Rants & Essays

To the Depths Hath I Sunketh

By Marcus Pan

DISCLAIMER: This is a Pan-level stream 'o consciousness type of story. Those of you that know me know when is a good time and bad time to read these types of things.  I've been awake for something like 32 hours and I can feel my brain twisting nonchalantly inside my skull. It feels good.  But that only lasts for about five minutes.  Hopefully I'll get through this post. 

REAL DISCLAIMER: Sorry, I digressed.  A no-sleep, Pan-level SoC is dangerous.  There are more segues and asides than you can shake a stick at.  Read carefully.  Drink your coffee first.

Good morning.  I'm watching my second ever sunrise o'er Park Avenue (South) today – second in as many weeks.  And I was sitting here looking at a bunch of recently printed pages which was the reason I'm looking at my second ever sunrise o'er Park Avenue (South) in as many weeks. 

A little bit o' recent historical Pan-type events for 'yas, as my recent return to these hallowed halls (hey, don't mind me – I've been awake for nigh on 32 hours) didn't really contain the preliminary delurk-type thing (relurk?  No...re-delurk) and was pretty much my sticking my nose into a thread hither and there and spouting something or other and then, hey, look, I posted I might as well keep reading...and posting...and read...well, all the other recent returnees can vouch that the curse is still in affect, but I digress.  

On to the historical Pan-type events.  Computer lab I ran at Quantex was doing fine.  Then the people who I worked with from higher on up moved on and the next in line was a guy I don't like.  So that kind of fizzled over a period of a few months and thusly I no longer am a PC engineer.  Those systems you may see occasionally as award winners over the past few months from Quantex/Cybermax/Pionex/et al. are not mine.  What?  You haven't seen many?  Well go figure... (guffaw)

I actually switched careers.  I have no clue how the hell I did it.  I just gathered up enough "well somebody has to do it I guess I will" type of knowledge points and walked in a place and they hired me as a writer.  Procedures, software manuals, that kind of thing.  It's not bad – and I get a bit of humor out of writing things that tells people what to do.  It's kind of a power trip.  So somehow I went from PC Engineer to being a writer.  And here I am.  In Manhattan.  At 6:07 AM.  Whatever...

Anyway, one of the papers that I alluded to earlier that is piled up here and 'tis reason I am sitting here at 6AM (and unable to get something to eat because the last schmecklehead to leave locked the elevator and didn't leave me a key, so if I go downstairs I can't get back to my floor...my breakfast was a Blow Pop.  Really.) happens to be a License Agreement.

EGADS I WROTE A FUCKING LICENSE AGREEMENT!  How many of us have cracked open a CD, or a piece of hardware, or anything these days that was sealed in something that was in font size 4 and said READ BEFORE OPENING?  Those things are JOKES!  And I've written one.  I feel so dirty.  I must cleanse myself.  So at the behest of Macross who I regularly chat with during the course of my new-career days, I have put, buried within the copyright paragraph, the following line.

"Use for any purpose other than as set forth herein is expressly prohibited by law, and may result in severe civil and criminal penalties. Violators will be prosecuted to the maximum extent possible and may be required to offer their first born children as compensation."

Ah.  Now I feel better.  It went to the Legal Department yesterday. Now, being a good boy, I only put that in there for the time being to feel better because, like I said, I WROTE A LICENSE AGREEMENT and therefore have sunk to the lowest pit of writing hell.  (sigh)  Comes with the job, but hell.  I still wrote it.  I have to take a few showers when I get home – icky.

Anyway, it wasn't SUPPOSED to.  But it went to the Legal Department yesterday.  Think they'll notice?  :)

Aren't you guys proud of me?  I shall warp the children in our own image.  MUAHAHAHHAA!

Originally posted in alt.gothic. - 3/10/00.