Author Archive | Mark A. Rayner
Alternate History Fridays: The Consolation of Victory
It didn’t matter what our politics were. Each member of Faculty was expected to attend the ceremony.
After I cleared security, the University’s Protocol Officer grabbed me by the elbow, and asked me to join the presentation party on the stage. He registered my shock, and said, “well, we have to include our only Nobel winner in the honor party, or it would look strange. Don’t worry, the Krigveder’s people approved it, Professor Flannigan.”
Great. I was going to have to hide my disgust with the whole affair. I took my seat, thankfully in the back row.
When everyone was seated the President of Hellmuth University, a windbag at the least auspicious of times, took the opportunity to really wow us with his wooden presence. Then without fanfare a troop of soldiers took up positions in Convocation Hall, looking quite sinister in their polished black Impact Armor and toting long autopistols. The Protocol Officer announced: “Please stand for The Great Leader, Jans Midren, Krigveder of the Afrikaner Empire.”
People shuffled to their feet and Midren walked into the room. For a man in his late seventies, he looked surprisingly vital and alert. He strode purposefully to the podium, and pointedly ignored our president. Midren launched into his speech without preamble or style.
Alltop is the Krigveder of humor aggregators. This short story originally appeared in Paradox, January 2004.
Ask General Kang: How do I keep my New Year’s resolutions?
We had a similar custom on my homeworld, Neecknaw, but there we called them Slorg Wishes.
Slorg was once the Overlord of our planet, back in the Taupe Ages — he was known colloquially as the Beige Lord, but he was actually quite a colorful character.
Every year, he would Wish that he could make something better about the people who worked for him. For Bluknark the Compulsive Eater (Minister of Celebrations and Public Executions), Slorg required that he lose some of his massive monkey gut. For the Minister of War and Love, Lord Prangdong, Slorg required fewer paternity suits. And so on.
And then the next year, Slorg would review their progress during his Annual Performance Evaluation Festival. (Known amongst the commoners as the APE-fest.) If you did not keep to your goals, then Slorg exacted some kind of punishment, depending on how badly you missed the mark. The aforementioned Bluknark actually gained weight one year, and he was fed to the Almighty Cram-Beast, and is presumably still being digested. Though Ministers were held to a higher standard, everyone was terrified of not meetings Slorg’s Wishes.
If you succeeded, that was called “Meeting Expectations” and you were only lightly tasered, right before the Breakfast After APE-fest. (This kept costs down because people were usually not too hungry then.) Naturally, the following year’s Slorg Wishes were quite a bit more onerous, because if a tool like you could meet your goals, then clearly, they weren’t challenging enough.
My suggestion is that you engage me as your Slorg. I have my own taser and everything.
Next Time: Has anyone ever told you, that for a diminutive simian, you’re dead sexy?
Alltop always exceeds expectations. Originally published, January 2007. Wild.
On the ground
The Phrase Freak is all about examining the phrases that we hear on a regular basis through the media, but somehow never question. “On the ground” is one such construction that make me mental.
My theory is this dates back to the first Gulf War, when anchors started asking reporters about the state of affairs “on the ground”. The reason they did this was because so much of that first war — and the journalism around it — was about the air war. Even back then, I’m not sure the phrase made a lot of sense, but I accepted it, because there was really little information about what said air war was doing to people “on the ground”. Now, I regret not having stepped in sooner with a big stick of shame-whammy.
Flash forward twenty years, and still, anchors and reporters use this phrase, but now it is totally disconnected from its original context. Anchors regularly ask about the state of things “on the ground”. Except for the occasional airline hijacking and submarine accident, the vast majority of news stories actually take place on the ground, to ask about the ground specifically is kind of redundant, if not outright silly.
Just once I’d like to hear a reporter say, “well Bill, there are a few ants milling around what appears to be a crumb of bread … no, no strike that, it’s a piece of donut. Next to this frenzied activity, I can see a few dead leaves and Oh My God — there is a crack in the sidewalk! We can’t tell if this crack is growing or the result of some kind of seismic activity, but we’ll check into it for you Bill.”
Then maybe it would stop.
Freak level on this phrase: 8 gobsmacks out of 10.
Alltop is an aerial war aggregator. Sidewalk photo by Meganne Soh. Originally published, January 2006. (Obviously, not very effective at stopping this linguistic excrescence.)
Crazy like a fox
Reagan did a lot of this during the Reykjavík Summit with Gorbachev, but it was part of his strategy.
He was TRYING to make Gorby and the Russians think he was a maniac. Hell, maybe he would launch the nukes — he was that crazy. Though this did cause a breakdown of the talks at Reykjavik, mostly because Gorbachev had a panic attack, and just couldn’t face the ‘mentally deranged’ (Gorbachev’s description, not mine) President. Eventually, they signed SALT II.
Of course, nobody knew this except Reagan. He was convincing. I was convinced. My friends were convinced. We were pretty sure this was likely:
Oh well, it’s helped me write at least one novel.
Alltop is excellent at “duck and cover”. Awesome Sarah Palin cartoon by Zina Saunders.
PM discloses previously hidden agenda
OTTAWA (The Skwib) — In a media conference this morning, Prime Minister Stephen Harper surprised pundits and announced that the next budget would include massive tax breaks and grants the Canadian high-tech and brewing industries.
“We must close the beer-robot gap as quickly as possible,” Harper told the assembled reporters.
When asked why this was in any way important, Harper produced the Japanese brewer Asahi’s new beer-pouring robot, “Mr. Happy Fun Drinking Device”. The robot opened a beer and poured it into a glass.
Harper did not drink the beer, but instead left it on the stage floor, near the front, where The Skwib reporter was sitting.
“It’s vital that Canada maintain a strong presence in the beer-robot industry, indeed, the entire high-tech alcoholic beverage industry,” Harper said. “We’ve also heard of Austrian robots that can mix a good margarita.”
When asked if he didn’t already have enough to worry about, the possibility of his budget not passing, a vote of non-confidence, the fact that he was an uptight control-freak, and so on, Harper said the new tax breaks and grants might actually help with some of the other problems facing the government.
“Yes, there are incentives to make these new beer-robots multifunctional. If anyone in the aerospace industry can make these fly, and patrol the Canadian artic, then we’ll really have something.”
He said that loaded with Canadian beer, this kind of robot would be excellent at deterring the American navy from encroaching on Canadian artic sovereignty.
“A few large-sized Canadian beers should be enough to disrupt most operations on any American sub,” Harper said, adding that it is well-known most American beer is “like having conjugal relations in a canoe.”
Mr. Harper ignored The Skwib when we asked if Mr. Happy Fun Drinking Device had any peanuts to go with the beer.