....

I don't want to talk about it.

I seriously don't.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe. Right now I just kinda want to curl up and die.

Okay, Okay

I'm off to try to talk to the Magma Monster down from his rampage. Or at least make sure "Molten Steel" is in too many pieces to come back from the dead this time.

Why is it I can't avoid doing good deeds? Oh, right, because I'm a sucker. More after this is over.

Man.

You people sure know how to take the fun out of my father being a giant magma monster. Yes, I know he's looking for me and yes, he's headed to New Vineyard. But, listen, he's moving at like a mile an hour. He's too heavy and goopy to move any faster. Before he gets anywhere near Lake Michigan, some hero or another will probably be able to find a way to stop him. And if he gets here? He's just going to solidify when he hits the water. Problem solved.

Next I'll get emails that are all, "blah blah blah, the monster's crushing small towns and it's all your fault." Well. Yeah. Okay, now I feel pretty guilty.

God damnit. Now I have to do something about this.

Judy just raised an interesting point, though. I never got the chance to settle things with American Steel. Maybe now I can have that chance. Hmmm.

Alright, I'll stop him. It seems Quizzer, Mississippi Grizzly and the rest are too incompetent anyway. Plus, it's best to get this over with before he starts calling out Eliza's name and Illinois gets ravaged by a psychotic nephilim fighting a mile-high Magma Monster.

What To Do If Your Father Turns Into A Magma Monster

In my case? Absolutely nothing. It's still not my problem. And it's kind of hilarious--former "defender of good" is now a threat to everything he's within several miles of. And he's fighting other superheroes while being said threat.

Maybe I should get some take-out. Popcorn's just not going to cut it with this level of entertainment.

It Never Gets Old

Man, watching this thing slowly move north while batting, kicking, and throwing magma at superheroes never gets old. I've been watching it a couple days now and it is grade A entertainment.

I wonder what it's yelling, though. I don't care what the news says, it's saying something. "Rice Chest?" "Christ Best?"

There's a strong "i" and an "-s" sound. Maybe that hiss beforehand is actuall an "s". It's almost like he's saying....

....oh hell.

He's saying my name. "Silas." I can't believe I didn't realize this before.

That's not just any Magma Monster. That's American Steel. My father.

My Agenda For The Day

1. Make a giant bowl of popcorn.

2. Sit in front of the news.

3. Watch all the heroes in the midwest try to stop the mile-high magma monster.

From The Headlines

"MILE-HIGH MAGMA MONSTER ERUPTS FROM RUINS OF OLD VINEYARD"

I was totally right.

Where I Have Been

So, apparently Mechanor reads this blog, because right after my last post, he showed up on my doorstep with a box full of future tools. I was right, he does need a tune-up. That's part of the reason he's been giving me pies and such. It still doesn't explain exactly why, but, hey, it's a start.

So I've spent the past week taking apart a robot from the future, trying to figure out what the problem was, and put him back together. Keep in mind, Mechanor was made eleven hundred years in the future, so there was a lot of head-scratching on both my and Judy's parts. However, after about a week solid of work, Mechanor's up and about. He's not exactly factory fresh, but I don't think he'll be delivering addresses to the metallic masses any time soon.

Also, those earthquakes have gotten so bad they're national news. Heck, we're feeling them up here. It's making the water a bit choppy. Maybe the engine hit some vile creature deep in the heart of the earth. We haven't had an apocalypse warning in a couple years, so this oughta be a nice change of pace.

What the Hell?

So, Mechanor got in a fight with Miss Atom today in a Best Buy down in New Mexico.

He was trying to "liberate" the PCs at the time.

Seriously.

He was standing in front of a bunch of computers and commanding them to rise up and join his mechanical army. Maybe something really is wrong with his mechanical brain. Maybe next time he's in town and gives me something baked I'll ask if he needs a tune-up or something.

I live

So, Judy made me leave the house the other day because I've been spending too much time on the computer. I mostly just strolled through the city. New Vineyard is a weird place to wander. I'm pretty sure there are no other completely new cities in the world--everything has at least a trace of what's come before. But even the land it's built on is brand new, as Brannigan manufactured the whole island more or less because they could. Some days I miss the old Vineyard, even though it was essentially a giant slum kept afloat only by the fact that both Arkady International and Brannigan had a strong presence there.

Speaking of Old Vineyard, the earthquakes around the Cataclysm Engine are getting a whole lot worse. I'm not quite sure why this is the case. Maybe convection in the mantle is finally pushing against it.

Maybe I'll get out today, just to do some villainy. It's been really nice outside lately.

Wow

That was...unexpected. Was anyone else blinsided by today's news? Seriously, Carmichael's dead in the water. Hell, his whole party's gonna go under. There's no way a viable, non third-party candidate's gonna show up now to oppose Jonathan Rake. Not that he could really be opposed beforehand.

And, of course, I'm suspicious. Evidence just pops up a couple months before the election that ties pretty much everyone within three degrees of separation of Carmichael and his Cabinet in with recent, not old hat, ties to Op. Mayhem. After that speech he gave a couple years ago, you know, the "Second Chance" speech, there's no way he can salvage himself. Hell, he'll be lucky not to have been impeached and sent to jail by election day.

I think, scratch that, I'm nearly positive he was framed. Whoever framed me and is trying like hell to get Rake elected, framed his opponent. The only real question I have is why. Rake's gonna win. I, hell, America has known this for over a year. Why go to all these lengths to make him not only the Good Guy but the Only Guy? It's overkill. It's political genocide.

Without a doubt, Rake is going to win the election. Whoever's watching over him is making sure of it. Does he even know?

It has to have something to do with the time Rake and Shasta went missing. I've stopped believing in coincidences.

Lord Grim=TOOL!

I stand by my statement. Lord Grim is a tool.

Y'see, someone seems to have linked him to my post about the wedding in which I call him just that in response to him firing my good friend Jack Knife because of Jack's sexual orientation. And then he had the gall to flame me.

Honestly, I don't really care if Lord Grim wants to call me by certain...racially charged insults about my Scottish/Irish heritage in an inarticulate, poorly worded email. The guy has spent his whole career trying to garner favor with Operation Mayhem. Hell, he only calls himself "Lord" because so much of Op. Mayhem is former royalty. He's flip-flopped on policies in the past because Lady A or DH has come out with official opinions that differed with his.

So, I'm not too worried about "Lord" Grim. Because for one, Death's Head is Irish. And for another, Tallow and Viridian Fang are, last I checked, both on the Operation Mayhem Admissions Committee and in an openly lesbian relationship with each other. And, hey, what do you know. I just called Grim a racist and a bigot on a public journal. One that I know for a fact at least Lady Anaconda reads occasionally. And, woah, Operation Mayhem actually likes me. And has called Grim a mild annoyance in the past.

Wow, sucks to be you, Grim.

Nothing New

I haven't been up to much lately. Mostly lazing around the base with Judy playing Hypno Bubble and editing CapeWiki. The Siluriformes attacked again. This time, Judy helped Quizzer repell them, not so much as to have the city, but more to get revenge for beiong kidnapped that first time they attacked.

Nothing much to report about Rake or Shasta. I don't know where I might find any security tape depicting either of them, and that's pretty much the only way short of eye-witness I'll be able to tell what happened then. Hm, that's a thought. Maybe I should check out some archives. Hopefully they've been uploaded to computer by now.