type of situation, where the hero can't see much of anything, fumbles for his glasses, and then finds out he's transformed. The plot is rather uninspired, the typical "I woke up as a furry and looked around at my strange furry world."
I saw the "eagle eye" thing coming a mile away. I awarded a cheese point for that. However, I appreciated the fact that the first section of the story didn't feature any words like "norm shift", "norm form", "morph" or anything like that, so I awarded 2 kudos for that. I would have awarded more, but it shows up later on.
The trip they take to the college, and their transformation is mildly interesting. I liked how the guy had problems with walking, but wondered why he didn't do like a bird and just hop and flap his wings a few times to cross the distances.
There's a line about "DNA lab with insects in amber" that I immediately awarded a cheese point for, since I have no doubt the inspiration came from Jurassic Park (a raptor is featured in the story later).
I loved the Dr. Parsons character. I've known a professor like that. The little bit about him getting stuck to the bed seems exactly what he'd say if he got turned into a porcupine. And then the car, and the office chair too. I awarded kudos for that.
The explanation of the MRI was questionable. I mean, I already knew what an MRI was. In The One, Jet Li fights a guy in the MRI machine, and his gun gets stuck on the magnetic surface. That being said, it's obscure enough to merit an explanation, especially if the author has children as a target audience.
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Sarah's Story

2011-10-12T20:31:00.000-07:00

Sarah's Story by Felix (Not safe for work)
(Source: The Chakatheaven yahoo group)

This story is totally bizarre. It begins with a cat character in heat, and her attempts to alleviate the situation. It borders on trashy, but it's believable enough...for science fiction. The fact that the mother had knowledge of her sexuality made this story all the more awkward, her relationship to the situation believably embarrassing.
But then she jumps out the window and pulls a changing maneuver worthy of Clark Kent, which baffled me with its strangeness.
After this, it steadily goes downhill. First she kills a bunch of forest creatures, then she commences bestiality, with plenty of WTF to go around, including how she became pregnant a day after she had sex.
This story deserves a place in the WTF Hall of Shame next to that furry story about pedophilia someone posted at the Chakatheaven group. I mean, she sleeps with an animal, gets pregnant immediately after sex, and the animal's name basically means "I Smell Like Tuna Fish." And the ending took it right over the edge.
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PTV Sales

2011-10-12T20:30:00.001-07:00

PTV Sales by McClaw
(From the Chakatheaven yahoo group)

At last, a story involving an in-depth depiction of the mysterious PTV things that are always in these Chakat stories. This one begins with a cast list, but gives no details about the character, so I classify this as a "Joe is in a room" type of story.
Right out the gate, the story bored me. I mean, who cares about a car dealership? I spend hours in dealerships waiting on my thousand mile tune ups, so when I read about this one, I couldn't stifle a yawn. The problem is that it's too pretty and nice and picture perfect. That's not interesting. I can walk into a random dealership and see picture perfect.
What a story about Chakat car dealerships needs is drama. Either some nasty fights with customers, some scandalous car sales trickery, or possibly sexual favoritism. I awarded a cheese point for "from our sponsors" even though this sponsor technically doesn't exist, because it's too earth-like (another point for that).
The protagonist's mother, "Lexus", seems racist. The discussion about the fact the car salesperson was a Chakat was a topic of conversation used to lure her into the dealership. But I guess that's okay for establishing a grumpy character.
At the dealership, the protagonist takes his mother to the salesperson, trying to push her into buying one of their "PTV's". While the Chakat disarmed her with fanciful stories of how the world after the war suddenly no longer cared about sales quotas, Lexus's son played the part of the pushy salesman. On the whole, with the lack of a sales drive, and lack of brand loyalty, it seems Chakat society is Communist.
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Ripple

2011-10-12T20:28:00.000-07:00

Ripple by Trey McElveen
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

The story begins with a loong prologue involving particle physics or something, then it moves to a lab. Since the scientist's guy's job was in danger, I found myself confused when reading about "the day's firing", but I left that one alone because maybe I just didn't read carefully.
As I read down further, I actually found the story interesting. The author fooled me into thinking I was reading something educational, and the situation seemed believable enough. It had conflict and everything. I awarded 5 kudos for that (okay, so it wasn't especially exciting).
I awarded another 5 kudos for actually explaining where the WOC transformation wave came from. Very few Winds of Change stories actually do this.
The part where the critic is asked to put his hand on the scientist's chest to find his heart was a bit confusing. The first time I read it, I thought he was causing electromagnetic fluctuations by moving his hand around the guy's chest, and his heart was part of the machine or something. Only when I re-read it did I fully understand what it was talking about. I award a cheese point for being confusing.
After this, the scientist gets grant money because he caused everybody to transform into animals. This is where it stops making sense as it goes down a slippery slope. I describe it in greater detail below.
I don't understand why the criminal knew in advance that the guy would win a grant for his project. I also don't understand why he thought he could steal a check for a grant, and the puns about the horse were really bad.
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Return to Sender

2011-10-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

Return to Sender by Allen Fesler

Another story by the undisputed king of cheesy Chakat stories. I'm not sure where in the sequence this goes, but it's definitely cheesy. It starts with the hero braggingly overconfident about beating a bunch of space pirates. The only thing that would save a story like this is if the hero gets careless and the enemy kicks his ass. Since this didn't happen, I awarded a cheese point.
I awarded another cheese point because he actually had breakfast and went puttering around his spaceship, doing repairs, instead of facing the enemy. Even in a video game, a careless moment like this normally results in my ass being kicked, or a lot of annoying crap happening.
Quoting Elvis at the end was a little bit too cheesy. Point.
On the whole, not a very exciting story, and there didn't seem to be a point to it. I have no doubt that the hero, Neil, would have blown their ships to pieces and killed everyone if humans were in the pirate ships instead of furry aliens, but the issue really doesn't factor into the story, so the problem I had was simply a lack of drama. He needed to get a chip knocked off his shoulder, but he remained smug throughout.
The story only received a low cheese score because it's short.
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Eclipse: Return

2011-10-12T20:25:00.000-07:00

ECLIPSE SAGA Book 1 Chapter 13: RETURN By: Joe Schoder Jr.

This chapter involves the hero having a space fight with some villain. Their artificial intelligence ship nearly dies or something, but they defeat their enemies and return to home base and get medical treatment. I didn't have too much complaints about this section, since the hero is vulnerable, and there wasn't that much that really annoyed me.

Weird Parts

“Dimalya, I’ve got my hands full keeping us alive, find the interdictor!”
...
The starboard shields were down from a near miss. My teeth bared as I tried to keep us alive, considering the sheer number of people trying to kill us I was doing surprisingly well.

Normally I wouldn't mind repitition, but "keeping us alive" is so over-the-top melodramatic that I have to give a cheese point. After all, we got the idea the first time.

I managed to kill him but... my padawan at the time, was also killed.”
I almost broke down right there, but a lifetime of training gave me the strength to maintain my outward calm.

"A Jedi never cries"? Really? This is dangerously cheesy. I award 10 cheese points because this sounds like something a little kid would write.
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Reflection

2011-10-12T20:22:00.001-07:00

ECLIPSE SAGA Book 1 Chapter 11: REFLECTION By: Joe Schoder Jr.
(Source: The Chakatheaven yahoo group)

Again, reading out of order, but I can get the general gist and direction of the plot by the chapter I'm on.
This chapter begins strangely. It starts out with a family reunion, but then it turns out to be a dream or something, and she's being tortured by The Emperor, or someone like him. And then we jump to some sort of unrelated scene again.
Eventually I got the idea that she was escaping into memories to avoid the Emperor's torture device, and the Emperor was slipping in and making her miserable and ruining everything.
Throughout the entire thing, I kept thinking about that scene in Fight Club, where Tyler pours lye on the guy's hand and tells him to not do visualizations because "that's what those dying people do". To experience the pain was actually living. I guess this story is on the opposite end of that spectrum.
After a creepy encounter with the villain (and not a good kind of creepy), surgeons come in and try to abort her baby, and she attacks them with her tail. After this, the author treats us to a scene that's nearly as implausible as that scene from Total Recall where Arnie rips those steel things out of the brainwashing thing and stabs people with them. She somehow breaks free and starts killing everyone.
I awarded two kudos for this chapter because the heroine and the enemy are basically equals in terms of power. Unlike previous chapters, the villain could overpower the protagonist to the point of violating them, so the carnage that ensued when she fought back actually worked as a catharsis. That's good writing.
Okay, so maybe not perfect writing, but better than the invincible hero doing video game-like action sequences we read about earlier.
Unfortunately, it goes back to the other Jedi knight, and we're back at the video game sequences again.
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Raven Squad

2011-10-12T20:17:00.001-07:00

Raven Squad
By Lars V. Jensen at the Chakatheaven yahoo group

I was confused about the files in this author's folder. The "Raven Squad" series has disorganized numbering, so I got one file that starts with Chapter 10, and another one that has a title that says "Academy Years" that starts at 1, so that's how I arranged them to make sense of the story.
However, even this didn't work. The entire story is a disorganized mess. I assume it's a work of progress, but there's no final version that I could easily locate. I still got confused by the missing transitions. After the asterisks, the story changed with no explanation of what happened in between. It goes from a hermaphrodite foxtaur trying to play soccer with her classmates to a scene where they're onboard a starship, trying to avoid getting blasted to bits. I didn't understand how they got from point A to point B, or what ages they were, considering how the soccer game part seems to indicate young characters, but they have a drill sargent, and then they're piloting a ship.
After saving the day, the heroine-hero-whatever finds a captain not previously introduced, dying from injuries that were not mentioned earlier, and then we find out it's a simulation, which is a relief because now we don't have to worry about characters we're not sure we should care about.
The story suffers from MS Word spell checker, which corrects some things, but creates lots of laughable typos. That and tons of missing transitions and explanations of who the various characters were. The bit about the drifting "rouge" space suit worked reasonably well, drama-wise, but I wondered why a giant spaceship would notice a tiny floating guy in a space suit. I mean, a giant commercial freighter ship wouldn't notice a guy about to drown in the middle of the ocean. A fishing ship might if they were pulling something in, and a cruise ship might see something, but nobody else really would notice. And I think a similar thing would happen with a giant spaceship. I suppose you could argue something about sensors, but a lot of that section really doesn't make sense.
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Put a Little Love In Your Heart

2011-10-12T20:16:00.000-07:00

Put a Little Love In Your Heart by Deep Blue Dragon
(Source: Fanfiction.net)

I'm beginning to tire of stories about Tsu Tey being nursed to health after a near fatal fall. This reminds me too much of the others I've read, where the guy hates humans, and one tries to be his friend. However, on the plus side, the writer at least has the decency to not start the story with the character's name. I awarded a kudos for that.
This story is basically about Tsu Tey receiving medical care from a polyglot. The guy seems to like the attention, and he seems to like his nurse. On the whole, the chapters I read were so-so, because they didn't add much of anything new to the movie scenario. Or what other fanfics have written about this same subject.

Weird Parts

"Lies! You sky people are all the same. You come here to my home and destroy whatever gets in your way. We've tried to teach you but you cannot see," he spat in English
"Whoa! Let me stop you right there buddy.

In terms of cliches, this goes beyond the pail in cheesiness. I awarded a multiplier because of the "whoa, buddy" expression. Any time I see that in a story, I feel like the author is walking around with no pants on.
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Gardenia Comics #158

2011-10-10T21:55:00.000-07:00

"Black humor"

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PTVs in the CU by McClaw

2011-09-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

"PTVs in the CU" by McClaw at the Chakatheaven yahoo group

McClaw posted a couple long essays about "PTV's" used in Chakat stories, explaining what they are, what they supposedly look like, their merits and features. Although mildly interesting, I was left wishing that the authors themselves actually took these speculations into consideration when they were writing. On the whole, PTV's in Chakat stories are only mentioned in passing, described in the vaguest terms, and basically end up sounding like minivans in their respective narratives. In all the Chakat stories I've read, I've only gotten an impression that they're some sort of modern looking Range Rover or Hummer of some sort. An ordinary gas guzzling vehicle lots of room and a fancy name.
I couldn't read the entire essay or its sequel because of this fact. If Chakat authors are going to force me to read obscure materials such as this just to enjoy their stories, then they need to learn something about the job of an author. The author is the one that is supposed to do the research.
I suppose I might download and read these articles again if I am in need of sleep.

Protecting What Is Mine

2011-09-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

Protecting What Is Mine by Lexipoo at Fanfiction.net

This short story had potential, with the idea of people on earth discussing the events on Pandora (in other words, what happened in the movie). I was hoping for a perspective that was realistic for humans on earth to have (dispassionate amusement at strange goings-on on other planets, or the sort of detachment a Valley Girl feels about the War in Iraq.) However, I guess the characters were related to canon characters, so they had to get all melodramatic about something they're only distantly associated with.
It got more confusing as it went along. It turns out these characters are not young girls, but soldiers, I guess, and they had Avatars set up. And then there was a general telling them to get the Onomatopoedium like Queerich did in the movie. Not much to grade here, since it's so short, but on the whole I can only say that it's a bit too heavy handed.

Prophecy Fulfilled

2011-09-28T22:42:00.001-07:00

Prophecy Fulfilled by WriteroftheRevolution at Fanfiction.net

This story starts out with a lot of depth of detail. I liked the idea of them having jingling prayer beads. That's a new one on me.
While the author uses frequent info dumps, I didn't mind too much because they underlined sibling rivalries and such that built conflict in the story and added interest. I award a kudos for that.
In fact, there wasn't much to complain about in this story, other than the POV. The heroine has a lot of family conflicts, has trouble fitting in Navi society, and then she tangles with a Turok, which almost gets her killed. Then there's this green guy on the ground. I just kept reading. I awarded a kudos for that.
In the second chapter, the writer seems to be feeling their oats, so to speak, so the quality dipped a little bit.
The fact that the green guy's name was Atrieyu was a bit annoying, too. I awarded a cheese point for being too close to the name from Neverending Story...or maybe the hero of the Myst games.
In Chapter 4, it seems to suddenly improve. The prose gets a lot more ambitious in the first paragraph (kudos point), and the author admits to the fault of POV switching, so I will refrain from giving cheese points for that.
I had to Google prolemuris before I could figure out it was another damn made up animal from the movie. I was hoping I could find pictures of a simian or something, but no. It was some green CGI thing. I counted off for that.
I awarded another kudos for inventing new alien stuff that wasn't in the movie. The weird flipper Ikran things were an interesting twist.
The conversation the protagonist has with other Na'vi about the green guy is awkward in a romantic way, which is appealing as just about any romance you see in a Disney cartoon. It's slightly amusing, but you mostly feel sorry for them for making an ass of themselves in public. Of course, they're in an alien jungle in the middle of nowhere, so it softens the blow somewhat. I was hoping that maybe she'd throw tension into the romance by trying really hard to pretend like she doesn't love him, and then I hoped that the other guys would question her story of knowing him since childhood when they'd obviously never seen him before. It's for the latter problem that I award a cheese point.
Then the quasi romance breaks down with a public display of affection with Norm, but somehow everyone keeps hinting at the relationship still, debating the merits of having her and the green guy getting together. Near the end of the chapter, the author overdoes an explanation about why Jake kisses in public, which is both over explaining the obvious and sort of an irrelevant topic unless someone raises a stink about it.
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Pop Rocks by Metropolis Kid

2011-09-28T22:40:00.001-07:00

Pop Rocks by Metropolis Kid at Fanfiction.net

I knew the story was going to be slop just by reading the title. Everybody knows that pop rocks, when combined with soda, cause a catastrophic explosion, right? Whatever.
Although I was about to skip scoring this one due to shortness, it's so chock full of cheese that I decided to give it a second look.
I can only summarize this story by saying "This fanfic is brought to you by General Foods, makers of Pop Rocks candy." I can't help but wonder if Pop Rocks is poisonous to Navi, but after reading this story, I really don't care.
The conclusion, while silly, sort of hinted at the predicament of Native Americans, who were foolishly willing to trade their lands and livelihoods for whatever random junk the pioneers offered them.

Weird Parts

Leave behind the harmless, recreational technology and other contributions like Xbox and Pop Rocks? Never!"
"Pop Rocks?" Jake questioned. He was familiar with all the video game systems and had been since he'd lost the use of his legs. They'd offered him a chance to escape into other worlds – much like the Avatar system did later on. In fact they were part of the reason he'd adapted to the system so quickly, without any prior training. Or at least Jake had thought he was familiar with all the game systems. But he'd never heard of this 'Pop Rocks' one before.

I award a multiplier for both advertising Pop Rocks and by implying that playing XBox will make you "The One." Plus that candy probably went flat years ago, considering the length of their voyage.
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Pool Pique by By Michael Bard

2011-09-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

Pool Pique by By Michael Bard
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

The short story begins with an anthropomorphic horse in a swimming pool being harassed by a cop. I awarded a kudos when the cop didn't bother to listen to the hero's long explanation when requested, but then I found it was a tease, because then the hero started info dumping.
However, I found this to be a gag, which was actually kind of fun to read. The central character keeps teasing the cop with bits of information until we find out about the telepathy and everything. I really liked how it played out.

Pinky Promises with Five Fingers

2011-09-28T22:34:00.000-07:00

Pinky Promises with Five Fingers by NessieWinsa at Fanfiction.net

If there is ever a technique that will make you Phantasmo Cheese Factory proof, it's whatever technique this author did to their story. Some kind of glitch causes the scrolling to be disabled whenever you save the website to your desktop, making it a pain for me to review it. If you want to be exempt, well, try their technique!
Undaunted, I will still review this.
The story begins with a "prologue" of a cute little domestic scene involving Jake and his daughter. It was surprisingly low on saccharine content, with underlying psychological issues that served as sort of a conflict. Not bad, though heavy on the info dumping.
The next chapter involves the Na'vi as they go to school. I almost think it was too human. The conflicts had sort of a Harry Potter vibe, so I gave a cheese point for that. And then the overexplanation about the need for artisans was a little bit irritating, too. I know they're kids, but that doesn't mean they have to be totally dumb.
That being said, I kinda liked the artist character, and it made me wonder if the guy were writing something like "don't stone that adulterous woman" or something. Actually, I don't think that was the author's intent, but that would be really weird.
The author's note at the end of the chapter was embarrassing because they explained a message that was completely obvious from just reading the text.
Chapter 3 contained more of that Harry Potter vibe. The instructor breaks them up in teams and they have to accomplish some sort of objective that seems un-academic. I'll pass on giving a negative mark for this, since I already did this and it's halfway excusable, since school is kinda like that...sorta, maybe.
For some reason, she climbs to the top of a tree and falls off. This part was predictable. Why? Because it's hinted at in the text. Because there are lots of stories where the hero or heroine does something dangerous and almost dies, and they hope and pray and whatever that someone will save them, and someone always does. The author just cares too much for the hero or something. Another problem is all the indefinites. "She knew she might die". "It seemed certain that she would fall to her death." "It would appear that she would die." These kinds of phrases hint at rescue before it even happens. So I awarded a cheese point for that.
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Gardenia Comics #157

2011-09-28T22:31:00.000-07:00

"Black Speech Dictionary"
(Plus a comic about Veggie Tales! lol)

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia519.html
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Gardenia #156

2011-09-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

"Inappropriate Transfer"

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Gardenia #155

2011-09-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

"Cupcake's Bonus"

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Pets/"Chakat Gulliver"

2011-09-05T15:56:00.000-07:00

Pets/"Chakat Gulliver" by eLVeJay (The guy who never puts his name on his stories)
(Source: The Chakatheaven yahoo group)

This story turned out to be pretty strange. I'd summarize it as being something like Dude, Where's My Car combined with Star Trek. The Chakat character finds herself trapped by giants after a night of partying.
The story is incomplete, and very short, so I couldn't really grade the story. It leaves you hanging on the end, because the Chakat apparently just stays a prisoner of the giants, she meets a friend who has a mind control device stuck in her head, and they have sex so the protagonist can try to remove the device. The end.
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Orca and Orca Redux

2011-09-05T15:55:00.001-07:00

Orca and Orca Redux by Jeff Davis
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

The story begins with a description of a late bloomer in a universe of transformed people. It has all the earmarks of the Winds of Change Universe, the terminology, the formulaic transformation, the campaign setting. In the first few paragraphs, not much new was added. The hero turned into an orca, which is mildly interesting, but had been done in another WOC story previously. In fact, I read a story by John Buck about a guy turned orca "rescuing" people from the Titanic by changing them all into orca. Note I'm comparing it to other web fiction, not published works. This idea has been around the block.
That being said, the author managed to work in a relatively exciting plotline, with the hero almost being abducted by a bunch of strangers in a black van. It might have been more interesting to see where they actually took him (probably a "rescue all the prisoners" plot, but it would be suspenseful), but the hero just learns how to swell into a big assed whale.
The first installment ends with him standing in front of a classroom (sort of a tacked on ending), leaving us with a bunch of unanswered questions.
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Ouch by DrDizaster

2011-09-05T15:54:00.001-07:00

Ouch by DrDizaster
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

This short-short story was about a pair of guys boxing in an alleyway while "The Change" happened. It was pretty ridiculous. After the protagonist punched his enemy in the throat, he decided to walk out and look at all the changes happening in the world, which was a pretty anticlimactic ending.

Paradox by Wayne Keisler

2011-09-05T15:52:00.000-07:00

Paradox by Wayne Keisler
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

The story begins predicably, with a transformation, a mall visit, and a romantic encounter. Once he learns about being a wolf, and tries to eat something, he learns he has an empathic power, and then he drives away his first girlfriend, picking up an empathic girlfriend who teaches him how to control the power. And they have sex. The end.
Not much in the way of conflict. We didn't even get to see why he broke up with his previous girlfriend. The empathy was an interesting twist, at least. That, and it had sex in it. Not the best transformation story, but not the worst, either.

Weird Parts

Its amazing how much difference, having a tail makes in getting into a vehicle designed for a human. I knew immediately, that that wasn't going to work. I went back inside a got a utility knife and cutters and after about an hour worth of work, I had a decent sized hole for my new tail.

Awesome. This is the very first time in a transformation story where we actually see how a car mechanic would go about making it comfortable to drive his own car after gaining a tail. Kudos.
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Pandora's Blue Flower

2011-09-05T15:51:00.001-07:00

Pandora's Blue Flower by XxBritni-LinnxX
(Source: Fanfiction.net)

The first chapter of this story is basically a rather uneventful domestic scene. It starts with "mommy can I keep this puppy" and it ends with a slapped together scene involving her and her son. Nothing exciting. Chapter 2 describes it as a "prologue", but I'd call it an "antilog" because it made me not want to read the rest.
The second chapter is a little bit more interesting, but still the conflict is mild, with nothing really urgent, no real crisis occurring. Nobody argues or does much of anything conflict-wise, and we get info dumps.
However, I did like the concept of Jake's daughter being a medic and riding a Palukan like Battlecat. It's too bad the concepts came in the form of an info dump. I awarded only one kudos for the concepts due to that reason.
I awarded two kudos for the fact that the writer bothered to describe canon characters and the locations instead of "refer to movie".
Eventually the author came to a real conflict, the strange arranged marriage set up by Jake and Nytiri. While this was odd and out of character for the canon characters, I went with it, and was disappointed to see the chapter end with a cliffhanger. Oh well. Hopefully she will run away and then Netiri will say something about how she's just like him or something. Of course, that would be predictable.
In summary, mostly boring, but no other complaints. It's pretty much the same thing I felt about Pride and Prejudice.
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Gardenia #154

2011-09-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

"Critical Care"

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia513.html
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One of the People by Mysticblade

2011-08-25T19:55:00.000-07:00

One of the People by Mysticblade
(Source: Fanfiction.net)

This story is rather enjoyable, despite how it throws terminology around without explaining it. The author successfully got me to wade through the prose without thinking about it too much. Being a first person narrative helped a lot, but the writing itself was actually pretty good. In fact, the author has gotten me addicted and wanting to find out what happens next. I award 10 kudos for that.
That being said, I found the excessive use of adverbs ending in LY excessive to the extreme. Of course, J.K. Rowling did that, and she made millions. I guess it just depends if you like quantity or quality. This is a good bad fanfic.
I got a little annoyed at the environmentalism, and the narrator seemed to keep lecturing to the reader about it. Also, it's hard to tell if the hero is male or female until the scene where she takes her shirt off, which caused me to wonder why the guy was so self conscious about his chest. Also, it seems to be a cliche for her to take off her top in order to save someone's life, sort of like that old joke about sucking out snake venom.
The author did well in establishing the pathos of the characters, and the punchline that she was giving first aid to a canon character was a welcome surprise that kind of made you feel like you just did a great favor to the president or something.
Unfortunately, the author decides to change to third person perspective in the second chapter, which wasn't nearly as captivating. The POV got screwy, and the author ended up falling into a number of writer's mistakes.
I liked how Tsu Tey learned just enough information to attack the humans from the human that was trying to help him. That indicates the conflict at least has a few teeth to it. I also like how the hero of the story suggests they go to battle with the humans but is told not to due to their losses. Amateurs would simply have him go to the place and have all the tribesmen magically healed and ready to go, destroying realism and challenge to the hero.
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On the Other Side

2011-08-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

On the Other Side by Kingofthejuengel
(Source: Fanfiction.net)

I wouldn't call this a "story". The first chapter is a plea from the writer that he has ideas that someone should make into a story. The problem? They're not very good ideas. He suggests a fish out of water plot, where the hero wakes up with amnesia and the tree of souls turns him into a Na'vi. While mildly interesting, this does not grab my attention enough to write. I guess if there's a real good character background, it might work sort of like Maze Runner by Dasher, but otherwise I see why this one didn't take off.

First Contact by Felix

2011-08-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

First Contact by Felix
(Source: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/Chakatheaven)

And we're back with another installment of what I've retitled "The Day The Chakat Stood Still." This one was formatted as a PDF and Openoffice ODT (to prevent reviews like this, I believe), but I've made it easier to access by posting it below. By the way, I'm not sure why it skips to chapter 18 from chapter 1, but I don't have those installments, so here goes!

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No Name Part 2

2011-08-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

No Name Part 2 by Takuya101

The title is appropriately ironic. It has no author, and the title seems to not be one.
The plot of this chapter is basically that a furry has arrived at some Federation base through a Stargate. The furry tells them they can't have advanced alien technology, for the same exact reasons Thor refused to give SG1 technology. Anyways, that's the basic gist of it, minus a lot of unnecessary verbage. After everything is explained in long lectures, the visiting alien decides to gift the Federation with warp drives and such, and then it gets utterly confusing.
I don't know if I'm missing something, but I get the impression that the furry from the Stargate either decided to blow up the Federation base he visited with a huge bomb, or he decided to blow up some planet the reader has no reason to care about.
And that's the end. Personally, I think it was the base he visited, because that's what the author spent some time establishing.
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"No name"

2011-08-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

"No name" by Takuya101
(Source: Chakatheaven yahoo group files section)

For once, I can see why the title to this story is untitled. And why the author left his name off of it. The story reads like it were written by a fifth grader left alone with a typewriter and his dad's unlocked beer cabinet. The narrative is incoherent to the point of unreadability, the POV can only be understood by a schizophrenic, and the typos alone would give an English professor a coronary.
With great difficulty, I was able to ascertain that the plot concerned a spaceship ensign, a Stargate, and some sort of intergalactic intrigue. The particulars are impossible to glean from this confused, muddled excuse for a narrative.
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Not A Real Change by Mirco 'Kublia' Zacher

2011-08-24T19:12:00.000-07:00

Not A Real Change by Mirco 'Kublia' Zacher
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

The story begins with some heavy handed religion bashing, then develops into an excessive Lion King fetish. I'm not sure why a preacher would compare a lion or a tiger creature to be the beast from revelation, since the bible talks about the Lion of Judah, and the beast is actually a person. That is one of many things I wonder about.
The story is largely pointless, which makes me wonder why there's that scene with the preacher at the beginning of the story. The hero gets abused by the preacher, but then we don't read about him actually going to church, despite how he flashes back to a transformation story that could have only happened before he went to said church. The missing sequence in the story and lack of conflict (emotional or physical) makes it a less than exciting read. It is simply a story about transforming into a lion.
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No Reason by Arthur Pearson

2011-08-24T19:08:00.000-07:00

No Reason by Arthur Pearson
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

This begins as a typical transformation story, then gets really good. The opening is kind of lame, with the hero going to bed and waking up as a furry, just like he wrote in his stories.
I liked the reference to Labyrinth, though I won't credit the author for it. Of course, I will credit him a point for the consistency in POV.
The hero becomes a horse, but he conveniently does not lose the ability to write or draw. His brother becomes an opossum, and there's nothing really dramatic or interesting going on.
But then he has a panic attack and turns into a full-on horse, and it gets interesting. We get flashbacks that are really raw and emotional, which adds a lot of depth and pulls the reader into the story. I liked how he made me not only feel empathy and sorrow for all the lost time he had as a mindless animal, but also how the character expresses his feelings about his mother, especially how his transformation is a sad irony. A boy so resentful of his horse loving mother that he stomps on cracks in order to hurt her gets turned into a stomping horse. And the pathos develop even further, which works well until he discovers he's a donkey. I awarded 10 kudos for the great pathos.
Also, I liked this line a lot: "I was lost as lost can be, out in the middle of America's siberia, Minnesota. " For some reason, it reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson, which I awarded an additional kudos for. Actually, all of the travelougue sections were pretty good. I award a kudos for that and the depictions of divorce, due to the realism.
After awhile, the story changed to the viewpoint of different characters, and this is where it got confusing. I began to lose interest due to the multiple viewpoints. Even though the POV remained consistent in the various sections, I found the part about the guy flying exceptionally annoying. I couldn't figure out how a donkey could be taking to the air, or if it were the donkey. I only awarded half a cheese point because I wasn't sure if I'd skipped over something.
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Gardenia #153

2011-08-22T18:20:00.001-07:00

"Pant, pant"

Cupcake and her friends listen to rocker Doggy Demon arguing with a giant pig troll!

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Pony Fanfic LOLs

2011-08-20T12:46:00.000-07:00

Source: http://frith.dreamwidth.org/138446.html

"Princess Luna stood deep in meditation on the parapet high atop the observation tower in her castle. Above her the heavens wheeled and twinkled, the eastern constellations playfully tossing meteors across the night sky, the western constellations gently stepping down to wander the Everfree Forest below. Around Luna floated five glowing crystals, slowly orbiting her as she concentrated. Kindness. In her minds eye she walked again in the fields, mending the hurts and soothing the nerves of the small creatures in the grass."

For some reason, I begin to wonder if the pony will grow long hair extensions and make tshsailu with an Ikran at some point.

Around Luna floated five glowing crystals, slowly orbiting her as she concentrated. Kindness. In her minds eye she walked again in the fields, mending the hurts and soothing the nerves of the small creatures in the grass. An amber teardrop formed from one of the crystals and fixed itself to the boot of her front left hoof. Loyalty. Now she walked through Ponyville, answering the call of her subjects, filling the air with beauty. An emerald link formed from a second crystal and slowed its orbit to stop in front of her right hind hoof where it joined itself to the boot. Laughter. Her mind echoed the laughter of the eastern constellations and the joy her night brought throughout Equestria. A crystal morphed into a large pink opal, sparkling gaily as it merged with the boot on her right fore hoof. Generosity. In a rush she could see again the passage of time, the ebb and flow of the pastures, the bountiful harvests, all that she had given, the balance she so carefully maintained so that all would live in harmony. A clear white diamond merged with the boot on her left hind hoof. One glowing chrystal remained, spinning lazily as it orbited her. Luna swept the debris from her mind and bared her soul. Honesty. It is so hard to be honest to yourself, to abandon pretentions, to be true. She cut through the fog, through the excuses that had held her back and embraced who she was: Princess Luna, the soul and the beauty of Equestria. The last chrystal melted into a gleaming sphere of pure gold, slowed down to stop at the base of Luna's nebulous flowing tail, and flattened out to form a star-shaped barrette that clamped itself into place. She had succeeded in embracing all five known elements of harmony, there could be no greater challenge. Yet, as she continued to meditate, she could feel something was missing, but almost within reach. She openned her mind's eye once again and smelled tea. Tea with her friend Ursus Major. Friendship. Friendship is magic.

I seem to remember The Fifth Element having a slightly different plot.

What is this book, Foal's Lit.? She carefully closed the book and reread the cover. "A Brief History of Equestria" was etched in archaic Pony Script read from bottom to top, on grey, stained vellum...

LOL
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Unsolicited replies

2011-08-20T12:43:00.000-07:00

I think these replies are fairly harmless, but I can't post them without jumping through a lot of hoops, so...

http://judetherat.livejournal.com/569562.html

That's a strange problem. I assume you never had any hormone treatments, so I really don't know why that is happening to you. It reminds me of some of the calls I've had.
Me: "Can I get your name, please?"
Deep, manly voice: "Stacey."
Normally, I wouldn't quit a job, but my last job gave me pause. For the first time in my life, I suffered a full blown panic attack. I felt like I was going to die. My breathing was short, my pulse was racing, and I feared death was looming. I guess too much coffee, too much oxygen, and the stress of customers calling in in an endless stream with no breaks was getting to me, that and my fear that the etch-a-sketch I had broken open was poisoning me with mercury poisoning.
I stuck with the job, only quitting when they started forcing everyone to work from home.
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Gardenia #141

2011-08-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

"Special Request"

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An open letter to all Gorons

2011-08-12T20:57:00.001-07:00

Dear Gorons,
You are all a bunch of cheating, dishonest scumbags. You know nothing about sportsmanship, or common courtesy. You give out only one award for first place, which only proves that your skulls are far too thick to understand that a racer in second and third place is trying just as hard and deserves to have some sort of compensation for making it that far. The fact that you allow screaming infants on the track only rubs more salt in the wounds of all the egos you have mercilessly crushed by your poorly designed excuse for a racing ground.
Sincerely,
Pissed off Link

Gardenia [Part 151]

2011-08-08T17:20:00.000-07:00

"The Black Speech"

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia510.html

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Unsolicited Replies - Why Teachers Don't Stick Up For Them

2011-07-28T19:05:00.001-07:00

http://wallarooblacke.livejournal.com/22770.html

Okay, so it's pretty terrible for the kid. But just for the sake of neutrality, I thought about why the teacher didn't act.
The guy could A. get fired for sticking up for the kid and challenging his boss, or B. emotionally scar the kid by doing nothing.
...
That would have to be one friggin' important kid to lose your job over.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying why it happened.
It's kind of like why those people in Storm of the Century let Lenoge take that cop's son away. It cost too much to take a stand.

Gardenia Comics [Part 150]

2011-07-11T15:54:00.000-07:00

"Marching to Castrovolvo"

Cupcake and her friends trek toward the ominous Castrovolvo.

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia508.html
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Gardenia Comics [Part 149]

2011-06-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

"Marching to Castrovolvo"

Cupcake and her friends trek toward the ominous Castrovolvo.

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia506.html
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No One Gets Left Behind

2011-06-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

No One Gets Left Behind by Skreetz at Fanfiction.net

This is by far the longest Avatar fanfic I've ever seen at Fanfiction.net. It has 106 "chapters" of varying lengths, and counting, and this essay is only a quarter of that word length.
I was about to review it like all the normal English speakers, but then the author's note says that English isn't his first language, so I gave the guy a break.
This is one of the few stories where I could just sit back and work on my pictures without thinking about how bad the writing is. The guy doesn't need a story review, he needs English As A Second Language courses and some practice writing essays. So let's just leave it at that.
Although a little hard to read due to the language barrier, I got enough of a gist of the story to find it enjoyable. I liked how the hero seemingly blasts a Na'vi to bits, only to find out he's been firing paintball ammo. That was pretty cool. He creates a cute little scene where the Na'vi gets confused by the paint and he tries to get away, which I really liked. Also good was how he eventually gets the idea to strafe some more with paint and try to get away when he gets surrounded. However, then he runs around in a circle and knocks his robot over, proving the hero to be really stupid. Anyways, it was a cute read. The chapter after that was too cute, which got annoying. The bit about playing Jake for a fool was also overly cute, but at least it serves to knock him off the fandom pedestal a bit. The "I spy with my little eye" line, however, was unforgivable. And it just kept getting more and more cute. After a few more cute scenes, we find out the hero has been storing contraband liquor in his quarters. That actually is a good plot. Seeing a canon character not famous for drinking get drunk is worth a read.
One thing that really bugs me is how some guys at the base can tell him to go off on a reconnaissance mission when there's supposedly no military at the base.
Also bothersome is this bit: "You're kidding right? That means my arm got broken by force feedback" Rick said, trying to start up AMP, without much success, it didn't even bother to do those annoying and strange sounds.
Um...what the hell good is a robot if it's going to break your arm when its own arm comes off? Wouldn't that be counterproductive to the whole purpose of the invention of tanks and armor?
The part about painting "I told you so" on the robot was a nice touch, but I think it's kind of ridiculous for the guy to have enough time to paint it real pretty. Someone would have told him "what the hell are you doing?"
I liked how the guy managed to do the body swap thing instead of Norm due to "Ewwa" or something, completely bypassing the whole ceremony and tree thing. That was unexpected and very, very clever. It also answers the question of what happens if you witness the body transfer while drunk. The idea of taking a Thenadder body instead of a Na'vi was also a cool twist. It was neat to have him make friends with a Na'vi and hunt with him. I liked how it expanded the plot beyond the normal canon.
Also, it was cool how he gave Norm a genuine reason not to make fun of him, instead of the typical Mary Sue approach. If a guy is technically dead, and his spirit is inside a monster, and it threatens to attack you, what's to laugh about?

Read more »

Gardenia Comics [Part 148]

2011-06-13T19:32:00.000-07:00

"Slapping a demon"

Doggy Demon gets slapped by Kimpap the panda.

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia503.html
http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia504.html
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Bally Fitness Training

2011-06-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

During training orientation at Bally Total Fitness, we had scripting training that included "understanding statements" designed to get payments without actually doing anything for the customer. We filled out worksheets for "understanding workshops" for this purpose, and we practiced "role playing" our conversations with these.
This is generally how we formatted our scripts:
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Gardenia Comics [Part 147]

2011-06-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

Slap Happy Kimpap!

http://ottercomics.taur.net/qax/gardenia/Gardenia488.html
http://ottercomics.taur.net/qax/gardenia/Gardenia489.html
http://ottercomics.taur.net/qax/gardenia/Gardenia490.html

Beginning of archives:
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Group Publishing: Incredible Things Won't Happen Here - Creativity Not Welcome

2011-06-05T05:23:00.000-07:00

Impersonal "personalized" rejection form letter #1

August 24, 2009
Dear Christopher:
Thanks for submitting your proposal for Gardenialand Bible Adventures. Unfortunately, the proposal doesn't fit with our current publishing needs.
Please don't let this discourage you. We consider several factors when deciding whether or not to pursue a project. For example, our current line-up may be full, the timing of your project may not fit with our present needs or market, or a similar project may have already been submitted.
We appreciate you taking the time to submit your ideas for our consideration. Please keep us in mind as you continue to create new book ideas. We'd love to see your creativity at work!
Best wishes as you continue a career in publishing. And thanks for sharing Group's concern for the church!
Sincerely,
Proposal Review Team

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Don't mail manuscript submissions to these addresses

2011-06-03T20:50:00.001-07:00

I found these addresses in an old Writer's Market. They are old. If you write to any of these, you will get a "Return To Sender Address Unknown" stamp:
Jill Benjamin
Del Rey Books
200 E 50th Street
New York, NY 10022
~~~
Creative Dimensions
818 Main St. Suite F
Pleasanton CA 94566
~~~~
The Overlook Press
149 Wooster St
New York, NY 10012
~~~~
Michael A. Denio
1420 W. Glen Ave
Peoria IL 61614

Gardenia Comics [Part 146]

2011-05-30T16:19:00.000-07:00

"Troubling Thoughts"

Cupcake becomes worried about her friend's recent changes.

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Gardenia Comics [Part 145]

2011-05-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

"Hoofing It"

Karen Demon decides the limo can't take the rough terrain. So they walk.

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia501.html

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Complaints about Photoshop 5 LE

2011-05-20T17:31:00.001-07:00

1. They put the website hyperlink above the marquee tool so you accidentally go online when you don't want to.
2. Everyone defends Adobe, so whenever someone exposes a defect in the product, the complaint is ignored, and everyone tells you to just live with it and work around it instead of having someone fix it. People just accuse me of being incompetent because I don't adapt to their user unfriendly software.
3. The reason for the above is that they hold a monopoly on the art software market.
4. The developers are idiots who push the envelope in wrong directions (such as inserting sound) while making the envelope ironclad in ways it should have been improved. Soft headed slobs.
5. I had to use Gimp to open a picture because Photoshop crashed every time I tried to open it. It's obviously too wimpy to open a picture file of a certain size.
6. The bar on the bottom of the work window is not a loading bar. It is a bar that measures how long it will take for the program to crash.
I wanted to resize a full color image down to 5 inches in size from its original size, but your program is too much of a sissy to run it. I was only trying to resize a 1500 pixel color image down from 5 inches to two and it crashes. It's frustrating how the program takes so long to load picture files of a certain size, only to crash once they're open, or once you make even a minor change to the file.
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Assignments for crazy people

2011-05-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

Assignment 1: Steal all the milk from all the supermarkets and put it
back in the cows

Assignment 2: Find out which species of rodent is the most flammable.

Assignment 3: Put on a tutu, glue two live wiener dogs to your face, and prance around the subway terminal screaming 'Stop looking at me!'

Assignment 4: Set up a stand outside of K-Mart with a plate full of frozen peas
and a sign reading 'Take one!' If anyone asks you what the hell you're doing, give them a button that says 'I asked about the peas'

Assignment 5: Itemize everything in your cat's litter box for the next seven years
and mail a report to the President with a note saying 'Here!'

Assignment 6: Go to a McDonald's Playland, tie Mayor McCheese to the back of your car, and drive away at 90 mph. When a cop pulls you over, roll down the window and
indignantly ask 'WHAT?'

Assignment 7: Become the manager of a major professional sports team, then refuse to travel to other cities, insisting they come to you instead.

Assignment 8: Get a black and white horizontally striped suit, a mask, and a bowling ball with a small length of rope hanging from it, and tiptoe around the airport.

Assignment 9: It's time to find out what urinal cakes taste like.

Assignment 10: Make a sign describing the 1993 E.Coli incident at Jack In The Box. Go to one of their restaurants and superglue it on the wall beneath their company history.

Assignment 12: Buy several video game password books and piece together bible verses from the letter and number combinations. Share your findings with anyone who will will listen and say it's a sign of the apocalypse.

Assignment 13: Write a long religious tract based on the premise that Speed Racer drives a car called the "Mark 5" and mail it to every religious radio program you can think of.

Assignment 14: When you've got five feet of snow on your drive, don't go for the shovel. Use dynamite instead.

Assignment 15: Pee on random people in the office.

Assignment 16: Spend an hour shopping for gifts with your dad. After wrapping the presents, wait until he's not looking and take everything to the thrift store.

Assignment 17: Buy something nice for yourself, then painstakingly wrap the item. A minute later, act surprised as you unwrap it. This should become easier when you become advanced in years.

Assignment 18: Go to the video store with a magic marker. Cross out the word "trilogy" on all the Matrix movies and write in the word "Matrices".

Assignment 19: Punch a random person at your workplace. It doesn't matter if they're your enemy or not. They will be after you punch them!

Assignment 20: Buy the entire series of Star Trek TV The Next Generation episodes AND the movies. Edit out all the made up technical words with dirty words, names of diseases, and famous politicians.

Assignment 21: Find your old college, high school and middle school teachers, and demand they all give you the lesson time you missed due to snow days, sick days, or times where they made you watch videos.

Assignment 22: Send hundreds of messages to Microsoft telling them to reroute the life support system in your room to computer memory power so your computer can stop crashing. Who cares if Star Trek isn't real? Neither is the place where it always asks you to send the messages to.

Assignment 23: Write a letter to the president and other elected officials demanding they recount the votes you put in during mock elections in middle school.

Assignment 24: Try to convince your coworkers that your office and your entire city is actually a place in Russia, and you're being experimented upon by Communists.

Assignment 25: While watching a movie at the theater, wait for the most awkward time in the film and suddenly yell "Noooooooooooo!"

Assignment 26: Impress your dentist. Rig up some kind of dental appliance that will allow you to etch clever designs on your teeth with soda pop and citrus.

Assignment 27: Find a church directory and mail everyone on the list a random picture.

Assignment 28: Find out if Samuel Jackson was right about sewer rat tasting like pumpkin pie.

Assignment 29: Try bungee jumping with paper clips.

Assignment 30: Make a lace outfit. Combine it with lots and lots of Velcro.

Assignment 31: Wash your car with an SOS pad.

Assignment 32: Pick up smoking, and smoke while you're on a treadmill.

Assignment 33: Go fishing at Seaworld.

Assignment 34: Bring a brick into the bowling alley. Use it instead of a bowling ball.

Assignment 35: Go to a Westboro Baptist funeral protest with your own sign. One that reads "WHO FARTED?"

Assignment 36: Create a rock band, go through the club circuit until you get famous, and then during one of the musical numbers near the start of the show, loudly tell
your band, "Let's take it home, boys!" And then pack up all the equipment and instruments and actually go home.

Assignment 37: Take a Plan 9 From Outer Space DVD and remove all the sound, replacing it with the complete works of Frank Zappa.

Assignment 38: Take a roto tiller and a lawnmower to the city garbage dump, then go around blowing shredded trash around while yelling "whee" at the top of your lungs.

Gardenia Comics [Part 144]

2011-05-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

"Unscheduled Stop"

Karen Demon suddenly realizes she has an albino in the back seat, and a missing coffin!

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia498.html
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Narf by Bill Martin

2011-05-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

Narf by Bill Martin
The story "Narf" is a super short, super cheesy story that references the Animaniacs. It's mildly entertaining because I used to work at a grocery store. I post it in its entirety because it's so short:

Working at the check out stand gives a person a front row seat for noticing strange and ridiculous things. Since the Change about 8 months ago I've noticed a huge increase in such occurrences. Like last week where the hairless Hi-D snake came in last week buying just three bottles of anti-dandruff hair conditioner, asking if it would stain scales. Or the sleepy, nearly hibernating, bear morph that came and loaded up on packages of No-Doze last winter. And the fact that all tortoises without exception head straight toward the express lane no matter how many items are in their cart.
And now these two impossibly small lab mice morphs, going through the checkout stand with a shopping cart filled with a 100 boxes of anti-static dryer sheets and 50 cans of lima beans. While counting the boxes and cans I tried to be conversational and asked why the two smallest mice morphs I've seen who aren't even wearing any clothes would need dryer sheets. I must have accidentally struck a nerve because they definitely didn't tell me the truth.
"Sir, we're really escaped lab mice buying these items for an intricate plan to take over the world."
"Narf!"
If they didn't want to tell me they could have just said so.

Gardenia Comics [Part 143]

2011-05-08T19:21:00.001-07:00

"Boo!"

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia497.html

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Nightmares

2011-05-06T16:21:00.000-07:00

Nightmares, by jr1mcarthur/Honeymane
(Source: The files section at the Chakatheaven yahoo group)

(People! Put your name on your stories!)
This story apparently doesn't involve anybody with knives for fingers, but it does involve a character who has nightmares on an alien planet. These nightmares are not threatening to the character in any way, except making them really tired.
The story centers around a Chakat with emotional issues and a kid. After doing a lot of boring things and seeing her kid to school, her Stellar Foxtaur friend teleports in and they have a chat about her difficulty sleeping. Then she offers her some sleep therapy. No reptile men or fire scorched people yet, just more ordinary, humdrum activities.
The author is fond of the present progressive and verbs ending in "ly", which makes for a repetitive, slightly uninteresting read.
As the story goes on further, we find out that the main character wants something more from the Stellar Foxtaur than just some psychological help with her dreaming. The S-F tells her that it basically amounts to a very bad idea, but the Chakat doesn't listen, so the S-F asks her to go visit friends and family and then come back. The Chakat obeys, but only to get in the "Stellar's" pants (or at least into the place where the pants should be). For some reason, the Stellar gives her a job at a space station (because she's unemployed), which doesn't really help the situation.

Read more »

New Life

2011-05-06T16:19:00.001-07:00

ECLIPSE SAGA Book 1 CHAPTER 14: NEW LIFE By: Joe Schoder Jr.

(From the Files Section at the Chakatheaven Yahoo Group)

This chapter of the story is basically domestic fiction. There are a few hints at Jedi action and wars to come, but for the most part nothing really interesting happens. She has a cub, and they ooh and ahh over it. That's about it.

Weird Parts

She actually stowed away on board one of our shuttles that went to her homeworld to recruit, after what the Empire did to them we got a good turn out. She was turned away because of her age, but she snuck on board and put a defused bomb in engineering. When we caught her, she told us where she put several other bombs in key areas, including the bridge. I sent her straight to Alan for training.

Generally, when someone stows away in your ship, and tries to kill everybody with bombs, recruiting them is the last thing on your mind.
Point.

In the middle of a conversation I was having with Wen the droid let out a beep, “Contraction detected.”
I looked over to Dimalya, shi had a confused expression for a moment before wincing, a quiet whine escaping hir muzzle. Shi looked up, “It’s time.”

Contractionbot by himself is worth a multiplier.
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New Life

2011-05-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

TALES OF LUPONE

2011-05-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

TALES OF LUPONE # 1 By Lupone Silverpaw
(From the Chakatheaven Yahoo group under "files")

The story starts out with a couple young "taurs" in grade school. One is super friendly and hugs the other one, and then the other one starts whining about how he doesn't get any affection at home. Then they discuss how she's a hermaphrodite and he draws her picture.
Actually, a lot of this story is written around comissioned art. What's worse is that the commissioned art resides on a RTF document file, which is a really horrible place to put artwork.
After showing the Chakat his sketches, the class starts, and the hero is introduced to the class. At this point, his classmates make fun of his breast fetish, which causes him to run from the room crying. After being comforted by the Chakat, he returns to the classroom with a new drawing of her, and for some reason they're all kissing his butt. It seems the teacher must have tortured them all in his absence.
I was half expecting something a lot more pornographic, but was relieved to see this was not the case. The story ends rather chastely, though it's sort of a slapped on conclusion.
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Gardenia Comics [Part 142]

2011-05-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

"Frankenbob: RELOADED!"

http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia494.html
http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia495.html
http://www.furnation.com/akktri/Gardenia496.html

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New Beginnings

2011-04-26T18:24:00.000-07:00

ECLIPSE SAGA:: NEW BEGINNINGS By Joe Schoder Jr.
(Source: The Chakatheaven Yahoo group)

This is a chapter I should have read before the other chapters, because it adds some depth to the characters and makes it easier to follow the plot. Oh well. In this chapter, there's a wreck, and we find the hero rescuing an unconscious Chakat. Apparently, the hero can use his Jedi mind tricks on people, because he convinces a general to allow him to keep the Chakat in his room instead of putting it in a lab to be studied and picked apart for use as a weapon.
At any rate, after the general "voluntarily" assigns "hyr" to his quarters, the Jedi starts teaching the Chakat about the ways of the Force, and it hints at a romantic relationship possibly about to build.
What's problematic about this chapter and others is that the characters have more power than they can ever use. It's excessive, and allows the enemy to pose no serious challenge. Not only can the hero can use the Force, which is unfair in and of itself, he also has flammable drool and can breathe fire. His Chakat friend can also read minds, and is a pro at the Force despite being a newbie. The hero also gets the best of everything in terms of ship quarters and such, which is also unfairly tipped to his advantage.
At the end of the chapter, there's an obvious romantic element, but you'd think he'd be more explicit with his feelings, being that it's a first person narrative.
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Never Again

2011-04-26T18:21:00.000-07:00

Never Again by E Glover (Kiyo)
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.php)

The story begins with a scene that's too much like the scene from Empire Strikes Back when Luke chops off his own head.
After this, we get a picture of a stereotypical family with an alcoholic dad. He seems rather like Archie Bunker or that dad from You Can't Do That On Television. Try as I might, I wasn't able to totally dislike the dad in the story, because he only seemed to expect people to do chores. Yes, they were mostly chores for him, but taking out the trash and cooking dinner are things that benefit the whole family, and things you end up having to do on your own when you move out anyway. The worst quality of the dad, I guess, is the fact that he seems a bit sexist, maybe drinks a little too much, and he expects everybody to wait on him. There isn't much else to dislike him for. He's pretty much an Archie Bunker. If the dad had actually said that he wished he could put his son in the garbage, that would have been different. The poverty of the family also made the personality of the guy's father more compelling, though the characterization is still a bit flat.
He gains some character as he remarks on his son's transformation, which was a welcome change of pace. I award half a kudos for that one.
Of course, I had a bit of a problem with the issue of the "change doctor". If the "change doctor" is expensive, why bother with it? I mean, at this point, I'm guessing the characters understand that the change is not a life threatening emergency, so I'm guessing the school nurse can help the guy just as easily as a "change doctor." I have to side with Archie on this point. It's a waste of money.
He runs home using his cheetah abilities and finds his father (unsurprisingly) beating on mom. He cries himself to sleep, then he goes to school and tattles on his dad. After he bares his soul to the teacher, the teacher decides to pay the family a visit.
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My New Life

2011-04-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

Review of "My New Life" by Pandoramyland777
(Source: Fanfiction.net)

This story is a Mary Sue wish fulfillment tale with a plot identical to Last Action Hero, except it doesn't make sense. It reads like a little kid wrote the story. The author doesn't explain how he got into the world of the movie that well, and there's a lot of corny things happening in every paragraph. I went easy on reviewing this one in regards to grammar, spelling and sentence construction due to its multiple flaws, but it still ranks as one of the cheesiest stories I've ever read.
In chapter 2, more unexplained things happen. We find the hero has abilities greater than all the canon characters, despite being just a kid from highschool with no real background in fighting, wilderness survival, or veterinary medicine.
He sets the leg of a "viperwolf" and it becomes his friend, and then he visits the Na'vi village and gets attacked. At this point, I was hoping for something deep, that would actually throw some depth on the characters or at least make the hero less smug and overconfident, but, alas, this was not the case.
Mo'at didn't teach him a valuable lesson, nor did she look through the strange unexplained magic he used to get to her world to shake things up. If Mo'at had brought him there to teach him not to kill trees with his waste of paper products and to recycle or something, or told him to stop being so tied into homogenized entertainment media and polluting consumer culture, it would have added some needed depth to the plot.
After introducing himself to the aliens and impressing everyone, he meets a female who is obviously a love interest, and she leads him around. Of course, the hero has no flaws, so he ends up saving her life, despite how the girl probably has spent her whole life avoiding deadly alien beasts. The hero tells us that he has neglected to bring a weapon to Pandora, but has brought his entire CD collection, which only shows how unrealistic it is for him to be such a great fighter and hunter.
At the end of the chapter, the author asks us what kind of weapon will he forge at the base, but it's obvious he plans to make a sword. Of all the questions the author could ask the reader, this is not one that will keep them reading. It would be like reading a chapter of an Ian Fleming novel and having him ask, "Will Bond drink the white wine, or the red wine with dinner? Which one will happen next?"

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Something for nothing

2011-04-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

Some lady called in, complaining about login issues on the Target website, and that her cart was empty when she picked the items and added them to her cart. So I reset her password. Barely after I did the reset and asked "does it work", she said no. I asked her if she tried logging in as an Amazon user. Of course she said yes, so I had to log in to her account as a customer to see what was happening. After I found I could log in under Amazon, she told me that she could get in, but not check out. I offered to place the order, but she said the guitars used to be priced at $80. Well, that was an accident on the part of Target, but she wanted a $150 item at $80 and wouldn't take no for an answer. She hadn't even bought it yet because her computer is crap, kicking her out of everything.
Before I could apologize, she asked for a supervisor and got a $30 promotional credit by telling a sob story.
Why do kids have to get exactly what they want for Christmas? Where's the surprise in that? Where's the economics in that? More importantly, what makes her different than any other customer?

Making a dollar out of 15 cents

2011-04-26T13:59:00.001-07:00

Many customers live in a magical world that defies all sense of logic and reason, where clocks run backwards, water flows uphill, and the same dollar can be used ten times on the same purchase.
I had a customer that was angry because I wouldn't refund her the $29 she owed us for an online order. I viewed her payment history, adding up all the charges, and it came to a total of $267, the exact total of her order. She claimed that, since $200 of that was paid with a gift card and because she paid $39 at the beginning of the purchase, the very same $39 somehow also covered the $29 she also needed to pay. This is akin to going to a gas station, setting a six pack of soda on the counter, handing the clerk a dollar for it, asking for the dollar back, then handing him the very same dollar to him again and saying you paid him $2. "Look at the security tapes! I handed you a dollar on two separate occasions! That's $2! Give me my soda!" I've had other situations like this, but not so glaringly obvious. Was she double charged? I seriously doubt it. If that were the case, she would have complained about a payment not listed on the computer instead of a different looking one that clearly registered on the file. There was only $267, the exact total of the order. This type of thing has happened to me countless times before, no pun intended. The theme always seems to be "I paid you $25 in july. That covers my August payment." Get a calculator, people!

The Matrix

2011-04-26T13:57:00.001-07:00

Although I've watched the films over and over, they suffer from some major weaknesses.
Like any comic book, the Matrix movie suffered from some weaknesses in writing.

Trinity's love for Neo, which the majority of the movie plots hinge upon, is shallow and poorly developed. Since their whole world was a computer construct, they have no romantic history, no reason to see anything in each other, except a purely physical relationship. Trinity seeing Neo as a messiah does not add any depth to their flat relationship. She meets him at a club, she does suggestive things only to tell him secrets of the Matrix. She helps him out with things and he saves her life, but I still don't understand what they see in each other when they just barely know each other.

Neo's death is unimpressive in the first movie, and is not one of the most memorable scenes, especially since he didn't stay dead long enough for us to really think he's dead. We already expected Trinity's kiss would bring him back before she did it, but yet it's a pivotal point in the next two movies, which is extremely weak.

Agent Smith ceases to be compelling as what he is supposed to represent due to the fact that in his first interrogation of Neo, he lets his hair down and shows himself to be an evil computer program, instead of masking it with something that would preserve the illusion, such as imaginary clauses in the U.S. Governmental law preventing the one phone call policy and the like, which would have been easy for him to accomplish. Church is said to be part of the program, yet they say God and Jesus and awful lot, implying that it's not just an illusion? I'm not sure.

Neo jumps into the program's body and blows him up, and yet he somehow comes back.

Morpheous says Neo's muscles are atrophied, but they look well built and developed like he'd been working out, and I'll never understand how you can stare at green text on a black background and cheer and holler like you're at a football game or why you'd jump over a table to stare at the green text.

I can see the word "brunette" in a novel, but I don't get excited by it because it's just words in a book. It takes imagination, like old time radio plays, and I wouldn't jump over a table to listen to The Shadow, either.

Neo is a dirt bag. He "broke every computer law" according to Mr. Smith. In other words, he probably stole someone's credit card information. With a background like that, it's no surprise that he wouldn't feel guilt about shooting a machine gun at a human being possessed by a computer program, at a human being that probably once had a family.

On the way to Sedalia

2011-04-20T16:14:00.001-07:00

The Sinclair station at Highway 50 and Lover's lane is an interesting place. Its interior resembles a grocery store and they still sell Decade cigarettes, according to the sign out front. The cash register has a conveyor belt, and there are public restrooms behind the cash register. When I came there, they had plastic over the cold case. This is not a great place for getting sausage egg biscuits, but the locals probably stop there for groceries regularly. There was an algae covered pond behind the store, which was kind of unusual.

Lacoste customer fail

2011-04-20T16:08:00.000-07:00

The Lacoste website ships only to the U.S. Foreigners love our product so much that they try anything to get it sent across the border. I had this one guy, let's call him Mr. H. Mr. is from Canada. He placed an order for about $500 over the phone with a representative and asked for it to be sent to the house of his parents in California. I don't know what happened, to tell you the truth. A previous rep may have told him he could get his order in literally 3-5 days when it takes 1 extra day for processing and we don't deliver on Saturday or Sunday. he also has an accent and his English isn't that good, so it could be his fault. He believed it was ours. What happened was, he went to visit the folks, and only now, as it is in the mail, does he ask what the delivery date is. Of course he's leaving the country on Sunday, and it won't get there until the Monday or Tuesday after, so he's pissed. I explained to him that I can't make UPS go faster, and that it's in the mail.
When I found it was going to his parents' house, I took back my offer to refund or replace it, because they'd have it, so I suggested he could get the folks to mail it to him in Canada. He said they didn't communicate with us that well. I asked if he could communicate with his parents. He said yes, so I asked him if he could get them to mail it. He said no, they don't understand English and don't have their licenses, whatever that means. WTF?
Send them a letter with an explanation of how to mail packages that even an idiot can understand, give them your address, have them slap it on a box, and take it to the friggin' post office!
Write it in Hindi if you want. They can walk, can't they? But my suggestion was ignored. He wanted compensation. I offered $10 as a courtesy. No. He wanted at least $50. So it escalated to a supervisor.

An open letter to Hank Hannagraaf and CRI

2011-04-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

There has been a failure of communication. After I heard the Bible Answer Man program that advertised a magazine that condemns the movie Avatar as occult, I knew that your organization was using the wrong method to correct the problem. Christian groups that do protests like this only advertise the thing they intend to warn people about. When Christian groups protested Ozzy Osbourne and Marilyn Manson and Golden Compass, it only made these people richer. You are cursing the darkness instead of providing a light.
I made a suggestion that we make a product to combat the problem. A novel that is like Avatar, but Christian. I wrote it back in 2006 before the movie came out, but it's similar enough to be a good response. "Send us the review," you said. You did not read my message carefully. I was not suggesting yet another review cursing the darkness. I was proposing that we try to lighten the darkness by doing something proactive instead of reactive. So I sent you my manuscript. A pitiful spark in the very darkness you were cursing. Your response was that you didn't have time to read the manuscript. Sure, you have time to waste on things like watching Avatar and telling us how occult it is, but you don't have time to read my manuscript despite my note that I am willing to wait for a thoughtful response.
I would have even published it through Lulu had you even bothered to look at it instead of making me think you actually wanted to do something about the problem. You didn't even give my novel to someone else to review, which would have worked for me just as well. Instead you told me to send it to a major publishing house. This is like telling a man in a wheelchair to take the stairs to your office. I have been trying to get published for some time, but the novel is too Christian for the mainstream and too science fictiony for Christian publishing houses.
This is all to say that you should stop moaning and griping about the movie Avatar. You are doing nothing but advertising it, and you're a little slow on the uptake for criticizing it now instead of when it came out. I think you are just jealous of James Cameron's money, and you like how the blue creature's face makes the letters stand out on your pamphlets.

Bally Total Fitness Info

2011-04-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

BTF Cancellation Department
ATTN Cancellation Department
PO BOX 1080
Norwalk CA 90651

Number to Norwalk, the base of operations:
1-800-638-1343

Number to the SAVE department (if you can't afford to pay your balance - this information is dated):
888-641-0005
EXT 3736,3398

When you hear a representative say "you need to pay your balance to protect your credit," your account is about 50 days past due. If you hear them only say that you're past due, you're under 30 days past due.

Medical Cancellation Requires:
Doctor's note with:
1. Letterhead
2. How long the condition will last (If you had the plague before you signed the contract, you're SOL)
3. The date the condition started
4. Limitations (Pregnancy doesn't count, also any medical condition that doesn't hamper your ability to exercise doesn't count.)

Relocation Cancellation:
You need to fax one of the following (with the new address you got after you signed up, stupid. Make sure it's not close to a gym, include name, date and address!):
*Rental lease agreement
*Utility bill
*Cable bill
*Credit card statement
*Bank statement
*Driver's license with new address on it
*Yellow address change sticker that the mailman puts on forwarded envelopes
*Dorm assignment sheet
*Department store bill (It has to be something like an order for a suit or something with an address, not a dumb little receipt)
*1 way plane ticket
*This is a last resort if you can't get the other stuff: Letter from employer saying you moved.
Military cancellation:
You need:
1.Permanent station orders or Boot Camp Orders
2.Date and location thereof.

"Bally Total Fitness and its affiliates are not responsible for lost, misdirected, undeliverable or delayed mail. Illegible documents (and unreadable faxes) will be deemed void."

Gardenia Comics [Part 141]

2011-04-11T18:44:00.001-07:00

"Monsterphone"

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Bebe complaints

2011-04-05T15:12:00.000-07:00

Bebe customers are mostly spoiled rich bitches. The prom is coming up in five seconds and they want you to use a molecular transporter to transport their goods to their location in five seconds for free so they can get laid. Basically that's the gist. I just got off the plane, my debut at the strip club is coming up in an hour, so I need those shoes now, dammit. If you can't get them to me now, set up a free $500 order and mail it overnight to me or give me a $900 refund because I'm in Club Bebe and I'm going to tell all my friends you've got a bad company so that your company goes bankrupt.

Another stupid thing is that you can't order replacement buttons or zippers on Bebe items. I tried to put in requests, but I guess those shiny aluminum zippers can only be taken from the aluminum tree that grows deep in the Amazon jungle, and it costs a million dollars a pop. Well, that's the theory at least.

Club Bebe is total crap, really. People think it's some exclusive club that makes you extra special because you spend all that money, but really all it is is a stupid coupon program. We still don't know you from Adam.

All Bebe items are rare, one of a kind items. You cannot get them again except when they come back, which is 50% of the time. The computers at the call center will never show an item that has come back because the stores seem to have their own secret supplies of the stuff. I got very annoyed at customer continually asking for the same thing when it was an item we'd probably never get back again until maybe a year from now, in polka dot. The Jenna Strappy Boot, for example, was a super popular item that didn't reappear on the system for at least 6 months, and I'm pretty sure it's still gone, unless they made one in argyle. That's one key customers never figure out. Yes, we do bring stuff back, but it won't be the same exact item. It has to be a different color or pattern or something else that normally doesn't interest anyone.

Everyone wants a catalog, but nobody can get them, even if they probably could have solved the problem by not including coupons in all the catalogs. Of course, I bet most of them get the catalogs only for the coupons, so it's a moot point. In my office, I had tons of catalogs, but none had coupons in them.

Also, the safari catalog...WTF. Freaky looking skeleton women with huge messy hairdos hanging around with scary taxidermy animals. What were they thinking?

Annoying things about Lacoste

2011-04-05T15:07:00.000-07:00

Lacoste is annoying. Customers have complaints about store experience or store merchandise. They used to have a line for that, but it got changed to a myriad of complicated selections of regions and store locations, so a general store complaint or complaint about merchandise has nowhere to go. The menu will connect you to a store in your area with a zip code. The customer didn't want to give out that personal information. If it's a Macy's product, they're out of luck. Macy's merchandise with Lacoste logos are considered Macy's products, and we're instructed to tell them to speak to Macy's about it. If a customer demands to be transferred to Macy's, they're SOL because Macy's doesn't have a store/product line either, they only have an ordering line. Lacoste bags, sleeping bags, if they're defective, and if the store is rude and tells you to go screw yourself you're out of luck. No refund, no help. Either that or Macy's will tell you to go to Lacoste, who will tell you to go to Macy's, and you are given the runaround. If you order multiple items to be gift wrapped, and they're in the same order number, they will always be stuck in the same bag and box. No separate bags or boxes despite you picking gift wrap for all of them. If you want more than one, you'll be told to go to a store to get extra bags and boxes, even if you're in Possum Ankle Arkansas where there's no stores. So order each item on a separate order ticket or you're SOL.

Lacoste gift cards did not work online when I worked there, and probably will not work until the end of time. If you live in Gator's Pit, Mississippi and there's no store in your area, you are SOL. It may be usable in Namibia, or somewhere in Iraq, but not in your neck of the woods. There apparently aren't any yuppies in the south.

Target Gift Registry Department

2011-04-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

Target registries are the most irritating thing ever. I don't recommend them to anybody. Whenever you set them up in a store, it's set up under Amazon. This is all very well and good, except when you go online, the site is set up for Target.com, so your e-mail and password won't be recognized until you click the Amazon bubble on the login screen. Also, you can't actually log into Amazon.com with your Amazon account. WTF.
But answering such questions was the point of me answering the phone, I suppose. My friend Steve had problems with his registry when he did his wedding. I think the online registry didn't work too well with the one set up in a store or vice versa. Nobody in the store knows what to do. As a customer service rep, you're not supposed to handle registry issues.
Honestly, it's a little selfish to make a registry for yourself. I mean, you're telling people what you want and where to buy it at, and you can't get away with buying an item on a registry at, say, Walmart and get it marked off on the registry, which means you're going to get two giant cribs instead of the single one you wanted, because nobody knows you got it at Walmart. It makes business sense for Target to use this rule, but it doesn't make sense for a customer to actually want a registry. Where is the element of surprise in getting a registry? You're telling people what they can and cannot bring to your special event, and where to buy it. What if they want to make you a quilt? That's not on the list!
The registry department handled registry issues, though. I liked not having strict average handle time rules, but the registry department was supposed to take care of your registry issues and allow you to help more people. The unfortunate thing was that the department was handled by people in India. Indians took my job. People preferred good English speakers, but Amazon didn't care. Now we have Indians doing the phones. If I met some of those registry people in a company meeting, I'd probably punch them in the face for not taking calls they needed to take when the customer obviously had a registry issue. They always wanted a registry ID when the person didn't know, or was in a rush, or didn't have one. It always had to be a warm transfer, which means I had to convince the guy to take my call when he never wanted to.

The registry department guy was dripping with sarcasm as I handed off a customer without a registry ID. "You're doing a great job," he mocked. How can you be so insulting when you can't even speak fluent English? WTF?

Customer service and collections

2011-04-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

As a customer service representative or collections agent you are never allowed to do any work on a customer's account without the customer on the other line or you get penalized for ever second. This wastes your time and theirs, but it's established tradition for 90% of the industry.

The average lifespan of any collections job is six months. You start with training, you have your probation period, and once that's complete, they start busting your ass about every little thing until you're fired. Bally and Sprint have this problem, though Bally's employee torture is to a greater extent. I'm just about over probation. Before I get any sort of tenure, they're going to fire me. They'll force me to do something that makes it impossible for me to perform my job. One key thing they could do at this point is to force me to use only the memo tool and make my notes so elaborate that I am forced to use aux, and then they'll fire me for aux use.

At Amazon, they forced you to wait for the customer to say "I want a supervisor" twice before you could transfer a call. I like how Sprint does it better. You can go straight to a supervisor. I've been stuck in an Amazon rut, but I don't need to follow those rules now.

Gardenia Comics [Part 140]

2011-04-03T17:28:00.000-07:00

"Uh-oh!"

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More Than Bargained For

2011-04-01T23:05:00.000-07:00

More Than Bargained For by D.F. Thompson
(from the Chakatheaven Yahoo group files section)

This story appears to be the product of pbem roleplaying. It bears all the earmarks of it. POV errors, writing in present tense, recaps of information presented a couple paragraphs ago, and an overall rushed quality. It has some good parts, but the roleplaying flavor is an annoyance.
The story begins with a delusional person being operated upon in a hospital. I awarded a kudos for establishing a realistic medical setting.
I found the plot about the cryogenically frozen guy being awoken and introduced to the new world of the future to be fairly well executed, though I got confused due to the description of a "human" in the story, and thought that he was a human, leading me to wonder why he wasn't shocked by the presence of talking animals.
Later on, we find out he's a transformed human, and he's shocked by what he sees in the hallways (but not by a furry nurse? Huh?), and then we get a long, not very exciting info dump about the Gene Wars.
The guy gets acquainted with the future hundreds of years after he'd been frozen, and he learns about all the people who died, etc. The ending of the chapter/story is rather anticlimactic and uneventful.
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Not a Morning Person by DrDizaster

2011-04-01T23:04:00.000-07:00

Not a Morning Person by DrDizaster
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.htm)

This is a short story. It was an interesting twist. I liked how the character was too sleepy to figure out he'd transformed, which is exactly what I'd do if it happened before work. I didn't care for the use of the fake word "furred" in the narrative, but other than that, no real complaints. There wasn't enough to do a checklist on. I definitely need to start making prizes for good stories like this.

Monday by Locutus

2011-04-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

Monday by Locutus
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.htm)

Another college transformation story. This one involves someone with a debilitating spinal disorder who discovers everyone on the campus of a religious school has transformed.
It's a pretty run of the mill story as far as that goes, with various transformation related incidents happening in no particular order, which really don't do much to build the characters. I found it interesting, however, that this particular story had a chaplain, and takes a rather respectful stance on religion.
It was interesting to think about prayer services and stuff regarding furry transformation.
I award five kudos just for happening to have a fair amount of paragraphs that didn't make me want to stop reading due to errors and whatnot. And also for the interesting tidbit of the guy accidentally burning his wife, and the hero's awkward romantic relationship.
Chapter 2 is a bit rough. It uses the word "morph" repeatedly, and the cheese factor is higher. After a Mary Sue-ish incident where he miraculously loses his back brace and parades around for doctors to lecture about how miraculous it is, he wanders around until he meets a frog woman (man?) who reminds the hero and the reader a little too much about Jurassic Park. After watching it a dozen times and hearing it even more in the other room due to someone watching TV in the living room, you start to want stuff that deviates from the source material. What I read was a little too much material from the source material. I also found the descriptions of her attractiveness unsurprising, though I'm probably guilty of that sort of thing in my own work (no homely people/aliens/whatever).
After this, he meets his old college buddy, who is now an anteater. After chatting with her, he discovers he has no special powers, so he just wanders around town bored out of his mind, testing out his abilities. Unfortunately, the emotion was too well conveyed to the reader. I couldn't help but yawn after reading about his lack of interesting things to do. At the end of his aimless wandering at the end of the chapter, he at last encounters something that seems to be a love interest.
The next chapter reveals this love interest to be a lamphrey.
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Sick B Twizted

2011-04-01T22:54:00.000-07:00

I listened to Sick B. Twizted perform live at the Aftershock. Before tonight, I never knew what it was like to hear an alley cat singing Zepplin, or Ugly Kid Joe after contracting severe case of laryngitis.
Sick B. Twizted is a cover band with great guitar work and percussion, but lousy vocals. While the lead singer did add some very interesting annunciation to a few classic Ozzy songs, the sound of his voice fit the finely honed instrumentals like a size 13 steel toed work boot on a newborn baby's fist. The vocalist needs to either take voice lessons or step aside and let somebody else sing.
This band is right at home in a seedy establishment like the Aftershock, as in its current state, I doubt it will get much further than the bar circuit.

December Travelogue

2011-03-31T17:58:00.001-07:00

The Philips on Blue Ridge has a bulletproof teller window with a money slot, behind which the clerk stands. In the winter, the heater doesn't heat the whole store, maybe not even the clerk beneath the heater, by the looks of his dress. The place only has non gas pump parking in front of the car wash, but the clerk seems to be a nice enough guy. When I visited there, there was an empty box reading "please refill the Paydays and Milky way" but the clerk hadn't responded.

Gardenia Comics [Part 139]

2011-03-27T18:46:00.001-07:00

"The end of the Zero Room"

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Terra Incognita by Emil Malak

2011-03-22T15:16:00.001-07:00

Comments on the website found at:

http://tiuniverse.com
(http://tiuniverse.com)

and the screenplay:

https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http://tiuniverse.com/images/stories/screenplay_done.pdf&embedded=true

I was surprised to find this guy Emil Malak actually had a website. I wanted to find a copy of "Tale of the Blue Crows" but you can't find that anywhere online. Unfortunately, if it exists, it is buried under a million websites saying what a loser he is, which really doesn't help me purchase a copy of his screenplay.
Generally, when I see stories about obscure writers suing big companies for the rights to high grossing movie productions, I tend to root for the underdog. I mean, after all, everybody has seen whatever famous movie it is that came out, and nobody has seen the writer's work, and it makes me feel like someone is repressing the freedom of the writer, gagging them so they can't express themselves. I don't like the idea of a big company silencing people, so I felt sorry for Emil.
I understand how you can feel like you've been robbed of what makes you "you", and nobody, not even your closest friends and family members believe that anything has been stolen. It hurts to think that someone has ripped off your idea, and made something that people will always consider better than your own personal work.
However, as much as I tried to like Terra Incognita, there are several problems with it.
First of all, the website is painful to use due to all the flash content, and is weighted down with excessive legal warnings, which is like putting a concrete wall over the barn entrance after the horses have all run out.
The character designs are pretty disturbing, especially the fat sumo wrestler guy and the pink panda that looks like she's posing for Playboy. I mean, what's with the excessive amounts of pandas? That certainly wasn't in Avatar. The Aztec dude makes absolutely no sense in regards to the plot of Avatar, making me wonder why exactly the author sued. The purple zebra character looks like something that ought to be on a furry website. In fact, most of the stuff pictured looks like that. Only if you squint do you come to the conclusion that perhaps the concept of half animal people is somewhat kind of sort of like Avatar. Some fairly good designs were photoshopped and slapped on generic photographic backgrounds, as if the webmaster thought that the world would end if he didn't throw all that stuff up on the website right now. The strongest characters out of the whole lot, I feel, are the weird giraffe lady with the strange ears and the giant crab guy. The rest of them are disturbing for various reasons.

The only character designs remotely similar to Avatar were the blue bird lady (she's a bird, not feline. That's a bit of a stretch) and the generic army guy (if you're going to sue over that, you might as well sue James Cameron for copying the General Chaos Sega Genesis game).

The screenplay, as much as I wanted to read it, would force me to sit staring at the screen for hours at a time. There was no text only version for the blind to put in text readers. I am not blind, but I use a blind people's text reader to avoid eyestrain. The screenplay is about 111 pages, and it's set up on Google docs, where the text is stuck in a series of png images, and sideways, so that even if I did manage to print out every single page, my text scanner probably would screw it up. I tried in vain to find his screenplay at Amazon.com, despite how I'm sure that he'd make a mint out of the controversy alone.
Alas, it was not meant to be. I tried to open the png files in Abbeyreader Sprint but it just copied a few lines, so I'd be forced to print out all 111 pages and then either scan them in one at a time or just read them during breaks at work. That's really too much work, which is a total disappointment.
From what I could glean without too much eyestrain, the plot of the screenplay involves a child in a broken home, which already has nothing to do with Avatar. If the picture of the genie and the Aztec are any indication, I think there are probably more strange differences beyond that.
So then I checked out his Youtube channel. I hoped to see some animations featuring his interesting characters, but all it had were videos of the guy and some damaging comments about how he's suing everybody in town, which totally destroys my perception of his character. A man who sues movie studios that much can't be too concerned about actually making great screenplays, OR getting a screenplay accepted. ("I still remember that lawsuit you threw at us last summer. Pass.")

It seems he gets very few comments on the website, probably because every post is screened (unlike Phantasmo's Cheese Factory). Maybe it's just because he deletes all the negative feedback or something. A shame, because by removing everything but a post a month or two months ago makes the site look dead.

Minor Adjustments

2011-03-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

Minor Adjustments by Jon Sleeper
(Source: http://woc-archive.xepher.net/index.htm)

I liked how smoothly this story reads. The fandom terminology is explained before being thrown at the reader, good questions are asked, then answered, and it was very difficult for me to nitpick the first series of paragraphs. I awarded ten kudos for not being annoying enough for me to stop reading. I can't emphasize enough how he explained the terminology to the reader instead of just throwing terms like "morph" and "third degree morph" and "norm shifting" out at the reader like they're supposed to understand. I only gave one point for the terminology because it was so often used.
The plot, naturally, is about a guy during "The Change" who has been changed into a furry deer. It goes into how he copes with it. It describes his family, and how he gets along with them, which isn't really that exciting, but at least it was a smooth read. After this, he goes to the police station and applies for a job. I wasn't sure if all transformed people go there to get jobs or if it's only those with FBI training, but I assumed it was the latter.
The writing is suspiciously similar to John Buck. The story is about deer, it involves "the rut," and the method of description is similar. Of course, there's no gender bending, so maybe this is just a coincidence.
Reading a little further on, it seems this is a continuation of a previous story at Winds of Change, the one where the deer had a magic power to stop bullets, and got a recommendation from a cop that he should be in the FBI.
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