Doktor Alphapance, What is Wrong With Me?

[Doktor Howl]

Hey, Dok, I have this problem, see?  The air is getting all thin, and smells of celebrity scandal and crooked politicians and dead pelicans on the beach.  I'm all out of breath, and it's not like a panic attack where you feel like you can't breathe, you know?

No, it's like that moment when the bad guys trip their ambush, and you're standing there with your thumb up your arse and a silly grin on your face, saying "Lord, for what we are about to receive, may we truly be grateful" while you frantically look for something nice and solid to drop behind...

...Or that feeling you get when you can see the storm blowing in, and the air is dead fucking still, you know, like it even resents being inhaled, you know the feeling.  And you gobble down your last Big Mac™ and you chug what's left of whatever shitty beer you're drinking, and you head down into the root cellar, hoping it isn't your tomb.

Or the icy feeling in your gut as you realize that you aren't going to regain control of your motorcycle.

Or the sure and certain knowledge that the system is in fact breaking down, and the only thing between you and aggressive coyotes is the diminishing number of blue collar tradesmen that still know how to fix the basic parts of the infrastructure, like power plants and so on...And the idea that even they are somewhat clueless, as you basically need 4 years of college or 20 years of experience to understand the PLC-driven systems that have replaced the old, reliable analog systems of yore.

And then one day, a starship pulls into Earth orbit, and the anthropologists come down and look around, and maybe they'll wonder where everyone went, there wasn't a war or anything, everyone just sort of died off, you know?  And they'll spend a thousand years wondering if it was disease or natural disaster, and eventually we'll become a fading part of their mythology, as the Mary Celeste of worlds.

But that's a long time from now, and I'm thinking that MY problem, this air thing, can only be solved with speed, lots of horsepower under the hood and an open highway back behind the boneyards, a highway that everyone else seems to have forgotten about.  Blast down that road, next to 3 miles of abandoned and decaying military transport aircraft, and listening to the radio while there's still someone broadcasting.

Okay for now,
Dok

[Adios]

Such is the doom of all who have seen the real horror.

[Freeky]

Dok, I don't think we ever had enough air to breathe in the first place. Why else would we continue with the very things that are slow quickly and surely killing our planet, if we didn't have permanent brain damage from a continual lack of oxygen? But the realization that its getting hard to breathe, has always been hard to breathe, can be a jolt. All I can say is that in the moments that are hard to bear, when you think that this breath might be your last, hold tight to those memories you cherish, those people who are dear to you if you can, and keep on doing what you can, because what's there to do about it? Not a lot, other than maybe going out with a smile on your face.

[Doktor Howl]

Dok, I don't think we ever had enough air to breathe in the first place. Why else would we continue with the very things that are slow quickly and surely killing our planet, if we didn't have permanent brain damage from a continual lack of oxygen? But the realization that its getting hard to breathe, has always been hard to breathe, can be a jolt. All I can say is that in the moments that are hard to bear, when you think that this breath might be your last, hold tight to those memories you cherish, those people who are dear to you if you can, and keep on doing what you can, because what's there to do about it? Not a lot, other than maybe going out with a smile on your face.

Smile?  SMILE?  I...CAN'T...STOP...LAUGHING!

[LMNO]

Howl, what you're experiencing is commonly referred to as Statim Pro Labefactum.

Time slows.  Any choices you may have made to bring you to this moment are irrelevant; and no choices you may make right now, or ever again, will ever make a difference.

In a moment of precognition, you can feel the impact.  You may dimly have an awareness of terror, yet that sensation seems to be happening to another person.  It is fleeting, and it passes.

You are left with a deep, terrible calm.  Nothing left to strive for.  No ambitions.  There is no future except for the next three seconds.  

And then.

[Doktor Howl]

Howl, what you're experiencing is commonly referred to as Statim Pro Labefactum.

Time slows.  Any choices you may have made to bring you to this moment are irrelevant; and no choices you may make right now, or ever again, will ever make a difference.

In a moment of precognition, you can feel the impact.  You may dimly have an awareness of terror, yet that sensation seems to be happening to another person.  It is fleeting, and it passes.

You are left with a deep, terrible calm.  Nothing left to strive for.  No ambitions.  There is no future except for the next three seconds.  

And then.

Yeah, that's true, because we used to be the future, Dok, and now the future is us.  Wired to our computers, our TVs, our Ipods, cellphones, Bluetooths (Blueteeth?), palmtops...We take pills to go to sleep and pills to wake up and pills to force our bodies to do shit that they used to do on their own. 

See how science fictiony we are?

And then we wonder why we all feel like the bullet's about to hit the bone.  We can't relax, we have to sleep with one eye open, and walk as fast as we can and never, ever, look back, because maybe there's something Big and Bad gaining on us.

Our wiring is designed to deal with a limited number of concerns.  Where can we find berries at this time of year?  Where are the antelope herds?  Is that a leopard coming through the tall grass, or just the wind?

That's it.  That's the absolute limit of that we are equipped to deal with...Because those concerns are transitory in nature, and the concerns we have now never go away.  We've ensured that they don't, by increasing the flow of information until we are have to stun ourselves with chemicals or go crazy.  Or both.  And unlike the problems faced by people in war-torn nations or the various shoe factory states we've helped eastablish, we can neither fight nor flee.

But we must like it, right?  Because if we didn't, we'd stop.

But we can't stop.  I can't, anyway.  I have to know what's going on.  I am, like the vast majority of the Western world, utterly addicted to information.

Yeah.  A junkie, no different than those people walking, except that my habit is more expensive.

[Richter]

And then one day, a starship pulls into Earth orbit, and the anthropologists come down and look around, and maybe they'll wonder where everyone went, there wasn't a war or anything, everyone just sort of died off, you know?  And they'll spend a thousand years wondering if it was disease or natural disaster, and eventually we'll become a fading part of their mythology, as the Mary Celeste of worlds.

But that's a long time from now, and I'm thinking that MY problem, this air thing, can only be solved with speed, lots of horsepower under the hood and an open highway back behind the boneyards, a highway that everyone else seems to have forgotten about.  Blast down that road, next to 3 miles of abandoned and decaying military transport aircraft, and listening to the radio while there's still someone broadcasting.

Okay for now,
Dok

I wish they hurry up and kill each other off most days, Dok.  Right now, I find myself wondering how much I can do things for myself, not just how I can do things that will make people do things for me.  Or give me papers that will make people do things for me.  Not like a cynic's "Walden", more just my own reaction to the deafening chorus of "I DESERVE THAT!".

Then again, if I was happy with where all of my fellow monkey-tards were as far as focus and mindset, I'd likely be one of the ones other people complain about.  Such is the price of progress.  Like a grain of sand in an oyster, we're either irritating to everythign around us, or trying to shit a shiny shit onto the irritant, hoping it will clean up nice.

"They had almost enough of everything, but forgot it, and fucked themselves clamoring for MORE.", the aliens deserve to find that scrawled somewhere.  Just to make sure they keep the proper faith is Finagle.   
   

[Doktor Howl]

I wish they hurry up and kill each other off most days, Dok.  Right now, I find myself wondering how much I can do things for myself, not just how I can do things that will make people do things for me.  Or give me papers that will make people do things for me.  Not like a cynic's "Walden", more just my own reaction to the deafening chorus of "I DESERVE THAT!".

Then again, if I was happy with where all of my fellow monkey-tards were as far as focus and mindset, I'd likely be one of the ones other people complain about.  Such is the price of progress.  Like a grain of sand in an oyster, we're either irritating to everythign around us, or trying to shit a shiny shit onto the irritant, hoping it will clean up nice.

"They had almost enough of everything, but forgot it, and fucked themselves clamoring for MORE.", the aliens deserve to find that scrawled somewhere.  Just to make sure they keep the proper faith is Finagle.   
   

Doktor Rictus,

More appropriately, we should engrave - in a huge cement slab - either "They had so much of everything that they were crushed to death under the weight of their possessions", or "TIE A MONKEY'S SHOES, AND HE WILL WALK FOR A DAY.  TEACH A MONKEY TO TIE A KNOT, AND HE'LL HANG HIMSELF".

Because yes, there's no reason they shouldn't learn from our mistakes...Because we sure as hell don't.

[Adios]

I wish they hurry up and kill each other off most days, Dok.  Right now, I find myself wondering how much I can do things for myself, not just how I can do things that will make people do things for me.  Or give me papers that will make people do things for me.  Not like a cynic's "Walden", more just my own reaction to the deafening chorus of "I DESERVE THAT!".

Then again, if I was happy with where all of my fellow monkey-tards were as far as focus and mindset, I'd likely be one of the ones other people complain about.  Such is the price of progress.  Like a grain of sand in an oyster, we're either irritating to everythign around us, or trying to shit a shiny shit onto the irritant, hoping it will clean up nice.

"They had almost enough of everything, but forgot it, and fucked themselves clamoring for MORE.", the aliens deserve to find that scrawled somewhere.  Just to make sure they keep the proper faith is Finagle.  
   

Doktor Rictus,

More appropriately, we should engrave - in a huge cement slab - either "They had so much of everything that they were crushed to death under the weight of their possessions", or "TIE A MONKEY'S SHOES, AND HE WILL WALK FOR A DAY.  TEACH A MONKEY TO TIE A KNOT, AND HE'LL HANG HIMSELF".

Because yes, there's no reason they shouldn't learn from our mistakes...Because we sure as hell don't.

Yoinked. Also news feed.

[Payne]

Klaustrophobia, good sir.

It's choking us all, although only a few recognise the symptoms as a Medikal CONdition. Most of the rest consider it a part of daily life, "That's just the way the world works!" they say. We don't don't talk about the ones who don't fit into either category.

There is no known cure to Klaustrophobia, however I hear daily updates of steps being taken to develop a Kure. My own personal favourite method is of course Pre-emptive Crucifiction. If those fuckers are gonna sacrfice me eventually, I'll do it first. If those fuckers are gonna feel sorry about it afterwards and start a god damnned church in my name, then I'll be a step ahead of them.

I want to be a step ahead of even myself. I've schismed and reformed my own church countless times.

But no, this Kure is as yet incomplete. It's like those theories of physics that start to break down somewhere-near-around-about-ish the singularity. There is something missing.

Just as there will always be something missing in your own Kure, and that will ever be the saddest thing.

Walk tall, Howl. Walk tall.

[Richter]

I wish they hurry up and kill each other off most days, Dok.  Right now, I find myself wondering how much I can do things for myself, not just how I can do things that will make people do things for me.  Or give me papers that will make people do things for me.  Not like a cynic's "Walden", more just my own reaction to the deafening chorus of "I DESERVE THAT!".

Then again, if I was happy with where all of my fellow monkey-tards were as far as focus and mindset, I'd likely be one of the ones other people complain about.  Such is the price of progress.  Like a grain of sand in an oyster, we're either irritating to everythign around us, or trying to shit a shiny shit onto the irritant, hoping it will clean up nice.

"They had almost enough of everything, but forgot it, and fucked themselves clamoring for MORE.", the aliens deserve to find that scrawled somewhere.  Just to make sure they keep the proper faith is Finagle.  
   

Doktor Rictus,

More appropriately, we should engrave - in a huge cement slab - either "They had so much of everything that they were crushed to death under the weight of their possessions", or "TIE A MONKEY'S SHOES, AND HE WILL WALK FOR A DAY.  TEACH A MONKEY TO TIE A KNOT, AND HE'LL HANG HIMSELF".

Because yes, there's no reason they shouldn't learn from our mistakes...Because we sure as hell don't.

Yoinked. Also news feed.

2nd'ed. 

We're also assuming the alien visitors don't bug off after realizing we didn't carve our erotica into anythign permanent.

[Doktor Howl]

I wish they hurry up and kill each other off most days, Dok.  Right now, I find myself wondering how much I can do things for myself, not just how I can do things that will make people do things for me.  Or give me papers that will make people do things for me.  Not like a cynic's "Walden", more just my own reaction to the deafening chorus of "I DESERVE THAT!".

Then again, if I was happy with where all of my fellow monkey-tards were as far as focus and mindset, I'd likely be one of the ones other people complain about.  Such is the price of progress.  Like a grain of sand in an oyster, we're either irritating to everythign around us, or trying to shit a shiny shit onto the irritant, hoping it will clean up nice.

"They had almost enough of everything, but forgot it, and fucked themselves clamoring for MORE.", the aliens deserve to find that scrawled somewhere.  Just to make sure they keep the proper faith is Finagle.  
   

Doktor Rictus,

More appropriately, we should engrave - in a huge cement slab - either "They had so much of everything that they were crushed to death under the weight of their possessions", or "TIE A MONKEY'S SHOES, AND HE WILL WALK FOR A DAY.  TEACH A MONKEY TO TIE A KNOT, AND HE'LL HANG HIMSELF".

Because yes, there's no reason they shouldn't learn from our mistakes...Because we sure as hell don't.

Yoinked. Also news feed.

2nd'ed. 

We're also assuming the alien visitors don't bug off after realizing we didn't carve our erotica into anythign permanent.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Bump for use elsewhere.

[LMNO]

How is it that I never remember writing these responses?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

How is it that I never remember writing these responses?

Air pressure drops, causing brain bubbles.

Someone has to fix the leak up here.