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Oct. 17th, 2004 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerSo, I wrote to Pat and I told her to make sure that she warned the aliens away from my hotel this weekend. You see, she once mentioned a person who had described a "travelling beloved" anxiety as being something akin to "And if I got word that aliens had kidnapped a hotel in the city he was staying in, I wouldn't even know if it was his".
So, I told her to warn them away, because if they wanted to go hotel kidnapping, well, I wasn't in a mood to deal with them when it would damage my friend's wedding.
She thought I was just being funny, I suppose... but I hope she passed the warning along. I can just imagine the scene...
The television reporter near the crashed mothership watched in amazement as the nearly naked man in scorched clothing emerged at a dead run. "He looked like some longhaired weirdo" she would relate to her friends later. "Outta my way," is all he had to say "I have a wedding to get to!" as he dashed into the now-replaced hotel building.
The other people coming out of the mothership were slightly less excitable, and in less of a hurry, so the reporter was able to get more of an explanation.
"Well... apparently that gentleman was in town for the wedding," said the next person out.
"THE wedding?" the reporter asked in surprise.
"Oh, yes, the Schoenberg-Kletnieks wedding... which explains his excitability, as I'm sure you'll agree."
"Well, of course," the normally unflappable reporter said, clearly flustered at such a close brush with someone important enough to be invited to such an wondrous event. "Do you have time to tell our viewers what, exactly happened, starting from the time the hotel was stolen?"
"Well... that weird guy ran out into the hall, said "What, again?" - apparently he's been dealing with alien invasions often enough to find them annoying - and then declared he didn't have time for this."
"So, the first reactions were annoyance, rather than shock and horror?"
"Oh, yeah... and it turns out the aliens made a big mistake. See, they were tired of coming down with conventional high tech weaponry and having humanity able to puzzle out technology far in advance of anything earth has seen, and defeat them through an unforeseen weakness, or have their defense systems shut down by a virus written on a Macintosh that nevertheless works on BigAssMothershipOS. So they decided to use a variety of unconventional methods of warfare.
"Musical destruction was their first attempt. They thought by the use of music taken out of context and played incorrectly, they could cause such severe cognitive dissonance that no one would be able to resist.
"It might have worked... but then I heard a loud declaration about, and I quote phonetically,
"da ex-manajah of de hottest, dats aitch oh tee est, hottest rap act in da cozmos, MC Ray and the 2 Bloo Cru.
"And then I heard... I heard..."
"What... a sound like a thousand voices crying out, and then suddenly being silenced?"
"No. This weirdo rapping American Pie. You know, that old Don McLean tune? Then he launched into this hip-hop version of Peter, Paul and Mary songs, before threatening to beat box to Suzanne Vega 'again' - it frightened me to think that this meant he'd done it before.
"I couldn't help myself; I walked into the room, and not an alien was still standing. Their battle cruisers were hitting the dirt like ants hitting a squashed twinkie. I guess they had their defenses all linked together... or there were a lot of highly skilled, extremely strange people who also had this wedding to get to.
"The next station, they'd apparently attempted to have such concentrated weirdness that no one could figure out what was going on, and this weirdo, he was spinning this tale about how the geese use sonar to remotely control the roaches, which are actually organic robots being used in an underhanded plot to take over the earth, starting with the dirty and scummy portions. When he got to the part about goosing people being based in an attempt to get the goosing victim to sound the "stand down" command to the nearby roaches, I was already reeling, but he was just getting warmed up. The aliens couldn't take it... so they pulled out their secret weapon."
"The giant explosive death ray?" the reporter asked.
"Usenet flame wars. No one seems able to walk away from them without saying something. They figured they had him trapped well and truly then. I heard some of his friends saying "Great, John in a flame war for the fate of the earth. Somehow I knew it would come to this." They didn't seem really confident, though, like they knew he'd hold his own, but weren't sure he'd deliver a knockout. Then they all started cheering.
"See, they had impartial judges scoring the thing, and the aliens decided to try to score points by deliberately misinterpreting what he said. They figured they'd tire him out chasing down false accusations.
"I've never seen anyone write ten thousand words in three and a half hours that were so full of scorn and precision and contempt. It's a good thing it was a wireless network; I think he'd have melted ordinary cat 5 cables. That's when the mothership started to crash. Apparently, the pilot decided to check the usenet feed for just a moment before running orbital corrections, and got sucked in.
"We're just lucky that the controls were so simple; I was able to find the "return hotel safely to its original location" button after a quick glance at the control panel.
"Unfortunately, the "land ship safely after returning hotel, in the event of catastrophic failure in flame war" was clear across the room when I realized it meant a catastrophic failure for the aliens, not for us. So we crashed."
"So," the reporter said "The earth was saved by bad rap, illogical absurdities, and a Usenet flame war?"
"Pretty much, yeah," the interviewee responded. The reporter sighed.
"Cut the cameras!" the reporter called out, then explained to the interviewee, "I'm sorry... that's happened five times in the past week; if we run another story on it, we'll look like we're in a rut."
"Eh. that's okay; excuse me, though, I got to get by, now, and see if I can crash the reception and give my congratulations to the bride and groom."
-----------------
No, it didn't actually happen that way; after the fourth alien invasion, you don't think they'd actually send a news team to the fifth or sixth, do you?
But I'd have done that, and more, to be here. To see Becky and Arnis, and feel their love and happiness filling the room and beyond. To see them dance... to see their joy.
oh, wow... there aren't any words.
Becky, Arnis, if either of you read this, congratulations, to you both, and you both carry all my love and all the blessings I have the power to give.
So, I told her to warn them away, because if they wanted to go hotel kidnapping, well, I wasn't in a mood to deal with them when it would damage my friend's wedding.
She thought I was just being funny, I suppose... but I hope she passed the warning along. I can just imagine the scene...
The television reporter near the crashed mothership watched in amazement as the nearly naked man in scorched clothing emerged at a dead run. "He looked like some longhaired weirdo" she would relate to her friends later. "Outta my way," is all he had to say "I have a wedding to get to!" as he dashed into the now-replaced hotel building.
The other people coming out of the mothership were slightly less excitable, and in less of a hurry, so the reporter was able to get more of an explanation.
"Well... apparently that gentleman was in town for the wedding," said the next person out.
"THE wedding?" the reporter asked in surprise.
"Oh, yes, the Schoenberg-Kletnieks wedding... which explains his excitability, as I'm sure you'll agree."
"Well, of course," the normally unflappable reporter said, clearly flustered at such a close brush with someone important enough to be invited to such an wondrous event. "Do you have time to tell our viewers what, exactly happened, starting from the time the hotel was stolen?"
"Well... that weird guy ran out into the hall, said "What, again?" - apparently he's been dealing with alien invasions often enough to find them annoying - and then declared he didn't have time for this."
"So, the first reactions were annoyance, rather than shock and horror?"
"Oh, yeah... and it turns out the aliens made a big mistake. See, they were tired of coming down with conventional high tech weaponry and having humanity able to puzzle out technology far in advance of anything earth has seen, and defeat them through an unforeseen weakness, or have their defense systems shut down by a virus written on a Macintosh that nevertheless works on BigAssMothershipOS. So they decided to use a variety of unconventional methods of warfare.
"Musical destruction was their first attempt. They thought by the use of music taken out of context and played incorrectly, they could cause such severe cognitive dissonance that no one would be able to resist.
"It might have worked... but then I heard a loud declaration about, and I quote phonetically,
"da ex-manajah of de hottest, dats aitch oh tee est, hottest rap act in da cozmos, MC Ray and the 2 Bloo Cru.
"And then I heard... I heard..."
"What... a sound like a thousand voices crying out, and then suddenly being silenced?"
"No. This weirdo rapping American Pie. You know, that old Don McLean tune? Then he launched into this hip-hop version of Peter, Paul and Mary songs, before threatening to beat box to Suzanne Vega 'again' - it frightened me to think that this meant he'd done it before.
"I couldn't help myself; I walked into the room, and not an alien was still standing. Their battle cruisers were hitting the dirt like ants hitting a squashed twinkie. I guess they had their defenses all linked together... or there were a lot of highly skilled, extremely strange people who also had this wedding to get to.
"The next station, they'd apparently attempted to have such concentrated weirdness that no one could figure out what was going on, and this weirdo, he was spinning this tale about how the geese use sonar to remotely control the roaches, which are actually organic robots being used in an underhanded plot to take over the earth, starting with the dirty and scummy portions. When he got to the part about goosing people being based in an attempt to get the goosing victim to sound the "stand down" command to the nearby roaches, I was already reeling, but he was just getting warmed up. The aliens couldn't take it... so they pulled out their secret weapon."
"The giant explosive death ray?" the reporter asked.
"Usenet flame wars. No one seems able to walk away from them without saying something. They figured they had him trapped well and truly then. I heard some of his friends saying "Great, John in a flame war for the fate of the earth. Somehow I knew it would come to this." They didn't seem really confident, though, like they knew he'd hold his own, but weren't sure he'd deliver a knockout. Then they all started cheering.
"See, they had impartial judges scoring the thing, and the aliens decided to try to score points by deliberately misinterpreting what he said. They figured they'd tire him out chasing down false accusations.
"I've never seen anyone write ten thousand words in three and a half hours that were so full of scorn and precision and contempt. It's a good thing it was a wireless network; I think he'd have melted ordinary cat 5 cables. That's when the mothership started to crash. Apparently, the pilot decided to check the usenet feed for just a moment before running orbital corrections, and got sucked in.
"We're just lucky that the controls were so simple; I was able to find the "return hotel safely to its original location" button after a quick glance at the control panel.
"Unfortunately, the "land ship safely after returning hotel, in the event of catastrophic failure in flame war" was clear across the room when I realized it meant a catastrophic failure for the aliens, not for us. So we crashed."
"So," the reporter said "The earth was saved by bad rap, illogical absurdities, and a Usenet flame war?"
"Pretty much, yeah," the interviewee responded. The reporter sighed.
"Cut the cameras!" the reporter called out, then explained to the interviewee, "I'm sorry... that's happened five times in the past week; if we run another story on it, we'll look like we're in a rut."
"Eh. that's okay; excuse me, though, I got to get by, now, and see if I can crash the reception and give my congratulations to the bride and groom."
-----------------
No, it didn't actually happen that way; after the fourth alien invasion, you don't think they'd actually send a news team to the fifth or sixth, do you?
But I'd have done that, and more, to be here. To see Becky and Arnis, and feel their love and happiness filling the room and beyond. To see them dance... to see their joy.
oh, wow... there aren't any words.
Becky, Arnis, if either of you read this, congratulations, to you both, and you both carry all my love and all the blessings I have the power to give.
