June 13, 2014
So, as many a starving artist has done in their darkest hours, I went into the sketchy part of town looking for sketchy girls.
“Hey there, sailor,” said one, who was nothing more than circles drawn over a rough framework below the waist, only partly detailed and colored. “Wanna finish me?”
June 12, 2014
Warnewts was released late in the lifespan of the 8-bit Musjido Multimedia System (MMS). A mash-up of ideas from then-popular arcade brawlers and Saturday morning cartoons, the game retailed for an astonishing $79.99 due to battery-backed memory and a custom chipset, but it was well worth it to most gamers in the fall of 1992. With the next-generation 16-bit systems still at the height of their prices and a massive base of installed MMS users, Warnewts was viewed as a way to get a near-16-bit experience on an 8-bit console.
Some facts quickly became apparent: the original developer, Makhar Studios, had gone bankrupt just before the end of the game’s development, meaning that the company that released the game had no access to the source code. This led to Warnewts being shipped with some serious bugs that could not be easily fixed, like the infamous “Level 4 Platform Crouch-Punch.” The game was also incredibly hard and unforgiving, with three lives and three continues and dozens of instant death traps per level. Even with an optional built-in cheat to increase the number of lives and continues to five, beating the game was considered a mark of the highest video game artistry in the spring and summer of 1992. Third-party cheating devices like the Game Grimoire wouldn’t work properly with Warnewts‘ custom chipset, either, forcing an unprecedented outpouring of honesty from gamers.
The ending of Warnewts, much like that of Ghasts n’ Gargoyles, promised that a “true” ending could be unlocked, though whether do to a bug or design the ending did not specify what actions had to be taken and simply returned players to the title screen at its conclusion. Rumors swirled that this ending could only be unlocked by completing the game with no lives lost or continues used, a seemingly impossible feat.
In August 1994, the first claims appeared that a player had met the conditions to unlock the secret Warnewts ending. Less than a day later, a reporter from Musjido Elite magazine visited to confirm and take screenshots.
The found the player in the local morgue.
June 11, 2014
CARL: This is Carl Drake, play-by-play commentator for NBS Broadcasting, and we are live at the National High School Varsity Cheerleading Championships, simulcast on NBS Sports 2, pom~pom.com, and Hajji al-Janābah TV in the Kingdom of Hejaz.
TOM: That’s right, Carl. This is Tom Hicks, color commentator for NBS Broadcasting, wondering what sort of sins you and I must have committed in our previous lives to draw such an assignment.
CARL: It’s the off-season; we do what we must to pay the mortgage and the alimony, and our chatter lends an air of authenticity to what many regard as a quasi-sport. And are you saying that you’re uncomfortable watching 1800 18-year-olds doing acrobatics in attire best described as “risqué business?”
TOM: That’s right, Carl. Not for any physical defect these finely sculpted, starved, and surgery’d beauties might exhibit, but rather because watching their cavalcade of toned gams makes me feel like a dirty old man peering into the ladies’ locker room through a knothole.
CARL: In that case, Tom, you’re in luck: our next squad up after the Hopewell High Cheering Grizzlies is the Lancaster County Consolidated Rural School District’s Solemn Adherents. As you can see, the entire school district is made up of Old Order Amish, but that hasn’t stopped their team, the Passive Solemn Adherents, from making it all the way to state five times in the past 20 years.
TOM: That’s right Carl, it would be hard to mistake those starched bonnets and homespun dresses for the miniskirts and flying buttress blouses favored by the other competitors. I see some concessions to modernity though: the dresses are dark purple rather than flat black, have the LCCRSD logo and Peaceful Cornhusker mascot cross-stitched on, and the dresses are a full, and scandalous, one inch shorter than usual.
CARL: We might see some flashes of ankle, Tom.
TOM: That’s right Carl, we might.
June 10, 2014
“Wow, it’s a hidden world…straight out of Rowling,” said Jennie wonderingly.
“It’s nae hidden,” chirped what was possibly a goblin in overalls who was passing by.
“What?” Jennie said.
“I said, it’s nae hidden, ye deaf clay,” the goblin said again in a thick brogue. “Do you hae any idea how hard that’d be? There’s nae better way tae get something on th’ front page o’ th’ Times than trying tae hide it!”
“So how come I’ve never heard of it?” Jennie said defensively.
“Oh, I dinnae ken. Could be that most clay are too daft and stupid tae see! The clever ones can. Look over there! Mrs. MacCreedy comes here every Tuesday tae buy turnips, and she’s as clay as ah pottery class!”
June 9, 2014
“You always get the forecasts for your area in ahead of everyone else,” said the intern. “How is that?”
“It’s easy,” said Burt, theskywatch.com weather forcaster with authority for the Deerton-Cascadia-Hopewell quadrangle of lower Michigan. “I just feed my area the Detroit forecast.”
“Really?” the intern said. “How’s that work?”
“Easy. The city’s close and it’s big, so anything it gets the little guys will get. Worst case, people get the rain ten minutes earlier than they would have or prepare for some lake-effect snow that never comes. And if anyone notices anything, well, it’s not an exact science.”
“What if the weather’s different enough that it makes a difference?” the intern said gravely.
“Never happen.”
“You sure about that?” The intern turned a monitor to face Burt. “F4 TORNADO TOUCHDOWN IN TECUMSEH COUNTY NEAR DEERTON.”
June 8, 2014
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June 7, 2014
It is well known that the fallen Dark Lord Muolih is and has always been incapable of creation ex nihilo unlike his sire and target of his ire the Creator. As such, he has only ever been able to alter or to copy, never to create. This is best known as the origin of the Gobs, created in imitation of and opposition to the Fairies of the Creator, and hence why said Gobs are known for their suicidal self-loathing.
But it not wholly in the area of life itself that the Dark Lord Muolih found himself unable to craft anything that was not a vile mockery of the Creator’s efforts. In an attempt to recreate the sumptuous and heavenly feasts at the table of Cubaeh, Muolih sought to give his chief chef Phonru (a fallen being who had once served Gyfeil the Gourmand) recipes worthy of the Creator’s table. In this effort he failed; Muolih’s concoctions as realized by Phonru were edible, even nourishing, but they were never more than hollow and dark echoes of the delights heaping the table of Cubaeh.
The most notable, and notorious, creation of Muolih in this regard was his attempt to craft a chocolate chip cookie. Said cookies were foremost among the fancies of Gyfeil the Gourmand and touched directly by the Creator; Muolih’s efforts to craft his own were a dismal failure. And so came into being oatmeal raisin cookies, made by the Dark Lord in envy and mockery of chocolate chip cookies much as he made Goblins in envy and mockery of the Fairies.
June 5, 2014
The cell phone call was routed to the interactive dash of the car Ilion had just hijacked. Well, “hijacked” is perhaps not the best term: rather than smashing a window and hotwiring, Ilion had used an unsecured wireless network to pinch the car’s authentication key to command it to unlock and start. It was an electric, so all that was needed was to find another unsecured, or easily breakable, car before the other ran out of charge.
“Ilion? Can you hear me?” It was Cherril’s voice.
“I can year you, Cherril,” said Ilion, “I’m a little busy right now.”
“Please, Ilion…please stop this,” Cherril said. “Stealing cars, crashing servers…do you have any idea what you’re doing to people who had nothing to do with anything? How many innocent people could get hurt?”
“They’re part of a corrupt system,” Ilion replied. “I was in IT long enough to know that a compromised system can’t be fixed without some damage. I’m striking back with the tools that I have available.”
“But…do you have any idea how long it’s been? Ho much has changed? You’re lashing out at a system that isn’t the same one that killed them, at people who weren’t here and may not even have been born when it happened!”
“Are you going to tell me the system’s gotten better since then?” Ilion’s car weaved and dodged through traffic, causing horns, fender-benders, and a collision that did not look survivable in its wake. “Time is meaningless. If you leave it alone, a system doesn’t heal, it festers.”
“Illion, please…stop what you’re going and come to us. We can help! It doesn’t have to be you against the world.”
“The world is just data points and networks, Cherril, pathways to get me where I need to go and help me do what must be done. If you know anyone that you don’t want to be hurt, tell them to stay off the streets and pull out their landline.” The connection clicked dead.
“It didn’t work,” Cherril sighed. “I’m sorry.” She turned to look at officers of the cyberterrorism task force assembled around her. The cell phone connection had been their best hope of getting though to Ilion, whose attacks had been disrupting the city every six to eight months with a geometrically increasing rate of complexity and deadliness.
“Do you think…?” an officer began.
“No,” Cherril said firmly. “It’s pretty clear that Ilion has no idea. I guess, wrapped up in revenge and increasingly linked in…the transition from being an independent being to a malignant fragment of self-replicating code was so subtle that it was never noticed.
June 4, 2014
“This is just laughable,” said the editor of the Hopewell Democrat-Tribune.
“But it’s true!” cried Shaw. “I was abducted by aliens, and here’s photographic proof!” He slapped the photograph on the editor’s desk for added emphasis.
“Yeah, you Photoshopped this,” said the editor. “Look at the gradient on that alien’s skin! All that pixelation! And that pattern–you obviously found something you like and then used the clone tool to put it everywhere. This is day one stuff, kid, and I’ve been around photographs a lot longer than you.”
“I didn’t Photoshop it! I swear!”
The editor tossed the prints at Shaw, landing them on the floor instead. “Yeah, well good luck getting anyone to believe that with an alien looking so Photoshopped.”
From their cloaked observation frigate a half-mile above the city, Subcommander Ltwy Pqffyz and Majordomo Gfwfif Snpyt of the Azqhfs Invasion Fleet watched the unfolding scene with glee.
“Yet another example of our solid pre-invasion planning,” said Ltwy Pqffyz, its skin shaded like a bad gradient.
“Yes, by inventing Photoshop and seeding it among the humans, we have guaranteed that no sighting of our forces will ever be taken seriously,” agreed Gfwfif Snpyt, who was covered with repeating, pixelated patterns that looked like a grievous misuse of a clone tool.
Excerpts From Nonexistent Books 