Realm of the InterNutter

Thoughts, stories and ideas.

Challenge #01390-C295: O My Mona

A soft smile hiding gritted teeth -- OohLookShiny

He called her Mona, for the smile that echoed the legendary painting. She never talked. Never opened her mouth. Never made a sound. The only communication he ever had from her was her soft and mysterious smile, and the glint in her eyes.

Not that he cared. He took his pleasures from her and left the money with the man who ran the House. But there was just something about Mona.

He came back every week. Then every day. And he decided that it had to be the twinkle in her eye. The smile, the perpetual, gentle smile, could mean anything.

But her eyes spoke of love. It said she wanted to be his sole source of pleasure.

He started coming at every free moment. Sometimes, he would sit and talk while she gently massaged his stresses away. Sometimes, it would be rough and ready rutting like sweaty animals.

She was good luck, he knew it. He got promoted. He had enough pay to take her home with him for a day. To his new home. With all its wonderful new bells and whistles. And a fancy new kitchen with everything she could want in it.

As always, Mona smiled. He saw her teeth, only once. When she found the carving knives. He didn't even know that he'd made a mistake when he saw how tightly they were clenched together. He didn't recognise the fire of anger in her face.

And he never understood her shrieks of rage as she sunk the knife into him again and again and again, until all there was of his white home was red.

He'd been good to her.

Hadn't he?

Why did she have to be so angry?

It had never occurred to him, nor to any man in his world, to give Mona a choice. But now she could choose.

She chose to run free for the rest of her life.

(Muse food remaining: 14. Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories! Or comment below!)

Fun times ahead

I've been trying to transfer my music files into #myphonebygoogle, with varying degrees of success. Our current, dropbox model has hit a snag, in that the phone must be active in order to download.

Google Pixel has a maximum activation period of half an hour. There is no 'never' option and no assumption that a user is clever enough to hook the phone up to a power source whilst that shit is going on.

I mean, come on, google. We were smart

Read more »

Challenge #01389-C294: Inevitable Failure

"Hey, I might constantly manipulate people to stack things in my favor, but actually cheating is pushing it a little bit too far," -- OohLookShiny

"It's like this," said the campaign manager. "We gerrymandered, and you're still losing. We've changed the voter ID laws, and you're still losing. We've criminalised a majority of the folks who would never vote for you, and you're still losing. We've sent out false messages about easier ways to vote to the youth demographic and you're still

Read more »

I am frustrate

On the continuing saga of New Phone Wat Dis(aka #myphonebygoogle), I have finally combatted the hassle of getting my music data onto my actual phone. The caveat being that the file manager in question will also play random shit that's content for games. We'll work around that when the time comes.

And speaking of workarounds... I did some 3D drafting for Bitzer's new hip handle, this morning. And once done, it should have been an easy matter to transfer those files

Read more »

Challenge #01388-C293: Cheerful Charlie

"No worries, Mate! No problem." -- Anon Guest

[AN: Other phrases that Aussies have learned to fear, especially those who remember Joh "I live to fuck up your life" Bjelke-Peterson, are "Don't you worry about that" and "She'll be right" ::twitch::]

If there was a worse curse for a ship's human, T'kethi couldn't think of a worse option than a N'Ozzie Engineer. T'kethi repeatedly set herself reminders to never again pick a human based on pure aesthetics.

They were all ugly, squishy

Read more »

#myphonebygoogle

I love that Google is cheeky enough to bring out a bigger, brighter, better phone than the iPhone7.

And I have to confess that setting up new apps to supplant the old ones I'm used to is a pain in the arse.

But the biggest pain in the arse is music. Porting ALL my music from iTunes is like unto a labour of Hercules. And it's not just because I own something like five weeks' worth of music.

No, it's because Apple

Read more »

Challenge #01387-C292: Ancient Wisdom

Measure twice, cut once, useful advice for anyone. -- Anon Guest

Rael knew he should have checked up on Shayde sooner. She had a knack for teaching new JOATs all the wrong tricks.

Chiefly: "Measure wi' micrometer, mark wi' chalk, cut wi' axe."

So, after hearing this, he simply had to barge in and defend his own honour. "The real adage, Trainee Melkith, is 'measure twice, cut once'. Ambassador Shayde labours under the misapprehension that she is funny."

"I was tellin' 'er

Read more »

Google Pixel!

So I'm a long-time Apple nerd, all the way back to the late eighties when I got my first Mac Classic.

But that time is past.

Basically because Apple repeatedly drops the ball by coming out with substandard crap and trying to market it as what the people want. If the people move, en masse, to a better product, then the companies will see what the people really want.

And better yet, I'm getting it for free because Telstra has an upgrade-your-phone

Read more »

Challenge #01386-C291: Anti-serendipity

"What happened to the scarf of invulnerability?"

"Uh... my cat ate it." -- OohLookShiny

The cat in question growled from its position under the ottoman. Yellow eyes glowed out from the shadows.

"The good news," said Ki'van, "is that the scarf itself is invulnerable. We... um... just have to wait a bit."

Now the growling from under the ottoman took on a slightly musical quality. So... the cat wasn't just pissed at him.

"I know she'll try to take my arm off

Read more »

Nothing to see here

It's hard to be entertaining when there's nothing to bitch about. Things are kind of okay.

I finally chatted with the counsellor people and got some useful advice to going forward with the whole mental care thing. As a result of having all that stress no longer important, my current energy levels are low.

Discoveries this week: Food is expensive. Especially the stuff that only diabetics are allowed to eat. Especially the recommended fish like salmon and tuna. We need to learn

Read more »

Challenge #01385-C290: Sys iPhus

"I'm sorry, I can't... I'm broken,"

"Is that what they told you?" -- OohLookShiny

The Doctor skidded to a halt in yet another room in the complex. There, a vaguely cylindrical robot went in a circuitous path, repeatedly fixing things that, ultimately, caused everything to return to its original state.

"Sysiphus," he muttered.

Holly stopped, too, almost blundering into him. She took in the scene and said, "Excuse me?"

The robot paused. "I cannot aid you. I am... broken. I must... fix.

Read more »

Glorb: It's what's for breakfast

So I usually call soup-and-bread-mush 'glorb' and is one of my very many horrible food choices.

But I've come up with a healthy one.

Two Weet Bix, one snack-sized tub of fruit, and enough almond milk to turn it all into moosh. Voila. Brekkie Glorb. At 995 kilojoules and whole grain goodness, it's the best start to the day that I can manage.

...and then I go and make my heinously over-sugared coffee...

But I am looking after myself. I even have

Read more »

Challenge #01384-C289: Well Why Not?

They've revived this show about MacGyver who could do almost anything with a swiss army knife and a roll of duct tape. -- KnitNan

[AN: The jury's still out on the new show. It's powered by more bullshittium than the original was]

The problem with improvisational souls like Mac was boredom. With nothing to do, nobody to battle, Mac would slowly gravitate towards junkyards and equally gradually fill his warehouse home with so much technological packrattus that Jack and Riley both worried

Read more »

Unexpected inconvenience

Today's sideways happenings are the direct result of a pupil-free day in both Chaos and Mayhem's schools. We found out about this via the radio because I never have the time to read the school newsletter.

Mayhem's school was empty of kids. Chaos' school was empty of kids. So long half an hour of our precious time, hello my little darlings having party time all over the house.

At least we got a walk in, this morning.

The local ants have decided

Read more »

Challenge #01383-C288: Default Fix

Imagine this 'go to' item [duct tape] had been lost and then turned up on Amalgam. -- Anon Guest

[AN: FYI, the titles you use on my forum for prompts do not survive my writing process]

Once upon a time, JOATs did not know about ductape. It seems impossible, but it was not as ubiquitous as it is today. Ambassador Harry was not the only one to come into Galactic society from the impact of the Chelete ship Explorer 255 and the

Read more »