BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Continued From:

Who Is This, And How Did You Get In My Computer? PART 1…

The modem had finally negotiated a compatible communications protocol and was “speaking” to another device somewhere. For all I knew, that somewhere was halfway around the world, or just right next door – remember, Caller ID was just an idea from the land of Sci-Fi back then…

I waited impatiently for what was going to happen next… Having seen Wargames more than once – I did work at a video store, after all – I was pretty much bracing myself for some idiot to type in “SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?” then tell me his name was Joshua and that he controlled all of the nuclear missiles in the country. If that happened, I was going to be even less happy than I already was.

The screen cleared and the phosphor green cursor winked at me from the upper left corner of the monitor. I sat watching, my hands in my lap and one eyebrow raised as I waited for something more to appear. After what seemed like a full thirty seconds had passed, the cursor dropped down two lines on the screen of its own accord, as if some phantom had just hit the enter key twice.

A second or two later, one laborious letter at a time, the word “hello” appeared.

I was still perturbed, but now I was also slightly curious. Obviously I had a live person at the other end, and I was assuming they were aware that they had one too. After all, they had just kept calling and calling until they managed a connection, so this apparently fit into their plan somewhere along the line.

Of course, I did have one thing going through my mind. BBS’s (Bulletin Board Systems – a precursor to the Internet) were seriously gaining popularity around this time. I, myself, frequented several, and while I ended up actually hosting and running one a few months after this incident, I wasn’t doing so at that moment. Of course, someone with a number close to mine could have been, and this could all be a matter of a mis-dial. This would mean the person at the other end might be just as confused as me right now since there was no welcome screen or login prompt being displayed.

I stared at the glowing word on the screen a moment longer. The thing was, BBS popularity was big among the 11-14 year old crowd, so I really needed to avoid typing back a string of expletives damning this person for interrupting my night, lest it be some tween with a Commodore 64 who would go running to mommy and daddy screaming that some guy at XXX-XXXX telephone number was cussing at him.

Keeping this in mind, I rested my fingers on the keys. “Hello,” I typed back, much faster than my mystery caller had. Of course, I typed around 85wpm back then. Now, it’s more like 60wpm. Arthritis seriously sucks… But, I digress…

The person at the other end slowly typed again, “hello”.

I rolled my eyes. It seemed I didn’t have a rocket scientist calling me, so the likelihood of it being a tween with a hastily – and incorrectly – scrawled BBS number from a buddy at school instantly grew.

I set my fingers flying across the keyboard once again. “Sorry, but this number isn’t a BBS. It’s the number for a private individual.”

I waited for a response.

It came. “ya so”

Apparently the mystery tween was also a smartass who didn’t have a shift key or a grasp of punctuation. The latter two, while irritating, I could forgive. The first one, not so much… So, not really having patience for that sort of thing – I was young, remember…not that I have all that much patience for it now either, but I was much worse back then – I control-keyed myself over to the command menu and disconnected the call without bothering to type an answer.

Now, the thing about modems is this – they only do what they have been told to do. And, back then (even today for that matter, though it is far more transparent than it was in the good ol’ days) you would generally tell them to do something with what was called an “AT” command. Why? Because all commands started with the letters “AT” of course, which more or less stood for “ATTENTION”… So, it was pretty much “Attention modem, do this” – although it took the form of commands like ATA (Attention modem: Answer) or ATS13=0 (Attention modem: set bit on register 13 to zero – essentially “off”… binary and all that jazz…)

My point here is that with the exception of telling the modem to disconnect the annoying a$$wipe kid who was connected, the last thing I had told the device to do was initialize in the Auto Answer mode. Since I had not “reset” any registers, as far as it was concerned, it was going to answer the phone.

So, when the phone inevitably rang again, it did what it was intent on doing.

I suppose I could have picked up the phone, or  quickly entered a re-init code before the third ring had sounded, but I didn’t. I just muttered, “Little f*cking bastard,” and sat there as the system connected and warbled through a fresh protocol negotiation.

The screen cleared and I was faced with “hello” once again.

I keyed in, “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“no” was the response.

I typed back, “Some of us have to go to work in the morning.”

“ya me to,” my mystery caller laboriously returned. (BTW, I am misspelling my mystery caller’s entries as close to the way they were misspelled as I can remember.)

I raised an eyebrow… Okay, either I had an adult or a lying tween. I was leaning toward lying tween, but one never knew. You still don’t these days. Susie Silky Thighs in the hot sex chat room could be a 52 year old drunk guy sitting there in his underwear pulling his pud for all you know. I think there was even a viral video out on the net where someone used that idea for a commercial or something… Yeah, I know… Oh look, a chicken… (I really, really do think that chicken thing is friggin’ hilarious…) Oh, and BTW, I don’t hang out in hot sex chatrooms… I’m married to E K, so why would I bother? My ex-boss did, however, and probably still does… yeah, ‘nother blog.

So, anyway, mystery caller says he/she has to go to work in the morning too.

“Okay, so don’t you think it’s bedtime?” I typed back.

“not yet,” was the reply. “what ar you dooing”

“Getting annoyed,” I replied.

“ya”

I decided to ask the obvious question. “Who is this?”

“you no” came across the screen.

I replied, “Obviously I don’t or I wouldn’t have asked.”

By way of a response I got, “pool open yet”

This one gave me pause. Obviously this was someone who knew me, or  at the very least knew I had a pool. If it was one of my friends then they already knew whether or not the pool was open, so I couldn’t imagine them asking such a question. I turned in my seat to look around at my windows. The blinds were drawn so I didn’t figure I was being watched, unless this whack job on the other end had X-ray vision or something. I allowed my gaze to linger for a moment on the headboard of the bed where I had my loaded .357 magnum stashed. I considered getting it out and laying it beside the keyboard, but thought maybe that was being just a bit too paranoid.

“Who is this?” I typed again, none to excited about the creepy stalker feeling I was now getting.

“i see you tammarow” was the only answer I received before the modem clicked and the call disconnected.

I sat for nearly an hour waiting for another call, but it never came.

Before finally climbing back into bed I saw to it that I checked the load on my pistol and shifted it to be within reaching distance if something awakened me unexpectedly… You know, like a psycho killer stalker or something, know what I mean?

The next morning I was still ruminating over the whole incident, and doing a lot of looking over my shoulder as well. I called all my friends with computer equipment and asked them if they were screwing with me, to which I received believable answers to the negative. I told my co-workers about it and even a couple of my regular customers who had become slightly more than acquaintances but not quite good friends. They all agreed that it was a bit weird, and one even suggested I contact the police. Of course, even then I knew better than to believe the cops would do anything about it. I mean, after all, what could they do other than take a report? That way there would be a paper trail when my corpse was found hanging from a swing set in the park with my hands chopped off, or some oddball crap like that.

Yeah… big help…

It was sometime after lunch – mid afternoon as I recall – when Scott Ruddle wandered into the store and listened to me tell the story.  (In case you are new here, or don’t remember previous references to Scott, he ended up being my best man when E K and I married. He’s also the person upon whom the character Detective Benjamin Storm, from the RGI novels, is based… Yeah, that Scott Ruddle…) So, anyway, this was well prior to the beer can tossing… (see: There I was, Just Sitting By The Pool…) In fact, we had only just recently met and the friendship we eventually developed hadn’t even officially been launched just yet. At this point he was one of those “pretty good acquaintance – semi almost friend” types. As he stood there nodding his head and adding an occasional “no sh*t?” to let me know he really was listening, it suddenly dawned on me.

I stopped mid sentence and stared at him, then started shaking my head. “You friggin’ bastard,” I said.

No longer able to contain himself he started laughing.

And, so began my psyche damaging, sometimes very odd, but lasting and incredibly true friendship with Sergeant Scott Ruddle and his wife.

Now you know why I’m just a bit addled in the head…

And, yeah… Now he’s a cop. Like I’ve said before, welcome to my world…

More to come…

Murv

I had pie this weekend. In fact, I had some seriously kick-a$$ pie this weekend.

Now, in case you are running to check your calendars, no, this was not “Pie Weekend” as designated by the TV Food Network, or even by me for that matter. I just happened to have some pie this weekend. Seriously kick-a$$ pie in case you didn’t catch that the first go around.

However, I suppose I should back up and flesh out the story a bit so that you don’t think I am merely bragging on the fact that I had some kick-a$$ pie this weekend. In point of fact, that is exactly what I am doing, but since I get paid to make up lies – hence the job title “Author” – I shall proceed to toss random words at this blog until I have obscured the fact that I am merely bragging on the pie. Rest assured, that if subliminal suggestion works as it should, while you will come away from this blog thinking it was about something else, you will definitely remember the pie. If it doesn’t work, well hell, you’ll remember the pie anyway, because that’s what this is really all about after all.

So anyway, there was this intimate little gathering here in St. Louis this past weekend. It took place at Tower Grove Park downtown. Like I said, it was small and intimate. Only about 12 gazillion people showed up. Yes, I’m talking about the 16th annual Pagan Picnic.

An event that started all those years ago as a group of Pagans meeting up in the park, progressed to a picnic lunch, and has now morphed into the single largest two day pagan/alternative spirituality festival in the Greater St. Louis area. I try to make it a point to attend each year if my schedule allows, and they always do me up a nice spot in the shade where I can sign books, chat with folks, and even hold a workshop or two. It’s a blast each and every time I go. Just to give you an idea about how much fun this thing is, this year’s guest speakers included Moi, Dorothy Morrison, Mickie Mueller, River Higginbotham (his partner, the lovely Joyce was out of town, unfortunately), Tish Owen, Terry Hinkle, Mike Nichols, Wendy Martin, Don Lewis, and Ellen Dugan, so there was definitely a full ticket. In addition there were musical guests and about a million vendors of all things fine, wonderful, pretty, shiny, funny, wearable, and even edible (no, not wearable and edible like, well, you know, those edible ummm, well… Anyhow, you know what I mean. You could buy a t-shirt, or some meat on a stick. Best 12 inches you’ll ever have… Oh my, this is just getting worse.. Ummm… Back to the pie I think…Damn, that could be taken out of context too… Well, stop it. Get your minds out of the gutter and read along.)

So, back to the G-rated version…The only drawback with the picnic this year was the heat. It was just plain hot, muggy, and whenever there was a breeze, it was also hot and muggy. Plus, it would try to pick up our canopy and make it fly away, but that’s another story. (A legendary story in fact… One they call “Hang Gliding Pagan Authors,” but I’ll let someone else tell that…) Anyway, just to be on the safe side, I have already put in my suggestion for next year to be cooler. I’m sincerely hoping that the organizers manage to talk the parks department into installing air conditioning and sofas before the next picnic. You know, the kind of sofas with the recliner and built in cooler for icy beverages. I could be all about that. Especially if it had pie. (Thought I’d forgotten about the pie didn’t you?)

So…Anyway…Saturday night was what my dear friend “Anastasia the Language Bitch” has officially declared the “Murvmoot”. That being the BBQ and Party at Murv’s house… You know, My house… (BTW, I just officially declared her the language bitch since she speaks like forty gazillion of them, but she doesn’t know about this yet… Imagine her surprise when she finds out her new nickname. Shhhhh… Don’t tell her. I want it to be a surprise… BTW – let me be clear on this, Anastasia is NOT a bitch. It’s a nickname…all in fun…that sort of thing… you know…)

So, on with the double talking -pie- Since we had several out of town guests, including Dorothy Morrison and Tish Owen, -pie- we were set to party. Anastasia and Mike came over, as well as my publicist and bud “Chunkee.” World reknowned artist, Johnathan Minton and his S.O. were in attendance, as well as Patrick Owen, Tobacconist Extraordinaire, and the high exalted poobah of Paganism, Reverend Duane Marhsall and his squeeze, Officer Jackie (Don’t ask. She has a badge and she knows how to use it.)

The evening was ever the blast with much alcohol consumed, followed by many pork steaks, much smoked turkey, cole slaw, tater salad, baked beans, and all the other trimmin’s tossed in there as well. This, of course, was followed by much more alcohol… (No, I didn’t forget….)

Anywho, one of the guests not mentioned above (because he is getting the special mention HERE) happened to be a dear friend and co-founder of the “Murv’s Stalkers” (Yes, that is what they call my official fan club. Yeah. Not kidding. If you are interested in joining, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with them. Or, maybe one of them will put a comment under here with a link or something…) So, to continue… Meester Seitzenheimer (aka just about anything you want to call him) brought along with him a couple of homemade Key lime pies.

He was not aware that Key lime pie is one of my absolute all time favorites.

He is now.

Therefore, I had some seriously kick-a$$ pie this weekend. And, you know what’s even better? The leftovers stayed here. Guess what? I’m gonna go have some more kick-a$$ pie.

See… I told you it was all about the pie.

More to come…

Murv