3 Jun 4705 - Harnessing the Power of Satan

I awoke early enough this morning to go into work. I didn't want to, because I don't have work on weekends, so I got up to water the tomatoes. I discovered my minor infestation of aphids had as then attracted no hungry ladybugs, so I would have to do more than simply water my plants today. I called home, as my parents are both competent gardeners, to tell how I had been in the weeks since they had last met me, and to ask about my tomatoes.
They recommended a number of things for the aphids, but one way or another get an insecticide. If none is available, my Father recommended I simply wash them off. That would take a level of tedium of care I am perhaps willing to give, but anyway I should first try out the spray.

I went back to sleep. I really didn't want to be awake. That was maybe 10AM.

I awoke at almost 2PM, satisfied I had slept enough to make up for the week, during which time I had slept too little for reasons that I am still forbidden from discussing, and shall remain off of the record. I had a look at my tomatoes again and then attended to the bike, which I am fast adopting as my own. I removed the rear tire and tube, discovering a convenient handle for loosing the rear hub from the frame, which is enough to sneak an innertube out or in, so I didn't have to mess with the gears at all, which was a blessing.
Finally I had the new innertube, the pump, the adapter for the pump so it would work with this, the other kind of nozzle, and an array of simple tools to handle whatever else the task required. On top of this, I had a reason to travel, so I had no excuses left for not repairing the bike. As I said, I removed the old tube, found that the leaks were from two massive gashes (say, the size of a twelve point times capital X), and discarded it. I replaced the tube with one of two new ones Josh helped me procure along with the adaptor from the bike shop near Fairfax Circle on Friday, rounded on the tire once more (which was painful and dirty and smelly, and makes me nostalgic for my days in the engineering lab) and gave it a good inflation.

It didn't take to having much air therein.

So. I removed it again, listened for a leak, heard one, and took the tube inside for repairs. I found a pinhole sized leak and attempted to patch it with the wrong kind of glue (generic staples brand superglue) and the wrong kind of tape (transparent hockey sport tape for adding grip) and natch, the patch failed. In fact I discovered a second pinhole leak, tried to patch it, and between the two poor jobs there was simply not enough of a seal to stand up to the rigors of being a bicycle inner tube. During this time I managed to comically splash myself in the face with a tiny spray of the superglue, which dotted my nose and glasses with five droplets before drying in the split second of time the stuff takes to bond to skin. Thanks to my glasses being superior, the glue came right off of them, and as for my nose...well...it was only a tiny drop, so it didn't take all that much of me with it. Later on when I spilled about five drops worth of the stuff on my fingers, though, that took awhile to get off.

I figured this was why I had purchased two innertubes, so lets have at it again, this time being more careful when prying with the screwdriver. The packaging specifically warned against using them, as it is easy to get the soft innertube pinched between your hard screwdriver and the hard frame of the hub, and with a simple snapping motion puncture the tube in strange ways. As further precaution, I used my file to dull and round the tip of my screwdriver (this is a flat head that I have been working on for some time, and rarely if ever use to actually turn screws). Once more I wrapped the tube and tire on, and once more inflated the rear to be as full as the front. The air took, and the repair replete.

I put away the tools, and prepared my small travel bag for the journey to the Safeway on the other side of 495, taking the back way around through the infinite suburbs as to avoid car traffic of a Saturday afternoon. I discovered that three of the 21 speeds from three front sprockets and seven rear sprockets would not function for me, as one of my rear sprockets must be missing some teeth. This makes almost no difference in the vehicle's performance, though, since who could actually use 21 freaking speeds? I used maybe six in my whole trek, although I admit, suddenly losing the pull because of that one silly sprocket can be a little jarring, especially when tired from the trip there to begin with.

I traveled, and on my way discovered how long it had been since I had last been required to endure any strain on my breathing whatsoever. I'm in worse shape than I thought, it would seem. Granted, it was mid-afternoon of a June Saturday, and I had not hydrated all that much or eaten anything. Still, I could tell that my face was red and sweat all over me. I was close to heat-stroke, and so the fel air conditioning inside the Safeway was welcome. I gravitated to the water fountain in the rear corner of the store without knowing it was there, and fueled a little. I toured the store for insecticide, preferring a Safer Soap if any presented itself, and settled for some water-based spray bottle of insecticide, which claimed to handle aphids, thrips, and mealyworms among other hexepedal blights. I shall later procure Safer Soap and oil of the neem tree, called Neem Oil of all things, when the opportunity arises.

With the prize in my bag, I mounted my chariot once again, and pedaled back the way I came, this time going much more downhill than before. I still had to dismount and march up one of the hills. This was when I thought I may pass out from over-exerting myself in the sun.

In fact I managed to remain vertical, mount the hill and the bike, and roll back to the house to secure my chariot, clean my tired body, and rescue my precious tomatoes from the aphids. I was curious about my physical condition, as I have had plenty of occasion in recent weeks to raise my heart rate, and fully most of those for reasons of repeated motion affecting translocation. I was tired to be sure, but this didn't feel like the kind of tired I used to get from, say, running the mile in gym class or the two miles in CAP, or any of the various times I've had to run or bike places while carrying things. This felt like something was held up on the way to and from my head, and that gulping air was the only solution at hand, and that gulping was soon going to make me pass out anyway.

Next time I'll drink more water.

By this time it was well past time for breakfast, so breakfast I did, preparing some hot soup with chicken that I roasted last night and refrigerated for later. The ramen tasted good for the first time in years, partially owing to the fact that my body really wanted the salt, and partly to the fact that I had added actual nutrition in the form of chicken, which makes excellent soup by itself. Usually I can stand ramen noodles no more than once a month before they taste rancid to my ken. Dan approached, (I thought he was already home, but in fact he had been at paintball with his jock friends), and asked why I seemed so down. I explained that I was simply exhausted and needed refueling. I finished my soup, he tested his marker, and we sat inside awhile to chat. I wanted to watch some mecha anime, and he wanted to purchase Eva again because his disks were old and unreliable, so we charted a course for Best Buy, and he had mentioned Springfield so I mentioned...

...the Old Keene Mill plaza Joanne Fabrics, home of the Satanic poly-fil microbeads. We left.

Best Buy didn't have Eva. The other Best Buy was similarly out of it (he called ahead), so we checked out the Game Stop nearby (no dice, but I scored Curse of Darkness for two fins) and on the way back the Star Land (again nothing, this edition was too recent a release for their tastes, but would you like this $70 two-disk Atlus title? No, and good-day). In between this, of course, we visited the fabric store, and lo, here at last were my microbeads, coating the inner skin of their container with a fine single layer of their supremely staticy spheroid selves. I purchased three bags (that's $44 and 1.5 cubic feet) and placed them in the trunk for later.

We got home, still Eva-less, and I recommended we watch some Big-O instead, as I had been six episodes from the end of the sequel series.

Here's where Big-O scores several hundreds of thousands of El-Hazards for me, and Eva gets maybe seven or ten, depending on whether you watch the movies, or the last two episodes or the other movies, or whatever. The big joke of Evangelion is in part that they hid the word angel in the name, and here are all these other beasts that we're largely randomly calling angels attacking us in single-file, but oh, we have another joke! There's a part where some dude levels with the audience that the idea behind making this gigantic man-like biological construct was to put mankind into space in perpetuity, and explore or stick it to God or leave their mark or whatever. Meaning the nickname of the show, Eva, also a joke on NASA's term for space travel: EVA, extra-vehicular activity.
With Big-O, the story goes around the central idea that there are tangible memories of the past somewhere in the world-that-forgot that they live in. It is pretty and poetic and features Batman piloting a mech in place of whiny over-emotional teenagers. The series ends with Roger escaping an assassin only to face three weird-looking megadeuces coming in from the sea. America demanded a second series, so Cartoon Network obliged, and pulled perhaps the greatest joke of all time, better even than the Eva movie incorporating fan hate mail into their movie.
Hence Big-O II. The stage is set, and in response to the many questions and possible explanations that the first series provides, II poses further questions, systematically removing any knowledge you thought you had about what was going on, to the point where in the last episode, when you think they're about to reveal all, the likely explanation for what is actually happening changes about seven times in the final three minutes. Maybe more times than that, I'd have to count again. Finally Roger the Negotiator negotiates the right for the people of Paradigm to continue to live with the megadeuce embodiment of God on Earth, and convinces her, and the people go on, having forgotten what happened, totally reset, in the opening of Act 1 of the first series. This makes the show and its sequel, you guessed it, a Big-O, forever looping back on itself.

The infinite anime.

After finishing that off, I showed Bonnie and Steve (who had arrived halfway through my watching) my bounty of microbeads, and decided to proceed with the experiment I devised previously. With their help, I filled my air mattress with the three bagsworth of beads, and carefully vacuumed afterwards. Their power is Satanic, as I mentioned at least four times to Bonnie and Steve while they served as my extra hands. If ever you wish to harass and fascinate someone, make a bomb out of a bag of these and explode it in their home or office. The beads will cling to every available surface, each pushing his neighbor away. They crawl against gravity and fly whimsically in every direction, compelled to be everywhere at once. Folly lies in the path that leads a man to harness the Satanic power of these microbeads, but I wouldn't be a mad scientist if I didn't spit in the eyes of higher powers every now and again.

Also the vacuum helped.

So tomorrow morning I shall take a trip on my bike once more. This one slower and more calculated, I expect. That's if I wake up early enough to do so. Either way I should be free by afternoontime.

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