Friday Challenge 5/23/08

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 5/23/08

A Rock Down Under
(to the tune of Men At Work's "Down Under")

Trav'ling to a place called Washington
A place where only outlaws have guns
I met strange lady, she made me nervous
Said, ya'll come in and vote for us.
She said

Did you crawl from a rock down under?
You're the one I must win over
Can't you see my thighs of thunder?
Bush has torn this land asunder

Listened to a man called Obama
Someone said sounds like Osama
I said do you speak-a my language?
'Cos you make less sense than a cabbage.
He said

I crawled from a rock down under
Where lies do flow and lobbyists plunder
Better go before I blunder
Bush has torn this place asunder

Sittin' in a bar on K Street
Thinkin' about something to eat
Then McCain, he walked up to me
I said go away all three of you can bite me.
I said

Ya'll crawled from this rock down under
Where money talks and Kennedy chunders
Don't you see, you drag us under?
And yes, Bush has torn this land asunder.

Crawlin' out from a rock down under
Where lies do flow and lobbyists plunder
Better go before you blunder
Bush has torn this place asunder

Friday Challenge 5/16/08

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 5/16/08.


Houston was the first target of Rasberry's "crazy red ants". For weeks, millions of the tiny insects swarmed into anything electric or electonic in search of information. Johnson Space Center was where the signal originated, and the ants had made short work of the place. But the extended colony soon learned that their goal lay elsewhere. Although their casualties numbered in the hundreds of thousands, a handful of them had managed to board an evac helicopter heading Northeast to their ultimate destination: Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

That's where Jeremy Schnapps (Systems Analyst 4) found them, milling about in his climate-controlled server room having apparently worked their way down the baseboard and under the door. With a short flurry of words his mother had told him never to say, he dashed to the racks of expensive Unix-based servers and started smashing under his boot the lines of near microscopic red ants making their way toward the locked metal grill door.

"And where did you little buggers come from?" he asked one that had somehow managed to crawl onto his wrist. "You guys are supposed to be in Houston according Ms. Couric."

Even as he watched, another long column of insects formed and began to reach for the nearest server. He swatted them away again with a particularly acidic curse and reached for the wall phone.

"Hey, it's me! Look, I need you get building maintenance down here. We've got some little pests." He stomped on a newly forming line for emphasis.

The surviving ants--that is to say, almost all of them--couldn't quite make out the words of the female on the other end of the phone, but they suspected it would be in their best interest to put an end to the conversation. Fortunately, a stapled wire extended upward from the baseboard. It would provide good cover.

"I don't care if they're busy. This is important!"

Another parade branched off at mid-wall and the leader laid a trail of pheromones along the far side of the doorway, enroute behind the server rack.

"Son of a--!" Schnapps shouted as he noticed several of the insects enter the phone's chassis. He ripped the plastic casing away and saw that twenty or so of the pests had already made it inside. The acrid smell of burning ant wafted from the device.

"No, not you, Susan." He pulled the receiver away and blew into into the wall unit. When he put the phone back to his ear, there was nothing to hear.

"Hello? Hello, Susan?" Like a scared movie character, he tried every button on the phone, but nothing changed the fact that it was stone cold dead. And he knew the security lock's motion sensor would be out even before he spotted the ants crawling in and out of it. He was trapped.

As a last ditch effort, he sat down at his desktop machine to tap out a quick email to the building's superintendent.

Hello, please help me. I'm trapped in the server room! Beware, CRAZY RED ANTS!

When Jeremy reached for the glowing red optical mouse to hit the send button, he saw a single insect slide under it and into the crimson light of the LED. He moved the mouse and squashed it with his fist, but another crawled from the underside of the desk and immediately replaced his comrade.

Underneath the mouse, the shadow of the crazy ant shifted left and right, forward and back until it found the perfect spot. Then Jeremy could only stare in disbelief as the pointer began to move around the screen, tentatively at first. More ants showed up and slipped inside the plastic casing of the mouse, no doubt to work the buttons.

After a few minutes of experimentation, the they were able to move the pointer to the start button and open Notepad. A moment later, the on-screen keyboard appeared and mankind's first direct communication from an ant colony read:

Pasty human... you will now open the clean room to the northwest and allow us entrance!!!!

With a loud clunk, the security latch on the door disengaged and in walked Susan Smithers, (Administrative Assistant).

"Oh, Jeremy," she wailed, "the ants are everywhere! Even in the coffee! We're doomed!"

"Now, Susan. No need to panic. We just-"

At that moment, Susan noticed the insect message. Her eyes got wide. She brought her hands up. She took a deep breath. And she let out the most blood curdling B-movie scream!

"Susan, please!

"I- I'm sorry!" She pointed at the screen. "They're typing!"

"Yes, I know." He turned and sat down at the machine. Letter by letter, the message continued.

Failure to comply will result in death, fatso!!!!

"Can you hear me?" Jeremy asked.

Please direct your foul human breath toward the mouse.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, leaning closer. "What do you want from us?"

We want into your clean room now!!! Or our children will feed on your jowls!!!

"What business do you have in there?"

We are from the planet you call Mars. Your rovers are poor quality. We are here to put an end to your inferior technology before you bring it and your watery bodies on our planet.

"Poor quality? Those things are still roaming around on Mars!"

Only because we repaired them. Three times. Spirit caught fire once. Poor quality!!!

Jeremy felt a warm head rush from all the excitement. His heart started to race at the thought that Earth was under attack from Mars!

"Why are you doing this?" Susan asked. "We only want to live in peace!"

We know of your peace, suspicious-smelling female. We are not impressed!!!

"We won't comply!" Jeremy shouted and started to stand. A wave of dizziness knocked him back into his chair. He felt itchy.

"Jeremy! They're all over your pants!"

Jermey looked down to see that there was a line of crazy ants running up his trouser leg from the floor and leading to... his insulin pump! And they were all carrying tiny white specks.

"My God!" Susan screamed, "They're bringing sugar from the break room and dumping it into your insulin!"

It was all Jeremy could do to keep from blacking out.

"You... little.. bastards," he sputtered.

Let us in, sweet tooth, or you die!!!

Summoning all of his strength, Jeremy reached for an empty diet cola bottle that had been sitting on the desk for seven months. He turned to Susan.

"Do you have a lighter?"

She handed him the small Bic and stepped back as Jeremy struggled to his feet. Making sure all the ants in the room could see what he was doing, he ignited the mouth of the bottle and held it high. Black smoke curled into the air toward the white ceiling tiles. He knew the fire alarm would sound shortly. He would have to act fast before the sprinklers kicked on.

What are you doing, lard breath???

With that, the first drop of melted, fiery plastic left the bottle with a ZIP and fell to the floor. It narrowly missed the line of ants running up his shoe. ZIP! ZIP! Plastic rained down like napalm onto the insects below!

Stop it! You will die!!

ZIP! ZIP! ZIP! Ant bodies were piling up on the floor and desk. The air was filled with the smell of burning thorax.

Die human!! You will die!!

Susan moved the mouse aside and squashed the insectoid typist with her thumb. "Not today!" she said.

ZIP! ZIP! ZIP!

It took several minutes, but the attack was driven back. The fire alarms sounded, starting the sprinkler system. Jeremy and Susan kissed deeply beneath a shower of foul-smelling water.

Friday Challenge 5/9/08

This is my entry for Bruce Bethke's Friday Challenge for 5/9/08.

The Lifetime Original Movie of the week is called Rabbit Ears.

It's February 2009. The warnings have aired relentlessly between episodes of American Idol and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? for well over a year. No matter. The timing couldn't have been worse. The downturn in the economy has made it difficult to afford a converter box, much less a digital HD widescreen television with surround sound. What the government didn't foresee was that, while they may over-tax the citizenry, fail to educate their children, and encourage an invasion from south of the border, you don't f*&% with our TV sets!

The story is told from the point of view of Kevin Martin (Maybe we can get Patrick Swayze?), head of the Federal Communications Commission. He spends the entire film is his high-rise DC office under siege by mobs of worker drones below whose brains have accidentally started working.

In the crowd is Mildred Paige, an elderly woman (Kathy Bates, no?) who has had to choose between fuel for her Escalade and Matlock reruns. She is not a happy camper. Mildred leads the angry hordes in an attempt to seize the building and the chairman. A set of "rabbit-ears" becomes the official symbol of the movement. And every man, woman and child waves them aggressively at the window on the forty-fifth floor.

Mildred and her commandos eventually make it past security to the stairwell just outside the F.C.C. lobby. Martin is barricaded in his office with only his overweight administrative assistant as protection. The oppressed masses burst through the door and hang him on his coat rack by his briefs. Mildred presses her nail file to the man's throat and says "Bring... back... my... stories!" The crowd bursts into cheers! Martin yelps as the file draws blood.

Suddenly, the plate glass window shatters and President Hillary lands squarely in center of the office, sword drawn! "Get away from him," she shrieks in her own special way. The crowd starts to close in on her, but the blade takes several of the protesters to the ground in a pool of sticky redness. The rest back off respectfully.

Finally, she squares off with Mildred and her nail file. The old woman (Mildred, I mean) swings her weapon, but Hillary ducks, then leaps to the dangling light fixture, slamming her heavy heels into the old woman's chest. Mildred is knocked to the ground, but she's up again instantly. In a desperate attempt, she throws her rabbit-ear antenna. Hillary swats it away with her sword and, presses her blade to her opponent's chest, demanding surrender.

"Never!" Mildred shouts. But Hillary produces a calico cat from her power pantsuit and turns the blade on it. "NOOOOO!" The crowd is shocked as Mildred concedes.

President Hillary turns to the camera and gives a speech about the future belonging to digital. Besides, it frees up more frequencies for the government to use. You do like the government, don't you?