«MODEL:Z-140X»

04-19-2309

I run the bottoms of my palms and finger tips along the smooth surface of the plastic case, slightly worn where they rest upon it. It’s rigid and semi-glossy with a weird graphite sparkle from something metallic in the composite; the familiar blend acrylic and styrene that makes up so much of the world around us. 87 individually molded and labeled tactile keys rest at the call of my tips, able to do anything from word processing and data input, to software function and OS control. The keypad is the conduit which I have to the digital exchange existing within the polymer walls and upon the silicon plains. There’s also a touch pad that makes up the bottom of the input surface, part of a pointing device that manipulates a cursor on the screen, like a virtual hand, to assist in navigation of the Graphical User Interface.

A GUI sounds fancy but whether it still comes with a pointing device or not, you probably have them in every gadget you own. From your computer and PDA to your texti or touchi, or even the heads-up in your vehicle. In your home-sphere entertainment center’s control panel or just the menu of your DVR. The bathroom mirror has one, the kitchen controls are on the door of the fridge; your home’s surface computer has one giant interface covering the entire tabletop. The atmosphere, electricity, plumbing and waste control terminals all have some rudimentary arrangements on top of that. The automated teller machine at the bank uses one, as well as the order-taker at any walk in restaurant and the help centers in most retail stores. It’s just an explorer or browser display; the neatly tabbed, filed and aesthetically rounded window you’re currently reading this through. It’s an underappreciated aspect of any operating system, one which all other elements of accessibility and function are contingent.

Without a GUI you’d be staring at raw data, possibly green text on a black screen like some antique CRT screen; archaic viewers that finally allowed us to give meaning to the term monitor, back in the first days of computers. You’d see the bare frame and structure that make up the system, all the lines of code laying about like so many cables without floor panels covering them, clear overhead ducts passing page after page of script with no ceiling tiles to mask. All the hubs would be exposed and bright with text streaming from it of all sorts of near unintelligibly tangled forms. Nothing would be indexed, as if everything were on one giant source page. No order, just sweet chaos made out of the most obedient of shapes. Or you could be using a sense computer, which is just as equally maddening.

It should go with out saying, but I would be driven insane if I couldn’t even use a basic root menu. I also wouldn’t be able to use the tablet surface built into the screen of my workstation. It has a stylus hidden in a spring-loaded bay within the case, a second pointing device that behaves like a pen when brought to the screen, which swivels around and folds flat to look like any regular portable. Well, maybe a little larger because it has an old battery cylinder along the back edge, a rounded bulge that makes it hard to fit in most bags designed for the modern portable that’s so popular these days. Those empirically white ones with all that chrome, dipped in an extra layer of clear acrylic to give protection and that weird luminescence. You know which ones I’m talking about, one of those real fancy digits. Of course you do, you’re probably using one right now. Mine is gargantuan compared to those.

You could be wondering why I would choose to use such a bulky instrument. Laptops, the ancestors of portable workstations, had folding screens, which created enough problems in themselves, but the delicate keyboard it revealed beneath was the biggest hassle. Not only was it a precarious design for something utilized so frequently, with top-heavy keys on tiny pins that connected a network of flat ribboned circuits, but they were incredibly hard to clean and any bit of water could cause the well-installed and hard-to-replace pad to go haywire. You couldn’t just plug in a new keyboard like on one of the stationary terminals in your home or at work, meaning many laptop owners would just replace the entire machine if anything were to happen to the most delicate–and most constantly used–input device.

My tablet PC isn’t so archaic though, it‘s generation could be considered Post-Laptops: systems designed beyond the capabilities of a conventional portable computer for the sake of selling a gimmick and usually to a target group, like artists or contractors. It may not be a typical touch screen, but the keyboard is a newer type of web-like sensor that doesn’t seem as susceptible to water. At least it has screws in the top I see that  I can undo to replace the keypad myself if anything were to happen to it. I’m quite comforted by that. The tablet pen and screen were revolutionary when this system was imagined, but by the time it could be manufactured easily, or inexpensively enough for me to afford one, new standard multi-touch interfaces were implemented in the market by much larger and better advertised companies, and now existed virtually everywhere. The pen is actually a complete novelty now when you can use your finger tip as a stylus in today’s art and editing programs.

Alright. Magic pen, sure cool. Though it was more ingenious back before you had to perform all the work on he same surface you viewed it on anyway, it’s still kinda neat. So you must still think I’m crazy for using an old keyboard when the touch screen pad you have can’t break, won’t get food or what-not stuck in it, and isn’t going to gork out when it gets a little damp. I guess the only thing that can be said is I’m a romantic and a sucker for innovation and unique gadgetry. I also love antiquity and, yes, some archaic things. I feel like those old machines had real soul in them, they had to work so much harder because they were more carefully handcrafted for real precision and longevity, less factory assembled and streamlined than most of the garbage indiscriminately pumped out today. The stuff they want you to keep buying so it doesn’t have to be great all that great of a product in the first place, since its designed to break down in two years.

But tapping my fingers on a flat surface just doesn’t seem right to the senses at all. I love the feel of real keys beneath my finger tips. Each is alert and stoic like some flat, bold-lettered nipple, waiting to receive and giving way to every push of my will before springing back up, ready for another. Every time with a satisfying noise. I feel like each word–nay, each letter is imbued with all the force with which I pound it’s key, giving off louder sounds the more intensity I use. I’m in complete control of this interface and it allows my mind and the blank page in front of me become as one. My thoughts flow freely to it.

I feel like the greats must have when they put down their immortal words on it, the strokes of their keys clacking away the whole night long in the echo of their empty rooms.

I run the bottoms of my palms and finger tips along the smooth surface of the plastic case, slightly worn where they rest upon it. It’s rigid and semi-glossy with a weird graphite sparkle from something metallic in the composite; the familiar blend acrylic and styrene that makes up so much of the world around us. 87 individually molded and labeled tactile keys rest at the call of my tips, able to do anything from word processing and data input, to software function and OS control. The keypad is the conduit which I have to the digital exchange existing within the polymer walls and upon the silicon plains. There’s also a touch pad that makes up the bottom of the input surface, part of a pointing device that manipulates a cursor on the screen, like a virtual hand, to assist in navigation of the Graphical User Interface.

A GUI sounds fancy but whether it still comes with a pointing device or not, you probably have them in every gadget you own. From your computer and PDA to your texti or touchi, or even the heads-up in your vehicle. In your home-sphere entertainment center’s control panel or just the menu of your DVR. The bathroom mirror has one, the kitchen controls are on the door of the fridge; your home’s surface computer has one giant interface covering the entire tabletop. The atmosphere, electricity, plumbing and waste control terminals all have some rudimentary arrangements on top of that. The automated teller machine at the bank uses one, as well as the order-taker at any walk in restaurant and the help centers in most retail stores. It’s just an explorer or browser display; the neatly tabbed, filed and aesthetically rounded window you’re currently reading this through. It’s an underappreciated aspect of any operating system, one which all other elements of accessibility and function are contingent.

Without a GUI you’d be staring at raw data, possibly green text on a black screen like some antique CRT screen; archaic viewers that finally allowed us to give meaning to the term monitor, back in the first days of computers. You’d see the bare frame and structure that make up the system, all the lines of code laying about like so many cables without floor panels covering them, clear overhead ducts passing page after page of script with no ceiling tiles to mask. All the hubs would be exposed and bright with text streaming from it of all sorts of near unintelligibly tangled forms. Nothing would be indexed, as if everything were on one giant source page. No order, just sweet chaos made out of the most obedient of shapes. Or you could be using a sense computer, which is just as equally maddening.

It should go with out saying, but I would be driven insane if I couldn’t even use a basic root menu. I also wouldn’t be able to use the tablet surface built into the screen of my workstation. It has a stylus hidden in a spring-loaded bay within the case, a second pointing device that behaves like a pen when brought to the screen, which swivels around and folds flat to look like any regular portable. Well, maybe a little larger because it has an old battery cylinder along the back edge, a rounded bulge that makes it hard to fit in most bags designed for the modern portable that’s so popular these days. Those empirically white ones with all that chrome, dipped in an extra layer of clear acrylic to give protection and that weird luminescence. You know which ones I’m talking about, one of those real fancy digits. Of course you do, you’re probably using one right now. Mine is gargantuan compared to those.

You could be wondering why I would choose to use such a bulky instrument. Laptops, the ancestors of portable workstations, had folding screens, which created enough problems in themselves, but the delicate keyboard it revealed beneath was the biggest hassle. Not only was it a precarious design for something utilized so frequently, with top-heavy keys on tiny pins that connected a network of flat ribboned circuits, but they were incredibly hard to clean and any bit of water could cause the well-installed and hard-to-replace pad to go haywire. You couldn’t just plug in a new keyboard like on one of the stationary terminals in your home or at work, meaning many laptop owners would just replace the entire machine if anything were to happen to the most delicate–and most constantly used–input device.

My tablet PC isn’t so archaic though, it‘s generation could be considered Post-Laptops: systems designed beyond the capabilities of a conventional portable computer for the sake of selling a gimmick and usually to a target group, like artists or contractors. It may not be a typical touch screen, but the keyboard is a newer type of web-like sensor that doesn’t seem as susceptible to water. At least it has screws in the top I see that  I can undo to replace the keypad myself if anything were to happen to it. I’m quite comforted by that. The tablet pen and screen were revolutionary when this system was imagined, but by the time it could be manufactured easily, or inexpensively enough for me to afford one, new standard multi-touch interfaces were implemented in the market by much larger and better advertised companies, and now existed virtually everywhere. The pen is actually a complete novelty now when you can use your finger tip as a stylus in today’s art and editing programs.

Alright. Magic pen, sure cool. Though it was more ingenious back before you had to perform all the work on he same surface you viewed it on anyway, it’s still kinda neat. So you must still think I’m crazy for using an old keyboard when the touch screen pad you have can’t break, won’t get food or what-not stuck in it, and isn’t going to gork out when it gets a little damp. I guess the only thing that can be said is I’m a romantic and a sucker for innovation and unique gadgetry. I also love antiquity and, yes, some archaic things. I feel like those old machines had real soul in them, they had to work so much harder because they were more carefully handcrafted for real precision and longevity, less factory assembled and streamlined than most of the garbage indiscriminately pumped out today. The stuff they want you to keep buying so it doesn’t have to be great all that great of a product in the first place, since its designed to break down in two years.

But tapping my fingers on a flat surface just doesn’t seem right to the senses at all. I love the feel of real keys beneath my finger tips. Each is alert and stoic like some flat, bold-lettered nipple, waiting to receive and giving way to every push of my will before springing back up, ready for another. Every time with a satisfying noise. I feel like each word–nay, each letter is imbued with all the force with which I pound it’s key, giving off louder sounds the more intensity I use. I’m in complete control of this interface and it allows my mind and the blank page in front of me become as one. My thoughts flow freely to it.

I feel like the greats must have when they put down their immortal words on it, the strokes of their keys clacking away the whole night long in the echo of their empty rooms.

«Conversational Change»

04-11-2309

“And so if from every conversation one learns something, and every time one learns something it changes them, it’s simple to see why people don’t want to communicate most of the time,” summarized Allan, edging towards a conclusion, though incomprehensibly distant.

“Yeah, they’re just afraid of change,” I responded , excited to think the conversation that had been continuing for days was finally coming to an end. I hammered in what ironically was not the last nail in the coffin, adding “A well recognized pattern of wanting to stick to one’s own habits.” A spark suddenly shone in his eyes, a spark that I’d come to hate. It meant that he had found a word in the last sentence that would be just enough, if not exactly what he needed, to make a counter statement.

“Ah but doesn’t he say we need to develop habituation in order to achieve and maintain happiness?” the Martian said, motioning to the book on the floor, a rather heavy throwback he carried around in his satchel. This text, for one of his philosophy classes, was renowned enough to be available on eBook–certainly not an obscure relic in any means–but he preferred being able to hold the real dead wood in his fingers as he read. He could just upload it to his texti. He had never complained that reading it off a screen hurt his eyes or anything, he’s always messaging with the phone constantly. I guess he liked feeling the weight of the pages in his hands or something, I imagine he thinks it gives the work a real body with mass and makes the words impact with more force. Or, he could just like books.

“I guess, yeah,” I took a drag of my cig and sighed out a cloud of smoke. I was reminded momentarily of hating teachers I had in the past who decided it was fun to lead their students down one path of reasoning until they just got to the door, only to pull the mat out from underneath when they got there. You know, make you agree with something then tell you it’s wrong–though easy to believe–just to drive a point. I looked around and didn’t see the rest of the class sitting in the crawler to watch the example demonstrated, and turned back to Allan. “But I don’t remember when we were even talking about that,” I stated suddenly acting aspirated, as if that would actually stop him from going there.

“Well, one of the things I’m learning in all my classes is that a philosophy is no good if it can’t be applied to anything at anytime,” a triumphant return to the floor must have been echoed with a cheering crowd in his mind.  I thought of a way to silence them quickly.

“Didn’t you say that any and all theories break down at some point?” I tried to hide the smirk creeping across my lips as I, again, thought I had struck a vital blow with one of his own weapons. All of his theories break down when I’m around, anyway.

“Yes, but existentialism teaches us that we should examine where they crumble and why, so as to better understand the nature of theories, ourselves and the world around us,” he said, artfully dodging my strike with what seemed too well rehearsed a defense.

“Even if we have to be the ones with the hammer, just to see the results more closely,” I said with a quiet sigh of admission. If you can’t beat em, join em. Especially if it’s that tiny bit or resistance that was the only reason you were stuck on that topic. I’ll often find myself agreeing to things just so a conversation moves on more smoothly, which just becomes silly when you remember half of the things that I say I disagree with are actually things I do agree with. It just makes a boring argument if everyone starts on the same side.

Since there was a momentary confusion brought on by agreement, I had bought myself one chance to slip in a seemingly careless observation that could send this whole thing spinning into a different direction. “I guess anything can be examined existentially about a topic to be reapplied existentially to any other topic,” I was a cheap cliché, but I wondered where this one would go as I unleashed it.

“Well, yes,” I watched him agree, then pause to think about it, then return to agreeing. He then looked as if he couldn’t think of anything good to say in addition to my statement, and was about to take up a contrary position just to have something to say before his texti began to buzz. He found it in one of his pockets and,  seeing Nymh’s name and photo displayed, answered it immediately. “Hi baby, what’s up?” he spoke as directly as he could toward the tiny mic hidden somewhere on the phone though he knew not where exactly it was.

As much as I try not to listen to anything he says, at least during phone calls I don’t have to participate or respond so it’s a little easier to. In the periphery of my senses I could tell he was heated up and speaking to her with just as much fervor, but I couldn’t hear it over the wind and smoke billowing out of my cigarette. I sighed and smiled up at a sunbeam before Allan’s shouting finally broke my concentration.

“What?! What do you mean you can’t? How dare they? How are you in any way not deserving?” He was upset, red in the face upset. I can’t hear anything on her end but I’m pretty sure it’s about the trip to see Cydonia this summer. After a serious of unintelligible agreements and motivations, Allan wheeled into the end of his conversation. “Alright honey, you talk to him about watching her that week and then we’ll see how they feel about it then. I love you.” he ended the call and looked about ready to throw the texti at a nearby stucco wall.

“Plenty of good news to share, I suppose,” my sarcasm may have been unnecessary but it’s certainly more sincere than the concern I show for most things. Besides, humor helps any situation…almost.

“Stupid, backwards Tethean parents and their fucking rules,” he used as much venom as he could muster in the articulation of each word. “They won’t let her go because they say that vacations are deserved by people who didn’t fuck up their lives. Then they called Rei a disgrace to the family and mostly a disgrace to her,” he said spitefully, himself not agreeing with a  single word of it.

“Ahh…” I could have expected this coming, Nymh’s parents are just like any other Saturnian parents: stubborn, steeped in their ancient traditions, and sure that they wield absolute power. It’s rude to generalize, but in every family men have all the honor and respect before women, and beyond that more with age. Being the youngest female in her family, she dwindles far down at the bottom of the pecking order. On top of that, about three years ago she became pregnant with a Martian boy named Arturius, which they think brings shame to her and to them all, and still don’t let her live down to this day, though Rei is the brightest and most loving little girl I have ever known.

They refuse to see the merits in her and her 2½ year old daughter because tradition says they are deviants, so Nymh and Rei continue to exist as disgraces to them. Even her sisters gang up on her and berate her when her parents aren’t around to do so. They say she doesn’t contribute enough to the family and is useless to them. They don’t figure that it’s expensive and time consuming to raise a toddler as a working single-mother with no help at home to take care of the child–or if they do they just write it off as her problem since she got herself in that mess in the first place. A Saturnian family runs more like a team or a crew, it’s more about what each member can achieve towards the goals of the whole than what that whole can afford to spare it’s individual.

All I can really do is shake my head in disapproval. There’s nothing in these thoughts that Allan and I haven’t already discussed at great lengths, and a nod from him confirms we are just thinking the same thing. I reach for the cigarettes and light another, hanging my arm out of the window of his crawler in the red afternoon.

“I’ve gotta talk to my mom real quick and then make a few calls,” he said, not sounding too existentially excited or even pleased with his day anymore.  “I’ll be inside,” and the door closed behind him. I sat a moment longer and sighed, perplexed by the strange new road block.

I don’t think it will be that hard to get around it though, Nymh’s a grown-up and I think she can take off for a week if she wants, so I’m not too worried about her not being able to make it to Cydonia. But that would suck if she couldn’t. Well, at least maybe Allan and I might actually have enough time to finish a conversation.

No, wait. He didn’t even make it inside, he’s coming back. Worse, it really looks like he’s got something to say.

«The Screen»

04-08-2309

Walking home last night, it was about 6 or 7 when I saw this girl on the other side of the street watching a video on her touchi. As we both pressed buttons on either side of the crosswalk, I caught her take a peek at me, then quickly return her attention to whatever she was watching on a screen that took up the entire side of her phone. As we passed each other in the middle, she focused as hard as she could on the digital image, intent on pretending I wasn’t there. I shook my head to myself as I reached the other side.

It’s said we spend over 12 hours a day staring a screen. It seems like a lot until you consider your phone, PDA, GPS, HUD, etc; think about your computer screen. Hell, I watched the news while I was taking a shower this morning. Even though when we have screens everywhere from our vehicles to our vanities, 12 hours a day staring at CRTs, LCDs or optic diode arrays is still a lot.

It’s also said that a little under half that time is spent staring at the teli screen alone. The TV world is a dangerous place to expose yourself to for extended periods of time. All the people that exist there are so beautiful and rich, and more successful than we’ll ever be. They lead fantastic lives and go on compelling and extravagant adventures. Stories that don’t have to be good, must just have exciting enough sequences to make the cut for TV audiences. These plots are still are automatically on a par more astounding than any real life event could be.

I think this leads to a supreme disconnect in our society. I’ve noticed everywhere I go, if someone is walking they’ll have their ears and/or eyes occupied with some form of gadgetry. Typically they’re listening to music emitted into their ears directly by tiny earbuds. No biggie, people have been listening to headphones with portable players for years. But these days, its always on their phone– and always texting. Seems you pull your texti or touchi out reflexively as soon as you’re about to walk by someone.

Best to have a good excuse for not making eye contact with someone, rather you get caught in an awkward staring match as you pass, because you’d rather not say anything to a stranger, right? Does anyone remember when people used to greet everyone they met all day? Does anyone care about a person they don’t know if they don’t look like they’re someone who can give you something?  How can you be sure they actually have what you need?

We know we can get it from the screen. Whatever we want or need, we know we just have to ask a screen to give it to us.

In order to develop properly, Allan says, one must establish stable, long term relationships with other people they trust and know, real face to face interaction with other humans. I think we’ve all but substituted these, creating relationships with people we don’t know–celebrities and media personalities. Just characters, fake people. We’ve mistaken our aliases and handles for our real names, our screennames becoming more synonymous with who we think we are. I almost wonder what reality is to some people, if they feel like they’re just playing a part. Do you realize there are no characters you can become cast as, you can always change your role.

And whenever I think about loneliness or feeling disconnected, I quickly realize there are at least half a thousand people living in Villa Venusia, and another two thousand in this square mile. Everyone’s in their own little world though, the screen their only eyes to see it with. And when nothing seen is real, they forget that the people and things they see out in the world aren‘t just fake too.

Meanwhile, just around the corner is a person whom I may have something I common with, someone I can have a conversation with and be friends with. Who knows, maybe even a girl I could be falling in love with.

I’m looking in all the wrong places and my eyes hurt too much. I have to stop staring at the screen.

«Status Update»

02-26-2308

I really don’t know how to feel about virtual social networks anymore. At first it was nice to create an avatar to help define your online persona, and thus affect how your real identity is perceived by other members. But the programs have degenerated to shoutboxes or personal forums, digital walls for people to leave messages on, and I think extreme egotism might be to blame. See, once you’re given unlimited digital influence you must inevitably fall into an egocentric mindset. It’s only a matter of time before an empowered individual begins to believe that their simple existence is significant.

These social applications allow you to keep your friends, or anyone else stuck in your network, involuntarily abreast of your routine and daily experiences. It’s not uncommon for a person to manage profiles on multiple networks, as each will serve a different function. For instance, one general network may be great for keeping in touch with old friends and classmates, while another very similar one may help you meet new friends. You could have an account for artwork and or another for video, an even different writing or a music profile to show off your playlist, too. There are even systems that let you see which sites other members view and enjoy most, or browse someone else’s collection of bookmarks. But most importantly, they exist for you to whore yourself about for personal gain.

No matter what it is you‘re doing, whether you’re using a site to fish for positive feedback on poorly doctored pics or showing off feeble attempts at creating a piece of art or something worth reading, you’re undeniably using the internet as a self-esteem booster. You’re trying to turn nothing into something that validates your being, trolling for others who will feed your ego, others somehow even more irrelevant than you. A page of txt or script, or a handful of jpegs that you shit out because you didn’t have anything better to do with your time, raping the eye sockets of everyone you could force them upon. Maybe you just leave notes and cute animations on other people’s walls, even ones you don’t know, and encourage them to respond, just to see a new comment alert the next time you log in.

Well now it gets even worse. They’ve just made these social super-applications, ones that extend their tendrils to phone and pda systems, and have the ability of controlling your profiles on other networks. From your handset, button, touchi or even texti you can receive notice from or transmit updates to the nets from anywhere you can get signal out. You can begin to complain about your day, or make entertainment and cooking suggestions, or unleash a senseless onslaught of spam, or whatever it is that you do when you get home to your computer — before you even get home to your computer. A collection of blinks from the ephemeral present, already passing. Not only will it update your mood on this profile, but on each and every profile to which you grant it access. It will sicken you when you realize what a useful tool this could be.

To be honest, I have no idea what to use it for. Really, the novelty of being able to announce to everyone that I got a cup of coffee before I even swipe fades out fast. No, instead I feel the whole idea of a two-sentence update defeats all progress. Anything worth doing or saying can’t fit into 160 characters. No matter how hard we try, we always need more space to say what we need. And frankly I feel like it’s impossible to present my given current state in a serious manner when everyone else around here is just cheering any trivial victory they can express in a witty third person. So since I have this communicative exchange (if it can even be considered an exchange) I feel obliged to inform you with more than two lines.

I’m ok. I’m not well or great. Not bad or fucking terrible, either. Ok is also known as not so great or fine, and can be used in place of going into a long story filled with a bit of either side before finally explaining why the combination brings me to the middle… but I assure you I’m just doing ok.

Damn it, that’s just retardedly brief. I should do it right and explain from the top.

The  year is 2309, today is the fifth of March and it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It’s mostly sunny and 71 degrees outside, a high for this week but not uncommon this early in the year. Tonight Phobos will be a waxing crescent and Deimos, as full as it ever looks, will actually rise at about the same time as his bigger brother.  They are inconsistent and unreliable, but twice or so every week they’ll ride in together from the western horizon to strike fear and terror, respectively.

I am a young Earthling male of Ganymedean descent; fair skin, dark hair and hazel eyes. I’m not first-gen or anything though. More like fourth or fifth so I don’t have pointy ears like most Jovians and — since my family doesn’t have anything else exotic anywhere along the line — I lack antennae, whiskers and an accent. I’ll turn 22 in less than a month, and have only lived on Mars for two-and-a-half years now. I didn’t have any family out here, spare a cousin near Alba Patera who I haven’t seen since before I even moved out here. Everyone else was on Earth, everyone I knew and loved.

I came to be closer to a girl I was dating, but wonderful as that was, it only lasted about a year after I arrived. It used to mean more to me before I realized I had always wanted to come here on my own, and did so to fulfill some sort of sordid childhood fantasy of paradise, using her as an excuse to get closer to Mars. I grew up in the suburbs of Earth’s capital, so I’m even more accustomed to the Olympus County and Novus Angelicas lifestyle than most other Earthlings. I am more familiar with wealth, narcissism, and decadence in general, than most of us Earthlings who don’t have nice weather year round, palm trees and picturesque sunsets consistently.  I know I’m going to need to move up the coast or to Elysium to really use Mars to its full potential, but here isn’t a bad place to start trying to carry out my dream.

I’m still…uh..getting there though….to that some important thing I’m… trying to achieve, that you would call my ambition or goal. I don’t have a job and the semesters I do go to school I attend very few hours, leaving a lot of free time during which I don’t accomplish much, reading constantly and watching a lot of movies these days. I still don’t have my crawler legalized so I hang out with Allan and his girlfriend Nymh most of the time. I usually have to use his 4Door to chauffer him to and fro, so that I have a vehicle to drive at my leisure. Tight as our money is and busy as Dune and Allan’s schedules have been with their classes, our band hasn’t really had enough opportunity to practice, barely keeping up to our once-a-week routine.

Me and Allan have at least been keeping our voices sharp with his father and uncle’s band. We’ll catch them twice a week and sing as they play covers so they can just focus on their instruments. Old hits from when they were our age, you know, electric guitars and lots of synthesizers; classic rock. His dad records it all and then usually has a semi-mastered rendering on disc for us in the morning. We get to laugh at the mistakes everyone makes, as well as the customary improvisation and ad lib. But mostly we try to improve our voices, usually listening to it in sequential blocks until we’re done with an entire evening.

Any time except Thursday I think. That’s when we carry out the one job we both still have, acting as couriers for his dad. We deliver hard copy and discs of photo shoots they do for a children’s talent agency half an hour south, but still in OC. For some reason that day we always try to find something different to listen to, since when I think about looking for something new in the folder I always picture the red desert passing outside the window.

Hmm, I seem to have deviated drastically from any important information I could have imparted with this…or maybe I was just too basic. Nah, that was just pointless, I should just use one of the million tricks you use when you can’t think of something to say in your headline. Like, I could talk about the video game I’m playing, or the book I’m reading, or the show I’m watching, but I just don’t feel right name-dropping. So I can’t really list what albums I’m listening to, or what movies I’m downloading at the moment. I could write a deeply cryptic message based off a corny inside joke that no one who actually checks my status would understand, but that’s about the lamest thing to do on one of these things. Almost as lame as spiteful messages to a loved or hated one in your banner that instigate an immature flame war.

The only thing left is to describe exactly what I’m doing. Which is currently passing around a pipe in a shopping center parking lot on Allan’s campus, smoking in his car before he has to return to class. Our friend Mistri is playing on the radio, a popular local channel operated by this university’s station. Her band recently assembled after she had been playing solo under its moniker for years, and it’s so encouraging to see someone we know making it, even if it just points out what we still need to accomplish. This bowl will be through before the song ends and I’ll be getting Allan back in time for the last two thirds of his class.

I will probably spend that time waiting for him, this glowing touch-screen keeping me occupied in another parking lot somewhere between here and his home. Then we’ll meet up with Nymh and embark upon a requisite stony adventure. That will end when she has to return home to be a mother again, and since it’s not a jam night, Allan and I will retire to his home to smoke more and watch old 2D sci-fi’s on the plasma screen downstairs.

Instead of going on about all of this for a few pages, I think I may just come back and post my favorite cheesy line from one of the movies instead.

«…One Year Ago…»

«On the Third Day»

11-04-2308

     When I woke up I threw on a pair of pants and stepped across the hall to the bathroom, flicking on the light as I was closing the door. The already familiar hum of a fan and shower of yellow light failed to reach my senses, so I threw the switch again. In vain I fumbled with the lights another moment before sighing, closing the door all the way and trying not to pee on my own feet.

    The same story echoed through my home everywhere I turned; fans didn’t run and appliances couldn’t assist, each bulb and screen in the unit was void and lifeless. I couldn’t even power up the sphere to connect to the nets or access my file storage, or any household functions, like heat and windows. At first I’d hoped the bathroom circuit just shorted but it seemed the power had been switched off for the entire apartment. When my texti told me it was the third of the month it all made a little more sense.

     In an age abundant with electronic communication, why not opt for paperless billing? It takes so long for the postal service to deliver tangible parcels from planet to planet, and it never hurts to help the environments. It just makes it more difficult to remember when payments are due if you check your inbox as often as your mailbox.

     So I grabbed my workstation and my wallet and tried to find a corner of my house I could leech a signal in. Reminiscing the days after I’d first moved to Mars, I latched onto an unsecured network from an apartment near by and went to work. A red light blinked to warn me I’d run the battery to critical power playing music the night before, so I spent a moment reconfiguring for highest power management, buying myself a good four minutes of battery life total. Squinting at the now dimmed screen in a darkened room, I waited impatiently for a pirated feed to connect to the electric company, the loading bar filling with glycerin. I never even saw the login screen to access our account, my computer gave a provocative red wink and dropped dead. I shook my head and closed it up, not knowing when I’d again see her bright face.

     Tohm’s workstation lay asleep on the desk of his room. My roommate’s snoring seemed enough permission to let me borrow it a minute. I returned to my corner to begin the process again, this time making it as far as the login screen before I realized we’d filed all the information under my roommate. I hadn’t yet bothered to learn his birthday or memorize his social security number. I hit myself in the head when I remembered seeing this coming a month ago and still didn’t put everything in my name.

     I picked up my texti and punched in their number, knowing I could well talk my password out of them, I was certain my name was somewhere on that form. An automated hot-line and six random digits later, I finally got on the line with a human being and began to state my case. Stating my case to a wall of silence after only a moment, my mute sentence punctuated by two beeps and a flash of green light from the instantly lifeless phone.  Frustrated, I decided to clear my head before proceeding any further, and reached for the switch on vaporizer. About to throw the switch, I stopped before I could have embarrassed myself any further and just reached under the couch for the glass.

«←→»

     Tohm woke up two hours later and followed my dance step by step. I heard frantic flicking of a light switch from a dark, hollow bathroom. Furious stomping room to room and the dead click and snap of every button and switch in between. I took delight in the routine, playing possum from my front row seat on the couch, but before he could touch the computer I put an end to his performance.

     “They pulled our plug. Everything’s dead. I need you’re help to fix it,” I said as I roused myself a second time.

     “You’re kidding, right?” He stared at me knowing half of it was true and tried to determine how much more he wanted to believe.

     “I’m not. Put on your shoes and a sweatshirt,” I commanded as I stood up.

     “Not so fast, I haven’t even had my coffee yet,” He said coaxing me back down. “I’ll do my part and you do yours,” handing me a charged touchi, “just have the glass ready for me when I get back,” he muttered in a half-awake state. “We still have some left right?” the  Earthling asked, suddenly concerned as he stopped in mid step. I hesitantly motioned towards the ash on the table. He simply shook his head as he slipped on sandals and slumped out the front door.

«←→»

     We sat in mostly darkness the whole evening long. An assortment of multicolored souvenir  lamps, flashlights and antique candles, none I had ever intended to burn, illuminated our usually more lively living room. A small pair of speakers lending a red LED, the music stored on Tohm’s touchi the only thing keeping us sane. I played with the wax dripping onto my table, like I used to do when nature used to switch off the power.

     The electric company had received and confirmed our payment, after a fiasco at the bank and following at a Martian swarmed checking service on the other side of Costa Mensa. I had to pay over the phone by check instead of credit. It’s almost like debit and credit are different forms of currency entirely these days, and rarely exchangeable. It was of course setting vermilion outside by the time I’d gotten on the phone with them, so there was no one left to dispatch to our residence.

     The girls’ power was out all day too, switched off by a billing error instead of just a lack of payment. Of course, not even fifteen minutes after I got off the phone a serviceman arrived, from the same company, to flip their juice and couldn’t give us the decency of not having to pee in the dark. I offered for them to join a candle party with us but they opted to catch up on what they missed during the outage on their DVR.

     I walked back upstairs and plopped on the couch, the dim yellow glow cast everywhere made it all the more warm and inviting. Before I could let myself feel any more down and out about my addiction to electricity, I picked up the acoustic guitar and began to play to the flickering candles.

«On the Right Track»

10-06-2308

     The fresh coastal breeze blows up my balcony, sending my long hair wild as I take the last drag off my cigarette and stub it in the tray. I stay locked in a staring contest with the neighbor’s feline for another minute before blinking and turning around. Swinging open the heavy old door, I step into my new apartment and lock the wind out. It’s only been a week since we moved in, but already it’s settled and feels like home me. I’m not sure how to express my excitement about leaving Fender for Costa Mensa.

     Sorry about the last few weeks, there’s surely been an upsetting amount of radio silence from my end. But you’re aware how much free time one has when they’re rushed to get their feeble belongings on the road and running before the end of the month. This past week has been spent catching up for the last season or so of buffoonery.

     I’m almost all caught up by now though. My new address has been uploaded to the Martian DMV, bank, post office, vehicle finance and comm companies and updated on all my social networks. We had the utilities switched into my name, our personal sphere activated and still have a good name with the rental agency that supplied the van and our new fridge. This week I’ll have the registration paid off on my crawler and finally be an enabled, functioning member of society again.

     Now, please excuse me for not being more lengthy, but the day is so short and my quest far from over. I’ll tell you more about my new home and my roommate later, but there’s much business at hand still. This is simply the first step of the Job Odyssey.

«Respite»

06-06-2308

     It was about 3 in the morning when I stepped out for a cigarette. I didn’t have a watch but I knew because the second sprinklers were going. I was smoking out front this time so the soft projectiles were begging at my slip-ons. Ever since Pashan left on vacation 2 weeks ago I’d been spending a lot more time downstairs where its more hospitable than my room. He’d be on Europa, his home, for another month and a half so I could enjoy respite from the first hot weeks of summer in our uninsulated unit.

     I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding this thing for a while, a whole month to be exact. I’ve been distracted with not doing a whole lot. Well, let me rephrase: I haven’t been doing much physically–a lot of sitting w/ a book in my hand or a texti to my ear. You see a friend of mine has come from Earth and has been living in the city for a few weeks now, so you can understand my absence.

     Eon Beurot came to Mars to escape herself, or rather what she had become. We had never been the closest of friends in school, but whenever we did hang out I remember enjoying it immensely. Since forever ago, she insisted that people call her Lou, or Onny, or anything but her real name because she doesn’t like the way it sounds. But I do, and always have, so I call her Eon anyway. I remember us having had deep respect for each others work–mine visual, hers literary–and we always wished we had gotten to know each other better. Sometime after I graduated we lost contact and I slipped into chemical haze for the next year before I moved to Fender. Following a tragic event around the same time, she embarked upon her own inebriated odyssey.

     The winds took her all across the Earth, though she never had the pleasure of settling for longer than a few months before another gust came to uproot her. A couple jobs and a fiance later, they brought her to rest at last upon the rusted face of Mars. And if it weren’t for social network applications and their obnoxious sharing of every detail committed by you to your entire network, I’d have never noticed she arrived here.

     Let me just start out by saying it is so nice to have a like minded person to relate to in a foreign place like this. What a relief to see someone from home has arrived in this strange place, right? After that, I should mention that I have had the bigges–Ehrr–sorry, I’m buzzing, I have to get it.

     I’ll get back to this soon.

«My Texti»

05-06-2308

     I was in the middle of enjoying a good book on Neptune when it started. For the next hour and a half, as I was trying to focus on late dynasties and vulgarly decadent architecture, five minutes didn’t go by that it wouldn’t let out a desperate moan. Finally, after the repeal of the ban on pantheistic worship, my texti gave two terminal cries and faded to black. I set the book down on the bed and got up.

     The hand held piece of scientifically engineered silicon, wire and plastic sat stoic, its telescoping eye staring eerily passive at me. I caught the reflection of my hand as I reached for it and thought for a moment it was reacting to my touch. I felt relieved when it didn’t jump or wriggle or squirm in my grasp, it was just sterile piece of cold plastic in my hands. Thumbing the power button, the device sprung to life for a second before fading again, “Low Battery” flashing in red before everything disappeared. I sighed.

     Now I’d have to go all the way to my buggy to charge my phone. I’d lost the wall plug ages ago to those adorable rodents–I’d only had the phone a year when they destroyed the charger. But even then, the salesman couldn’t contain his laughter when I handed him my outdated, obsolete, thick paperweight. At this point its only a couple months until I’ll get my new phone at 2 years, so I might as well tough it out. The lifespan cycles, 2 hours and shortening, the propensity to switch off during calls, and the incessant ‘I’m dying’ beep, which, pathetic and feeble as it sounds, must not help in the struggle to conserve strength.

     I’d smash it to bits if it weren’t for that childlike eye staring up at me. Machines know not the sins of man, how could I punish such an innocent creature? Then with one last defiant snap of energy, the phone shocked me. I threw it across the room in recoil.

«My Minifeed»

03-03-2308

     For the entire time I’ve shared the unit with my Jovian roommate we’ve complained about our occupations as wannabe net pirates. A wireless receiver, which can be found in practically anything from a texti to soda can, will only keep you connected if you’re within radius of a point. Meager is the minimum wage compared to cost of life in OC and my roomie knew as well as I did it couldn’t win the battle over food and electricity; and why should we really? The signal from a modem isn’t diminished by walls or floors, as one is intended to spread over a whole residence, and there are plenty of units in proximity with higher incomes, or handy relatives, who unwittingly donate a little bandwidth. The only problems you face with buccaneering some spheres are the measures people take to prevent hacking or leeching. You might think it simple since the obsolescence of the coaxial or the push away from fiber optics–you don’t have to splice your neighbors line anymore, rather you can just hop right into their feed.

     Although, its not as easy as I’m making it sound. Most people end up taking an unprotected signal versus tangle with password protection. Some people get too frustrated with a cramped jacuzzi they keep losing their place in. But if you’re really willing to go the extra step, and you can get through a password, be warned you’ll likely be faced with a myriad of firewalls, hack traps, or even bots programmed to infect intruders with crippling viri. Some are particularly destructive strains, capable of mortally wounding key hardware components. I’m sure the Jovian Pashan is as unwilling as I am to seek such an encounter, so we came to a consensus and decided it was time to go legit and invest in our own access point.

     I really shouldn‘t be trying to afford anything else though, what with being recently unemployed. I didn’t even save enough money when I was working at the bookstore, barely making it out of there every Friday with my paycheck intact. There are so many unread hardcovers and trades just collecting dust in the living room, which is also probably coated by a thin layer of neglect. Clothbound novelties on all manner of subject from prehistoric art to goddess literature and studies of shamanic cultures throughout the solar system. But I fancy I could read a few pages in the time saved from not taking 20 minutes just to check my mail with this weak signal. You don’t want to know how long it takes to get my minifeed. Archaics and old fashioned families usually take in a full cast from the teli, but anyone who’s young or just hep and living on the go needs it in a more readily accessible, swallowable shape. I take my cast on the fly, not even really gripping it’s implications till I’m half way to work.

     With Martian traffic though, it’s sometimes all you have to stay sane.

     For the entire time I’ve shared the unit with my Jovian roommate we’ve complained about our occupations as wannabe net pirates. A wireless receiver, which can be found in practically anything from a texti to soda can, will only keep you connected if you’re within radius of a point. Meager is the minimum wage compared to cost of life in OC and my roomie knew as well as I did it couldn’t win the battle over food and electricity; and why should we really? The signal from a modem isn’t diminished by walls or floors, as one is intended to spread over a whole residence, and there are plenty of units in proximity with higher incomes, or handy relatives, who unwittingly donate a little bandwidth. The only problems you face with buccaneering some spheres are the measures people take to prevent hacking or leeching. You might think it simple since the obsolescence of the coaxial or the push away from fiber optics–you don’t have to splice your neighbors line anymore, rather you can just hop right into their feed.

     Although, its not as easy as I’m making it sound. Most people end up taking an unprotected signal versus tangle with password protection. Some people get too frustrated with a cramped jacuzzi they keep losing their place in. But if you’re really willing to go the extra step, and you can get through a password, be warned you’ll likely be faced with a myriad of firewalls, hack traps, or even bots programmed to infect intruders with crippling viri. Some are particularly destructive strains, capable of mortally wounding key hardware components. I’m sure the Jovian Pashan is as unwilling as I am to seek such an encounter, so we came to a consensus and decided it was time to go legit and invest in our own access point.

     I really shouldn‘t be trying to afford anything else though, what with being recently unemployed. I didn’t even save enough money when I was working at the bookstore, barely making it out of there every Friday with my paycheck intact. There are so many unread hardcovers and trades just collecting dust in the living room, which is also probably coated by a thin layer of neglect. Clothbound novelties on all manner of subject from prehistoric art to goddess literature and studies of shamanic cultures throughout the solar system. But I fancy I could read a few pages in the time saved from not taking 20 minutes just to check my mail with this weak signal. You don’t want to know how long it takes to get my minifeed. Archaics and old fashioned families usually take in a full cast from the teli, but anyone who’s young or just hep and living on the go needs it in a more readily accessible, swallowable shape. I take my cast on the fly, not even really gripping it’s implications till I’m half way to work.

     With Martian traffic though, it’s sometimes all you have to stay sane.