Social Media Data Mining and Targeted Advertising

"People aren't the customers on Facebook, they're the product being sold."  

-Jennifer Golbeck

Just now while studying for an exam, I just came across an assignment that I completed last year and realized that people might be interested in it.  I think it's interesting anyway, and alarming at the same time.  The assignment was to watch a Ted Talks about  technology and summarize it.  I chose this one:  Ted Talks - Jennifer Golbeck - The Curly Fry Conundrum and you could easily just click on that link and watch it, or read my summary of it here.  Or both.  Or neither.  That is entirely up to you.   

Summarizing a Ted Talk About Technology

Zachary Wakefield

Ted Talks speaker Jennifer Golbeck gave a very interesting and thought provoking presentation titled "The curly fry conundrum:  Why social media "likes" say more than you think".  It was filmed in 2013 at the TedxMidAtlantic conference center in Washington, District of Columbia.  Golbeck is a computer scientist, and is the director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland.  She has been able to extrapolate enormous amounts of demographics data, behavioral patters, political tendencies, preferences etc. from social media sites.

Golbeck points out that there are 1.2 billion Facebook users per month, or about half of the entire internet community.  People post huge amounts of personal data online, and if filtered correctly the information is easily compiled into targeted demographics data that is very specific.  She makes a very interesting example of Facebook 'likes' on a page titled 'curly fries'.  As it turns out, people who 'like' the curly fries page are likely to be smart.  The reason is thanks to a few facts completely unrelated to curly fries (2013). 

First, she points out that people tend to be friends with similar people, i.e. smart people have smart friends, young people have young friends, etc.  As it happened, a smart person ('smart' as determined from a host of other criteria, of course) was one of the first people to like the curly fries page, so the news of that 'like' was broadcast to that person's friends, a few of whom clicked 'like' as well, starting a propagation through people with other similarities other than their mutual appreciation for curly fries.  Liking curly fries has nothing to do with being smart, it's just that people not in those circles of friends never saw the curly fries page pop up in their news feeds (2013).

Another example that Golbeck illustrated was of a teenage girl who started receiving specialized advertisements in the mail from Target for baby clothes, strollers, bottles, etc. well before she had prepared herself to tell her parents that she was pregnant.  Her demographics data had been compiled and algorithm kicked out her 'pregnancy score', which had determined that she was likely to be pregnant based on changes in her purchase habits.  The pregnancy score computes not just whether or not she's pregnant, but what her due date is, based on her purchase history.  Then the targeted advertising starts to swoop in.  The internet knew before her own parents, and she hadn't told anybody.  That's the power of the data extrapolation algorithms (2013). 

Golbeck raised concerns about the ease of which personal data is extrapolated, and suggested the possibility of alerting users of the type of data that could be gleaned from their 'likes' or posts before making the information public.  She admits that it will be difficult to wrangle control of personal data which is used by social media essentially as currency back into the hands of the users.  She goes on to mention the saying "…people aren't the customers on Facebook, they're the product being sold", which seems very true (2013).

While I had a small amount of understanding about what was going on, this talk was still eye opening.  I've seen it in action on my own Facebook feed; minutes after I did an Amazon.com search for geodes, Facebook tried to sell me geodes right in my feed.  While I appreciate a solid capitalist marketing scheme, it still frightens me a little knowing that people are so vulnerable to this method of target advertising, as if we don’t have money flying out of our pockets already.  

References

Golbeck, J. (2013). The curly fry conundrum: Why social media "likes" say more than you think.   Ted Talks. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/jennifer_golbeck_the_curly_fry_conundrum_why_social_media_likes_say_more_than_you_might_think#t-150455

A Piece of Life

A Piece of Life(1)

The bell tinkled gently on the corner of the door when Victor opened it, and again a moment later as it closed, accompanied by the low hiss of the pneumatic anti-slam mechanism.  The shop was quiet otherwise. Rows of waist-high shelves filled the room, their chipped white paint offering the last line of defense for the tired old wood that peered from beneath it.  The thick yet not unpleasant smell of things long unmoved, of yellowed pages and brittle binding glue, hung in still air.  In the window display an ancient rocking horse bearing the proud scuffs of a thousand imagined journeys watched with its meticulously hand-carved expression of stoic bravery the passing of hunched and hurried figures in the world on the other side of the glass.

There didn't appear to be anyone working.  Victor worked his way towards the register counter where a dusty glass display case dully refracted the sunlight from the window onto the side of a dented but probably functional toaster with a round white sticker upon which someone had scribbled "3".   The case was held shut with a copper clasp and kept secure with a small padlock.  Victor leaned over it and scrutinized its contents.  A pile of knives of varying sizes and purposes occupied the bottom shelf, and on the shelf above it an assortment of small decorative spoons were carefully arranged.  He squatted down and peered at the knives.

His nephew Isaac was something of a knife collector, and even at the tender age of sixteen had already amassed an impressive variety which he loved to display and talk about at every opportunity. Isaac's eyes always lit up when Victor gave him a new one.  Isaac seemed to understand:  A knife has a personality.  It has a story, a history, and even a destiny.  A knife might spend its days in the gnarled hands of an old man, methodically peeling statues of horses from within their wooden wombs or trimming excess line from fisherman's knots, the blade dwindling slowly in acquiescence to a hundred thousand draws across a whetstone.  Another might shine in the hands of a master chef while yet another is forgotten, slowly rusting in the back of a kitchen drawer.  For these, any presence of blood is an unfortunate side effect of a wandering mind.  Others are crafted for more sinister purposes.

Isaac would be happy with anything, Victor knew.  A large ornamental blade caught his eye for a moment, but it's purpose was inscrutable other than as decoration and he quickly dismissed it. Thoreau's disdain for useless brick-a-brack resonated in his mind.

"...I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, 

when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, 

and threw them out the window in disgust (2)."

Three pieces of limestone.  No; a knife without purpose would not an adequate gift make.  Nor would a broken one.  Here was a folding knife with rust spots, here was a hilt knife in a sheath with a pommel that was clearly loose.  Several were the result of shoddy craftsmanship and cheap materials, one was missing a rivet.  Chipped handles abounded.  Victor's hope dwindled rapidly.  There were a few knives in the back of the shelf that he couldn't get a good look at from his vantage point, and he cast around again for an employee who might open the case for him.  None appeared.  Victor gambled that whoever worked there wouldn't mind if he went around to the back of the counter for a better look.

Motes of dust swirled in the light from the window as he stepped around a many-tiered shelf full of snow-globes and music boxes.  As soon as he came around the back of the counter, he saw something that looked promising.  It was a fixed-bladed knife with a polished black handle and silver rivets.  The pommel and hilt were silver as well and elegantly crafted.  He couldn't see the blade.  If the blade was in good condition it would be perfect.  Victor stepped over to the body on the floor, and bent down to take hold of the handle.  He gave it a good tug but it was lodged in something.  He put his foot on the small of the dead woman's back, gripped the knife with both hands, and yanked as hard as he could.  The body lifted a little before the blade came free, and thudded back down stiffly when it finally slid out.

Victor wiped the blade off on the corpse.  It was in excellent condition.  A little dried blood was caked at the hilt, but he knew he could wash that off later with a little soap and water and the steel would shine again.  It would be as good as new.  He looked around briefly for a sheath, but didn't hold out much hope for it.  He had some leather working materials in his flat and was handy with them; he would make the sheath himself.  He could easily have it finished by Thursday.

Isaac would love it.

In the absence of a price-tag, Victor gave it a guess that seemed fair and left a few bills by the register before he pocketed the knife in his coat and turned for the door.  The light from the glass case had trekked from the toaster to a lower shelf containing a gorilla that had been carved from a coconut.  He hadn't noticed it before.  Victor added two more bills to the stack on the counter.  The bell tinkled gently again as left the shop and stepped out into the street, coconut gorilla in hand.  The sun was getting low.











1.  The term "A piece of life" is in reference to "The Sundog Trail" by Jack London.  It is a story within a story, both of which have no beginning and no end.  Something about that concept has kept me fascinated ever since I read the story for an English class in high school, so I thought I'd give it a go.  This is that go, for what it's worth.  

2.  The quote is from Walden, by Henry David Thoreau.  I've always considered that work to be a lovely example of how a guy can build a shack out of used lumber and then look down on people from within it.

Collaborative Short Story #2

This post is titled "Collaborative Short Story #2" because it is the second collaborative short story.  Collaborative short story #1 was not called "Collaborative Short Story #1", because at that time I did not know that there would be a second collaborative short story.  If I'd called it "Collaborative Short Story #1" at the time, that would have been like people calling World War 1 "World War 1" before they knew there would be a second one.  That would have seemed unnecessarily ominous to unsuspecting passersby.  

The last one, (Here's the link:  This Ought to Be Interesting) was a concerted effort between myself and my friend Laura.  This one will include a quasi-anonymous third party, henceforth known as "Mike", without the quotation marks.  Mike agreed to set the initial tone, and sent me the first section not ten minutes ago.  It begins: 

Part 1: The Aftermath

The sun shone through the window hitting Remy in the corner of his eye. Stirring ever so lightly, his left eye opened and he scanned the room. His head was pounding from the party the night before and his body felt heavy, weighted down.  He slowly started to raise his body out of the bed when he realized that his right hand was handcuffed to the bed and he was wearing a chicken suit, one closely resembling the suit Big Bird wore on Sesame Street.

Attempting to recall the prior evening events Remy’s mind went blank.  He tried to recall everything, anything, but nothing came to mind. Just then, the flush of a toilet resounded from the next room. As the door creaked open a woman exited the bathroom, scratching her butt as she slowly inhaled the smoke from a loosely lipped cigarette. Her hair was unkempt and laden with pseudo chicken feathers. She coughed and out flew a chicken feather. Remy was not sure what to do. The handcuffs prevented any attempt at escaping and the woman that walked towards him could have stopped a freight train in looks and body type. Fear ran through Remy as she moved closer. Her smile revealed a row of tooth unlike any other that had never been brushed or flossed.

Part 2 

“Hey, Bro! Rough night last night?” in a rough gravelly voice said Matilda. “You know I can’t keep up with you anymore.”

“How in the hell did I end up like this?’

“Hey! I am your sister but that doesn’t mean I keep tabs on every little thing like your sex life”

“Ha ha very funny, now will you help me out of this MESS!?”

Matilda got her spare key for handcuffs from inside the bra she was wearing for just such occasions.  She released her brother but that was the extent of her help as she found a robe to cover herself finally.  

Matilda started making breakfast and though Remy had a throbbing headache from the night before he actually and miraculously found himself hungry.  His sister handed him a drink “ A little hair of the dog that bit you bro.”  You could always count on Matilda even though her life was as much of a mess as she was.   Breakfast was bacon and eggs with fresh home baked biscuits, just like Mom used to make.  What’s his name stood in the door way to the kitchen, shot glass in hand still in his chicken suit. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get that what ever it is off and take a shower before breakfast gets cold.  

Remy grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and reminded his sister not to be smoking in the apartment as he left to go upstairs and take a shower.  ‘I just don’t remember shit’ he thought to himself.  ‘I think I must have been roofied’, trying to guess at what happened he stripped off the chicken suit deciding to burn it after breakfast.  The handcuffs he thought he might keep.  The hot water from the shower ran down in rivulets over his white body and it felt good.  The throbbing in his head stopped and he was beginning to think much more clearly.  He shook his head to clear the cobwebs and prayed he didn’t have sex with someone with aids or a monkey or something.  

It is tough, this dating game and you never know what the end result will be.  The missing girl in question didn’t even leave a note.  He couldn’t even remember what she looked like but he did vaguely remember a girl convincing him to take her home with him.  You might think he would learn from this experience but much like his sister not so much.  He is just healthier than she is.  Not as much drinking and no smoking and regular trips to the dentist. 

Matilda waited sipping her coffee.  She kept breakfast warm in the oven.  Her hair was a mess and she didn’t seem to care.  She has very little modesty but she hasn’t had much since she was a kid running nude around the house screaming like a banshee.  She may not be all there but she loves her brother and as a roommate she cleans and does laundry.

Remy encouraged his sister to do better for herself but she didn’t seem to mind being a house keeper for the hotel down the street.  She was able to pay her half of the rent so what was there to say really?  Matilda was nothing but reliable except when she got drinking and she is a roaring drunk.  Bawdy and degenerate.  Remy wondered how they could even be related.  He sauntered now dressed the stairs and drifted into the kitchen to eat his breakfast.  He looked at his sister and was ashamed at the thought he had but he would be embarrassed to be seen with her.

Part 3

Remy's eyes opened.  He was still in the bed.  A touch of panic set in as he checked his wrists, but he found that he wasn't handcuffed.  There also wasn't a chicken suit.  But his sister had been there... no, Remy didn't have a sister.  He was an only child.  Reality seeped slowly back into his brain like water through a clogged filter.  There had been no party.  No anonymous girl.  No roofies.  He hadn't left the house in days.  

Remy removed the alpha-wave manipulation device from his head and set it on the night stand.  He sat on the edge of the bed for several minutes not thinking about anything before he stood up and shuffled into the bathroom.  His reflection in the mirror blinked stupidly at him, so he made it pick its nose and they both grinned.  

A few hours later found Remy in Dr. Dmitri's office with the AWMD in hand.  

"This one kind of fucked me up" he said.  He handed the device to Dr. Dmitri.  

"How so?" 

"The dreams are too real... but they're not real, and it's getting harder to tell the difference."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you ever woken up, showered, brushed your teeth, left for work and then woke up again?"

"Yes I think most of us have experienced that to some degree."

"It's like that, except I'm never quite sure when I'm finished waking up, and which wake-up is the real one." 

Dr. Dmitri peered over his glasses.

"What about right now?"

"Especially right now."

An hour later Remy stood on the sidewalk outside and took in his surroundings.  Despite the bustle of the city, there was a heaviness to the air that made it seem as though everything was moving in slow motion.  The scrolling marquis outside the bank across the street said it was eleven o clock.  84 degrees.  Tuesday the 3rd.  Tomorrow they'd be expecting him to show up for work.  He hoped that the adjustments Dr. Dmitri had made to the AWMD would help.  

Part 4

The next day Remy woke up to his radio alarm. “I got you Babe” by Sonny and Cher was playing.  He looked at the clock and it was zero six hundred hours, Tuesday the 3^rd and it was still 84 Degrees.  He wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or if Dr. Dimitri’s AWMD was malfunctioning.  In an instant, a bright light blinded Remy as he felt himself levitating of off the ground, slowly twirling through the air, eventually landing on a cold metal table, stomach down.  He could see a reflection on the metal table.  It was Dr. Dimitri, no it was an alien; a small grey alien with some sort of long metal device.  Remy clinched his butt cheeks together as if to repel and invasive anal attack, but to no avail Remy felt the cold drip of Dr. Dimitri’s KY jelly as it squirted from the lube tube onto his backside.

As he prayed for some type of divine intervention Remy heard a loud rumbling laughter.  Dr. Dimitri pulled off his alien mask and screamed “April Fools”.  Remy was mentally exhausted. This AWMD tomfoolery was not appreciated nor was it well received.  Remy leaped off of the table to confront Dr. Dimitri.  It was then that he realized Dr. Dimitri had shrunk by three feet and was running toward Remy’s privates.  Before Remy could do anything, Mini Dr. Dimitri (Mini Double D) flung his arm upwards slamming his fist into Remy’s junk.  Bowled over in pain Remy was scanning the room for a Diminutive Dr. Dimitri (Mini Triple D).  He was going to kick some Diminutive butt when the pain subsided.

Remy slowly moved around and was unable to find the little junk puncher anywhere.  It was then that Remy realized that the stupid AWMD was still on his head.  He pulled that damn alpha wave manipulation device off of his head and found himself in his bedroom.  Was this all an illusion?  What has he gotten himself into?  As Remy looked at the clock he realized that it was 0859.  Shit! I am late for work. Off he ran. Unshaven, un-showered.

Part 5

Nickel Back was playing on the radio of a sharp looking, fire engine red Miata.  Remy was behind the wheel, the wind in his tousled sandy brown hair. Remy had no idea how he got here but at least his reaction timing was on par for he could have run off the road with the change.  With all the changes Remy realized it was a Theta Wave Manipulator that must start off with the Alpha waves of the brain.  This was dangerous shit and he had no idea how he got involved with such an experiment, he didn’t think it was something he would volunteer to do. Manipulating the subconscious and reality is like something out of Total Recall or the Bourne series. Not something that would be a part of Remy’s’ life, or is it?  If it was reality itself that was being manipulated or infinite possibilities being opened up we are talking Star Trek or Star Gate or something either way, dangerous shit!

Not knowing which reality he belonged was becoming a real pain in the ass.  The change happened again and he was in an air-conditioned apartment with leather sofa and matching chairs, a Kilim carpet on the floor to make a nice living area.    Remy chose to settle into one of the comfortable chairs, closed his eyes to meditate and he began having flashes of what he thought were memories of being in a dentist chair with restraints and a band around his head that had needles drilling into it.  He was screaming and they, whoever they were, injected him with what he assumed was a pain killer or sedative.

He shook the memories away not knowing if they were implanted or if it was reality.  Maybe there is more than one reality and when the Theta waves are manipulated you are open to the infinite possibilities of the choices you could have made.  Interesting theory but all Remy wanted was to find where he belonged and face whatever it might be.

Suddenly without warning Remy was in a hospital bed and very disoriented.  He heard a nurse say that there needed to be adjustments to his medication, but as far as Remy knew he sure as hell didn’t need any medication he just needed to get home, wherever that was.

He thought to himself, ‘Maybe I am delusional.’  That didn’t really bear any fruit not with all that was going on, it couldn’t all be in his head.

He was back at the apartment and feeling ever nauseous.  There was a knock on the door and out of curiosity or habit he went to answer the door.  He opened the door to a beautiful brunette that had legs that went on forever. She was dressed to the nines and looking at him as if he were out of his mind, “Aren’t you ready yet? We are supposed to be there in half an hour.”  Remy had no idea who this doll was nor did he know what in the hell she was talking about.

BAM-he was standing over a body.  Blood congealing on the floor and the flies seemed to be quickly finding their treasure trove of food to make larva.  His hands were covered with blood.  It looked bad, it looked very bad. There was a buzzing in his head and the nausea from the changes hit him harder this time and he was back in the dental chair a doctor yelling at him to calm himself there was nothing wrong that the experiment was successful but not over yet.  It passed for something quite realistic but then everything had so far.  He couldn’t remember his first memory before all this began.

He knew he didn’t have a girlfriend at the moment as much as he loved that reality.  She was a beauty, a queen, a goddess.  Then he was having flashbacks of fine drips of blood ran down his face from the fitted band around his head like a crown of thorns with all its many needles.  He heard the doctor beginning to speak but it was too late he was already at the party with the gorgeous brunette.  He was somewhat relieved, at least this reality seemed okay so far.

He was in the middle of a conversation he had no idea he was having and he just stuttered and managed to cover with not feeling well which was actually true anyway.  Remy was becoming alarmingly afraid of what was going on.  FLASH- Remy was now tied down to a medical bed with the side rails up.  A nurse was shooting something into his IV port on the back of his hand. “This will calm you down.”  She said in a kind voice.

BAM-back at the party he was having a smooth drink of scotch and boy did he need one.  He was alone in what appeared to be a den away from the hub-bub and milling about of the party. All this bouncing around from one reality to another was becoming much harder to bear and he wasn’t sure how much his body could take never mind his mind. 

Remy wasn’t able to tell what reality he belonged to any more now than before this started.  He was beginning to think he was delusional but that didn’t seem possible he’d always felt he was a stable kinda guy, when not bouncing from reality to reality virtual or not.  It was staggering to think that there were an infinite number of realities based on all the accumulated choices we make all throughout our lives.  It was more than Remy at this time could wrap his mind around.  Out of all the many realities if he had to choose he thought the one with the brunette might not be so bad.  He would even ask her to marry him, to keep her all to himself.

That was ridiculous of course he was still bouncing.  He was now in what he thought was a psychiatrists office and they were discussing his resilience to changing situations.  That sounded interesting.  Resilience would be needed not to go insane with the conduction of this experiment conducted on one human, himself.

Buzzing in the ears and the nausea preceded the changes now, so at least he had some forewarning.  It wasn’t much but it was something, anything to hold onto at this point was a good thing in Remy's eyes.  He found himself in a war zone, which couldn’t be he didn’t have the eyes for armed forces.  There he was shooting at some women and kids, they looked Iraqi but he wasn’t sure. His stomach tied up and knots and he vomited while bullets whistled past him and bombs left him nearly deaf.  This was no picnic but he figured it wouldn’t last long.  It couldn’t could it? 

All the other changes or shifts in reality never lasted very long.  Sure enough he shifted but this time he was at a BBQ.  He found himself a quiet spot in the den, sitting down in an easy chair he leaned forward putting his face in his hands.  He felt hopeless, lost and lonely.

Part 6

Deep breaths.  In through the nose, out through the mouth.  Out with the bad, in with the good.  Remy looked up from his hands and watched the room in which he sat waver and shimmer with a fishy sort of rainbow iridescence.  It was odd, he thought, that he didn't feel unusual at all despite the fact that what he saw was nothing short of psychedelic.  How long had this been going on?  How many jumps had he made?  Where was he?  The questions marched relentlessly through his brain without any answers forthcoming.  When he ran his fingers across his forehead he felt a row of tiny bumps at his hairline.  He needed a mirror.

Remy stood up and walked towards the window, and the floor rippled gently with each footfall.  The darkness outside was just dense enough for the weak light in the room to project his ghostly image on the glass, and he peered at it curiously.  The face that peered back was worried and gaunt, and looked older than he thought it should.  He leaned in closer, but the reflection wasn't in high enough definition for him to make out any bumps.  He felt for them again and couldn't find them.

Suddenly something just on the other side of the glass moved and Remy's eyes sharply refocused past the weary looking face in the window.  Two feet behind his reflection was another face.  His stomach jumped up into his throat and he flinched violently but he couldn't turn away.  They stared at each other.  The face didn't belong there.  It wasn't right.  It was a human face, but it was impossible to determine if the person was a male or female, or how old it was.  It had a smooth, ageless quality to it.  Remy felt suddenly that it had been sculpted by someone who had studied what humans were supposed to look like without actually having seeing one.

Whoever was behind the face knew that he saw it, and suddenly appeared slightly alarmed.  It moved backwards away from the glass and into the darkness, accompanied only by the percussive thumping from Remy's heart as it struggled to pummel its way through his rib cage and escape into the night.  After some time, and with considerable apprehension, Remy turned his back to the window to face whatever came next.  He felt different.  Something inside him had hardened.  A part of his mind had accepted chaos, and had come to expect it.

He inhaled deeply, and relaxed his body.  Something was going to happen.  He stood in the center of the room and waited.    

Part 7

Remy could not stop fidgeting.  He decided to look in the window one last time before the inevitable happened; so he thought. He looked at the reflection; as blurry as the image was he remembered that he sneezed on the window earlier. The reflection was a distorted self. Just then, the pain in his stomach grew stronger. The pain of something getting ready to rip out of his gut was frightening. As Remy braced for the pain and the unforeseen result, he farted.  The sound reverberated for at least one minute as a gaseous cloud escaped his posterior orifice. He gagged from the awful fumes that emanated from behind. He once again looked into the window and realized that it was cracked. Even that had a sound and stink threshold.

As the pain subsided, Remy realized that there was no creature ready to burst out of his stomach. The beads of sweat stopped dripping from his forehead just as the tears rolled out of his eyes. The smell that spewed forth from his bunghole melted the shower curtain and started eating away at the tiled walls. It was then Remy knew it was time to run. He ran so fast that all you could see was asshole and elbows as he escaped into the hallway.

 His pants started to deteriorate from the ass end. The heat that accompanied the deteriorating cloth was hot enough to melt a frozen hot pocket. Although the smell was long dissipated, the heat did not. Remy’s asshole was hotter that the inner core of the sun. Right then he wished that a creature did burst out of his gut. At least he would be dead and not have to suffer the heat of a thousand suns burning his bungie. As Remy ran down the hallway he was praying that the Gamma or Theta waves would shift and wake him up to a new reality, a reality that did not include a burning asshole. The last time he felt this bad is when a college friend dared him to stick a ghost pepper up has butt during a frat party. That ghost pepper gag seemed like a frozen ice cube compared to what was going on now. Remy was running, running to a place that had lots of ice.

Remy ran down the street and remembered that there was a store house that contained big blocks of ice 2 blocks away. The tears rolled down his face as he ran. He prayed that he would not fart out of fear that a resulting explosion could render the neighborhood obsolete. He clinched his butt cheeks together as he ran. He looked like a long legged penguin running from a polar bear if you can imagine it. Finally making it to the store house, Remy located the nearest blocks of ice. Within seconds the entire ice stores were melting, water levels were rising, could this be the beginning of a global catastrophe?

Only time will tell………….

Part 8

Remy clenched ever tightly his posterior sphincter still praying that another fart wasn’t building up but he was beginning to cramp up and Lord knew what was about to happen.  The water levels didn’t change so perhaps it was merely his flaming ass that caused the minor disaster.  Remy was holding his ass and squeezing his sphincter when reality changed yet again. 

            ‘Honey why are you squeezing your ass?” The blonde woman asked with a look of puzzlement.  Remy couldn’t answer but instead sighed in such relief for his bung hole was no longer a threat to human kind, at least not right now.  He discovered he was fully clothed in this reality and dressed to kill.  James Bond couldn’t do it better.  Suave, sophisticated and debonair were words that came to mind. Still the blonde woman looked at him as though still waiting for an answer.  He had none.  No answer that could be believed by anyone in any reality except for one he hoped. He hoped he would get back to the one.

            He gave the blonde a weak smile and adjusted his tie in the mirror of the bedroom he had landed in.  She seemed appeased at the moment and went into the living room Remy suspected.  He was about to join her because she was smokin’ hot and well who wouldn’t want to do anything and everything with her. She seemed nice too.   Too late the shimmering began to happen again and he rushed to  the mirror and saw the ghostly face once more but still somehow distorted.  It was rippling like old television used to do.

Remy went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on his face. The change was so subtle but the woman who entered into the bedroom was a red head and she was pissed.  “Aren’t you ready yet? God, you are worse than a woman! Hurry the fuck up would ya…”  Remy thought she was beautiful but couldn’t abide by her mouth.  Luckily he shifted into yet another reality.  How long was this going on, how long would it continue.  He was beginning to forget who he once was.

            It was becoming too much but as long as he didn’t fart again maybe things would be OK.  His brain felt like mush.  He couldn’t tell for sure anymore where he belonged or if he ever knew.  He was, however, wondering if he was being observed by aliens and they used windows and mirrors were portals where they could observe. NO that couldn’t be it…

Part 9

"Side effects may include violent and uncontrollable bowel evacuations and toxic clouds of face-melting ass-mist."  It was the distinctive voice of Dr. Dmitri; quiet and subdued, but flawlessly articulate and indicative of great intelligence.  

"In fact," he continued, "administering these substances to patients centuries ago is what prompted them to consider adding lead to paint."
"I don't understand" said a second, unfamiliar voice.  
"Have you ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark?"
"Yeah.... oh... damn..."
"Yeah.  It's like that."

Remy wanted nothing more than to sit up and get some answers, but he found himself unable to move.  He had a metallic taste in his mouth that reminded him of his college days, when an admittedly unreliable source had informed him that sucking on pennies prior to taking a breathalyzer would fool it.

The realization that something had triggered what appeared to be an actual memory startled him and forced his eyes open.  They were a little crusty and he instinctively tried to reach up and clear away the schmutz, but he found his hands fastened down.  He tried to move his feet and found that his legs were fastened down as well.  He couldn't even turn his head.  A panic set in and Remy began to shake violently in an attempt to free himself, but the restraints held.  Tears of frustration began to flow, and he let out an agonizing sound that reverberated from the metallic walls of the sterile room.

"What do you want from me!?" he wailed. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" asked the squirrel that was seated on the bench next to Remy.
"...um..."
"Dude," said the squirrel, "get your shit together.  You're freaking me out."

"I've never seen it like this before" said Dr. Dmitri's voice.  "It's like he got lost in there."
"Can he get out?" said the other voice.
"I'm not sure what he's going through, but it is definitely significant."
"Is there anything we can do to help him?  Wait, what the fuck!  Where is he?"

The last words touched Remy's brain with a distant, almost imperceptible quality, as if they had been shouted through hurricane force winds a hundred years ago and the ghostly remnants of those ancient vibrations just now tickled his ear drums.  He felt his physical body moving somehow out of where it was, almost floating.  It was different this time.  There was no nausea, no confusion... he was as lucid as he could ever remember being.

Part 10

The sun shone through the window hitting Remy in the corner of his eye. Stirring ever so lightly, his left eye opened and he scanned the room. He realized a few things one, he was within the confines of what resembled an wooden baby crib, two everything seems bigger than normal, three, he smelled poop and an overwhelming liberating sense of relief. Off in the distance he saw what looked like a mirror. He strained to lift up his head to look at his reflection. Remy noticed that he was a baby wearing soiled pampers and he felt hungry. He could think rationally, but he could not speak. No words would form from his lips. The only thing he could say came out as gurgling noises. Suddenly frustrated, Remy began to cry. Within a few moments a rather large woman entered the room and started to speak. Oh my goodness my little man you pooped your diapers.

Remy couldn’t believe it he was a grown man in a baby’s body. What would he do now? He had no control over anything he was at the mercy of this woman. As she peeled off his diaper the cold air rushed in and cooled his little man bits. Immediately, he felt a need to urinate. Struggling with his inner voice Remy finally concluded that he must do what baby’s do and let the yellow stream go forth on its own. The stream of pee jetted through the air and whizzed past the woman’s nose. She took evasive maneuvers and flipped Remy over only to be greeted by the dark brown mass of smelly poop. Remy smiled, he was almost giddy with laughter. He couldn’t believe that being a baby could be so much fun. Pooping his pants then peeing in midair. The woman was in a panic. Not knowing what to do she held Remy outwards as he sprayed the room with a steady stream of pee. Once he was done the woman cleaned his butt and put on a new diaper, then laid him down in the crib.

He felt clean again, but he did not want to be left alone so he did the only thing he could think of to get the woman’s attention. Remy began to cry. Immediately the woman picked Remy up. “Are you hungry my little man” asked the woman? Remy stopped crying and smiled. Without warning the woman sat down on a chair and whipped out a huge breast. Remy smiled again. He would have to remember that crying equals a boob to the face. He was in heaven.

Remy couldn’t remember the last time he had so much fun sucking on a woman’s breast. He only wished that he was a grown man again and that he could continue to do what he was doing as a baby. He thought to himself if I ever get big again I am going to poop my pants and urinate all over my room just for the fun of it. As he continued to suck on the woman’s breast he slowly felt sleepy, slowly fading into a deep sleep that would take him who knows where.

Part 11

His eyes didn't open, and they didn't need to.  An expanse of light spread throughout his consciousness like pancake batter continuously poured onto a hot skillet.  He was acutely aware of the fact that time was not advancing at all; that even as his mind explored the concepts of the reality presented to him, the neural synapses and whatever other tiny electrical impulses involved with doing so happened without any congruent timeline being necessary.  It might be argued he thought, in what can only be described as an instant but which in fact was anything but, that if something takes no time to happen, then it doesn't actually happen.  It already is.

Remy didn't ponder it.  He payed attention instead to his physical self, and the senses that came along with possessing such a thing.  A slight concavity had appeared at the tips of his extremities, as if marbles were being pressed into his skin.  He didn't see them, but he knew the depressions were there and that they were deepening.  It didn't hurt.  He wasn't alarmed.

The concavities grew deeper to the point at which bone and tissue should have begun to resist, or begin angrily firing pain signals to his brain, but they didn't.  The effect was reminiscent of the experience of pushing one's finger into the end of a long balloon, only the balloon never swelled in response to the increased pressure or ran out of elasticity.  Remy's fingers disappeared inside of themselves.  His hands followed, and slid up into his arms until he found himself reaching his own chest cavity where the two inverted hands should have touched somewhere in the vicinity of his heart, but they didn't.  His toes and feet had behaved similarly, and he felt as if he had recently exfoliated and was sliding between freshly washed 1500 thread-count sheets.

No time passed.  Remy's physical presence in the universe vanished within itself as if it had never occupied space there, and left no vacancy or vacuum in its wake.  He was aware of this.  He was aware of everything.  He was nowhere, and he was everywhere.  The borders and limitations of time and space were irrelevant.  Remy didn't exist.  He didn't exist more than anything had ever failed to exist throughout the entirety of everything.  He was freed from the usual fetters of non-existence in such a way that he could enjoy it.

And Remy did.  Or does.  Or doesn't.  He never said.

The End.  

Ember

I pulled into her driveway and skidded a few loose pebbles towards her mailbox.  The flag was up.  I wondered if it would leave skid marks and make her neighbors think I was some punk.  It also reminded me that I needed to do some laundry when I got home.

I kid. 

I'd never been to her place before and was worried that I wouldn't be able to find it, but the sticky note full of hastily written directions had done me right.  The porch light was on.  I headed up three worn wooden steps and stood with my finger on the doorbell-button for a second.

I took a breath.

It had been quite some time since I'd gone on a date.  For a while there it seemed like I was out on dates all the time.  A few times they had panned out into fun if not lengthy relationships, most of which ended abruptly and without much explanation as to why.  A couple of them had just sort of petered out.  I worked a lot.  Too much really.  I was a fairly responsible guy, yet I never seemed to have any money.  I had about eighty bucks to my name that night, and all of it was in my pocket.

I saw the shadow of her feet pause for a second on the other side of the door.  She opened it and smiled.

"Hey!" she said.  "Come on in!"
"Thanks" I said.

I went in.   I kicked my shoes off on the mat next to hers just inside the door.  The only hole in my sock was on the bottom, so I didn't worry about it too much.  She bustled around doing whatever it is that girls do when they bustle around.  Her feet made no sound on the hardwood floor when she walked, and she slid in her socks at every opportunity.

I nosed around in the pictures above her mantle in the living room.  She poked her head in the doorway..

"You want a beer?"
"I'd love one, thank you."
"That's my brother"
"Hmm?"
"In the picture there with me, it's my brother."
"Oh right, yeah I can see a little resemblance there."

She went and got us each a beer, and I  admired how gracefully she moved.  She was small, and there was a certain strength about her.  A fluidity.

I'd admired her for some time.  She was a waitress at the best strip club in the city, and for months I'd found myself looking forward to going there just so I could see her.  (note 1)

Eventually I asked her for her number.  It wasn't completely random,  I'd been in there enough to have established a little rapport with her.  I was polite, tipped well, and had made her laugh once or twice.  She gave me the number.  A week later, there I was in her living room.

She had a place she wanted to go; a bar somewhere near her house.  I failed to come up with anything more interesting that going out for dinner prior to that.  I took her to a steakhouse.  A good one.  She told me that she thought it was cute that I bit my lip when I was nervous. (note 2)  I was mesmerized by her face, and by how tiny and energetic she was.  She had a genuine and intoxicating smile that was crooked in the most adorable way.  

It cost every penny I owned.  It wouldn't have, but she looked at the tip I was leaving (which wasn't skimpy; I was trying to impress her with my generosity) as if it were somehow insulting (it wasn't).

I tipped our waitress like a mafia don. 

We went to the bar.

"My treat" she said.  
"Thank you" I said.  I was a lot more grateful than she probably realized.  I had not figured out how I was going to pull that off.

She was forward and flirted with me unabashedly.  I was not prepared for it and reacted weirdly enough that at one point she actually said "I am flirting with you!"  I had not realized that.  Her confidence and comfort with the situation were outside my capability to fathom.  (note 3)

We drank beers, and drew on a one dollar bill which I then thumb-tacked to a beam on the ceiling alongside hundreds of others.  (note 4)  She invited me back to her house to hang out and throw darts.  I accepted.

"We should knock over a 7-11 on the way" I said.
"Yeah!" she said.  "Then we can cut each other up and have wild bloody sex!"

We both laughed, but I became fascinated by that imagery and couldn't get it out of my head.  No one had ever said anything like that to me before.  I worried about blood borne pathogens.

We threw darts at her house.  She had some paintings that she was working on, and showed them to me.  She was talented.

"We should hang out in our underwear" she said.
"We totally should" I agreed.  (note 5)

We made out all over the house.  We drank wine and exchanged anecdotes.  We laughed, we shared secrets.  I will never understand why I failed to remove my pants.   I just... didn't do it.  I wanted to.  She told me I should do it.  I just didn't do it.  I cannot explain this. We fell asleep tangled up on the couch.

In the morning, I left.

I never saw her again.



Note 1
Once one of my idiot friends snagged a beer from her tray and threw it off balance.  She almost dropped the whole thing.  I thought she was going to punch him in the face.  It would have been pretty awesome if she had, actually.  He needed a good punch in the face.  He still does, come to think of it.

Note 2
If I do that, I've never noticed it.  She's the only person in my life who ever pointed it out.  I wonder about that.

Note 3
I wonder if it was because she interacted with grown men in a strip club for a living.  I literally just thought of that.

Note 4
Many of the dollar bills say simply "Fuck you".  I've seen a few bars with the same interior decoration, the most interesting if which, in my humble opinion, was the Salty Dog Tavern on the spit in Homer Alaska.  Something about the place endears it to me. 

Note 5
Oftentimes it may not be as brutally obvious as to the exact perfect time during a social interaction at which ones pants ought to be removed.  I enjoy the luxury of that precision in this case.  It was at this exact moment that I should have removed my pants.

Kansas 2014 Severe Weather Impact Analysis

This was something my friend and cohort Dan and I came up with in answer to an office email regarding a severe weather analysis.  I keep reading it and giggling like an idiot, so I figured I'd share. 

Introducing:  

Kansas 2014 Severe Weather Impact Analysis

Shark sightings are up from the normal seasonal high of 0.0 when Bertha C. Bottom spotted three of them with her one good eye. 

Robin R. Railhead from Stockton, Osborne, and Beloit caught a hailstone in his under bite the size of a small Volkswagen and was unable to eat squash through a picket fence for two full semesters.

The shortest baseball inning in history was played in Kingsley Kansas on 14^th of August, when Jerry Wasnooski hit a grounder and was thrown out at first three times by baseball sized hail before he could get there. 

Additionally, one report in Ulysses of “Basketball-sized hail” turned out to be a false identification of an actual basketball. 

Regina Toadstool from Garden City was out catching snowflakes on her tongue and run into Jethro Bodine’s Flagpole.  She got good and stuck, they was able to get her loose but a local man’s dog thought she was a fire-hydrant in the meantime and her feet were frozen to the ground until late February. 

Elwood Cottonmouth of Bellville was scraping a skunk carcass from the road with a snow-shovel and got run the heck over by a speeding cumulonimbus.  He is recovering well at a CVS minute-clinic in Southern Kentucky, where it finally stopped. 

Jimmy R Flatbasket in Marion Kansas was out mowing his front yard.  Straight line winds made an Easterly turn on 3^rd St. and blew one of them fancy wind barbs right into his thigh.  He’s been limping ever since.

The winter consumer response to local targeted advertising in Lyons Kansas proved to be a disappointment to the Buford family, who own and operate the largest outfitter of downhill skis in the 67554 zip code. 

Ernie “Twinkle-toes” Thunkerson, an enthusiast at a Wyatt Earp look-alike convention, fired his six-shooter in Dodge City and wound up hitting his partner in Abilene.  Eye-witnesses on the scene reported that the wind had been so fierce it had blown three local women’s mustaches clean off, and to the north east they had to change the  name of “Great Bend” to “Great Straightaway”.

Meanwhile Aunt Betty  in Parker Kansas had a little trouble with high winds herself, when neighbors three streets down kept complaining about her cabbage eating and eventually contacted local authorities. 

There was a small area of isolated rotation when several occupants of Lola failed to properly negotiate a recently installed traffic circle and damn near starved to death before being rescued by EMS. 

The Kansas Jayhawk was thrown into the pokey in Oakley on the 23^rd of October.  He was traveling from Manhattan to Goodland when he got hit by an updraft that ripped off all his feathers.  86 year old Thelma Lou of Hayes fainted when she saw it.  During an interview the Jayhawk indicated that his stay at the “Oakley Pokey” had got him all turned about.   

During a dedication of a memorial for town founder Marty McFly, lightning struck the clock tower and sent local man of the same name back in time, where he founded the town.  Area flatlanders historically claimed that McFly had been out of his gourd on sunflower-seed hallucinations, as Hill City’s highest elevation is 2’6” above sewer-line level. 

An investigation of record breaking rainfall was initiated in Overland Park on April 10^th, when Cletus Crabknuckle measured 14” of rain from a single downburst.  It was proven to be a false measurement when it turned out he’d measured the water in Maude Clod’s porch bathtub, with her in it.  There was only a quarter of an inch of water in there once she got out. 

On February 28^th was recorded the longest full moon in the history of Atchison, when Jerry B. Dumpling drank four bottles of potato vodka and got his cheeks stuck in a round window on the seventh floor of the Hyatt hotel and suites.  Once firefighters stopped laughing, it took four hours and a plumber’s helper to get him loose.  

25 Curses For The Modern Age

Thou Shalt Surely Woe

May your credit card numbers fall into the hands of telemarketers 

May you be plagued by persistent itchy butt-hole

May your knuckle hairs never stop growing

May your Facebook friends forever post terrible pictures of you

May you never be certain about whether or not it's a fart that you're holding in

May you be kept down by "The Man"

May you be laid over for long periods of time at Newark's Liberty International airport

May your coffee be bitter and cold

May your undies be confiscated by Safety Kleen

May rude teenagers sit behind you at the movies

May a red shirt sneak into every load of whites that you do

May your Twitter feed be followed only by death row inmates

May you find half a cockroach at the bottom of your french fries

May you always feel as if you have to pee

May your best dreams be invaded by Judge Judy

May an Instagram photo of your toe fungus go viral

May you inadvertently piss off the Hell's Angels 

May a mangy cat mark its territory on your toothbrush

May your toe poke through a hole in your sock all day

May your neighbors septic tank back up into your hot tub

May a stray Rottweiler fall in love with your leg 

May pigeons target you specifically

May you be viciously audited by the IRS

May you stub the same toe repeatedly

May your uni-brow be thick and bushy