Damned If You Do...

Beware the Purple Fox

Vai Ser Difícil

The cautious exhilaration of a simple gaze...

“Reese” is the Word ’23

A side street gets its latest makeover

Menko 23: Ichiban Oikko

Classic City Arcade 0123

Mr Zack defrosting meatloaf... CC repairing closets... Granny Grimes visiting from LA... Mr Arthur buying mirrors... Groep Margriet’s DZ “going too far”... RIP to Orville systems analyst Rand Hugoe and former Men’s Lodge elder Mr McNairr...

Apocalypse Marketing: Anyone Can Do It

The entrepreneurial spirit that courses through the veins of man often recognises that even in the End Times (which mysteriously recur every other decade), supply must meet demand.
  From plague doctors in the Middle Ages, to Cold War bunker salesmen, to the Orville Corporation’s recent invaluable work combating the ConGaijin-20 virus, brave souls with a gusto for enterprise have come forward with timely solutions.

  Late 20th-Century Jared Gutts was well in tune with the angst of the time over the impending Y2K disaster. He knew deep down how miserable people would be dealing with power outages and food shortages.
  So he climbed out from his Gamer Cave and went up to the kitchen. He took some Cheery Oats cereal from the pantry and shook the box’s contents into as many plastic sandwich baggies as he could. He then put masking tape on each baggie showing the price.
  Come Saturday morning, Jared, with his grocery sack full of 50-odd baggies, found himself at the J&J Swap Centre where he rented a table with which to display his wares.
  “Y2K Emergency Rations — Only €2,00” read the hand-scrawled sign attached to the table that was covered with the cereal-filled baggies. Jared stood patiently as the swap meet’s crowds meandered by.
  “Any time now, I’ll start moving some product,” he thought to himself, no doubt with the betterment of mankind on his mind.

  People give Jared Gutts a hard time because he’s a basic ne’er-do-well, but maybe he really is a chip off Uncle Johnny’s block, with said entrepreneurial spirit coursing through his own veins. Maybe he does care about his fellow man. Maybe young Jared will go on to great things. Maybe.
  We just have to trust the process.

Workforce To The World: Orville’s SMR-01

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

In continuous service for almost 40 years, the Orville Corporation’s Standard Maintenance Robot (SMR-01) is being celebrated as the Earth standard in industrial maintenance as well as in specialised intel and reconnaissance functions.
  The development of the SMR-01 grew from many prototypes and consolidation of previous maintenance models, notably, its updated and improved design over the Orville LabVac-2 (LV-2r) as well as the MMW-1r. The Green Jīqìrén talismans of yesteryear inspired evolution of its interface and mobile chassis design.
  “There are very few robots in the world that can tout the distinct honour of being in service for 40 years. This is testament to the ingenuity and innovation of Orville’s designers, manufacturers and assemblers who created the SMR-01,” said Orville Sub-Director of Communications Charmaine Hugoe. “The SMR-01’s dependable programming will continue to serve the globe — and beyond — for many decades to come.”

Some of the SMR-01’s significant features are:
• Skill Focus for General Maintenance duties
• Manipulator appendages capable of wide variety of tasks
• Heuristic Multi-Processor for ensuring accelerated learning curve and customisation of intel modules
• Remote programming and control available for hazmat and biohazard theaters of operation

  In its 40 years, Orville’s SMR-01 has completed thousands of tasks for citizens, customers, and the occasional alien ambassador. Orville continues to innovate and make significant investments in research and product development. Orville recently implemented an expanded subsidiary structure to support their future growth, further enhance their strategic market focus, and expand their acquisition capacity throughout the galaxy.

Tiempo de Decisión

Same options as the Man of [F]Utility. Different outcome. ¿Casualidad?

Un Vantaggio sui Rimpianti di Domani

[Visual: Scarred and ravaged crania of our mutant inheritors transition wipes to the shattering of the earth’s upper mantle. (“Age of Dust”)]
Voiceover:
  The same ol’ story: Good Intentions and a devolving, self-consuming culture, etc. Indwelling essences shriveling up to leave a rotting carapace.
  Some claim unregulated and untested use of Quantum Time Portals™ are to blame for the multiple “messes” in the world of today.
  Of course, this was before Project: Horloge was initiated.
  People made a mess of Remembered History, and there was/will be major cleanups to [be] tackle[d]. In fact, most of these messes have yet to occur. Magister DeVault was pointing this out as early as Stratum I.
  There are tomorrow’s regrets, and we are only now just getting a head start on them.

Noctivagant 8: Carrefour à Pauskil

Get Outta My Way

Slobs of today can breathe wheeze easy knowing there’s little stigma in poor public behaviour. Thanks to The Experts, pathologisation has proven to be a useful social tool separating individuals from their own agency, so responsibility, self-control and even self-improvement are now seen as alien abstractions.
  Syndrome-this and Disorder-that are easy excuses that point to some perceived external locus of control as the Main Bogeyman, when in truth, nothing possibly could be more internal. Ah, the irony.
  Garden-variety gavones crashing the buffet queue can simply shrug and cop to Hangry Tubbalart Syndrome without the annoying guilt or shame needed to modify their own behaviour. Moving beyond the self to dependents, parents now airily explain that their foul-mouthed brats have Ill-Tempered Adolescent Disorder. And moving from dependents to the rest of society at large — well, everything else is Society’s Fault, right?
  Since responsibility and accountability (as well as the aforementioned guilt and shame) are concepts deader than Hector’s hounds, this leaves pharmacological avenues as our last recourse. No doubt Big Pharma is working on that perfect pill to cure our societal ills. After all, semi-adult day care can only do so much.
  Help us, Orville, you’re our only hope...

Menko 23: BB’s Man of the Future

Holy Reaction: Elektro-Rekoil

Missing Tech Recovered; Vice-Consul Indicted, Ambassador Acquitted

Jurgætioid Embassy Vice-Consul ‘Doc’ Braun has been apprehended and charged in a case of missing mind-transferral technology from the Jurgætioid Embassy in Heritageville on Earth.
  Private enquêteurs hired by the Orville Corporation (actually APF free agents) had remote-scanned Ambassador Magister DeVault’s Heritageville chancery last September, finding quantum signature traces of 39 Gist-Transfer Psy-Truncheon Manifolds — proprietary technology that Orville had reported missing. The ambassador was tending to his affairs on Jurgætium at the time.

  Upon arrival at the chancery, agents found no remaining evidence of the missing tech, but were able to decrypt a suspicious travel itinerary disguised as doggy scrip. Agents mobilised and intercepted transit shuttle Oborme on its approach to Firthsdale Spaceport where Vice-Consul Braun was arrested with the stolen mind-transferral tech in his possession.

Braun is currently in custody in an undisclosed location.
  Vice-Consul Braun is to be charged with Corporate Espionage and Conspiracy to Traffic Unregulated Technology, both Class III felonies under the United Planets’ Interplanetary Criminal Court.
  Magister DeVault has been cleared in all investigations and reinstated as Ambassador by the Grand Synod House of Jurgætium with full honours.
  “I want to thank my family and the Prime Imperator, but most of all I’d like to thank the Orville Corporation for clearing my name,” DeVault stated from his dacha outside of Jurgæpolis. “Now we can all get back to business running the galaxy.”

Noctivagant 7: Straßen von Sawnothing

Hwabyeong Balbyeong