The Spark: Chapter 9

by | Oct 7, 2021 | Fiction | 238 comments

PrologueChapter 12345, 6, 7, 8

FSA Origins Project
from the Diary of “El Unico”
Vol. 1, Recovered 2037.05.23
pp. 298-301

Dear God,

Ah, shit. That even looks funny on the paper. Hector asked me to do this and we argued about the absolute pointlessness of me writing a letter to God.

“Why do I have to write a letter to him if he’s all-knowing?” I asked. “He fucking already knows what’s in my head and heart.”

Hector laughed, but insisted. He made it a non-negotiable condition of the deal, so… fine. Kendrick in return for some writing. He kept up his end of the bargain.

When we started I felt like Mephistopheles to his Faust, but now I’m not so sure who’s who in that analogy.

I’d laid it all out to him, the only person I’d shared the whole vision with, and he’d sat quietly, passed the 4Loco over, and puffed on a cig. It wasn’t just that we’d spent all of that time in Afghanistan and the FATA together, the Brother and the Beaner, the Spic and the Spook, a joke even to ourselves; it was that I didn’t know anyone else with the talents to pull it off. I don’t mean just the comms and computer knowledge, or even the physical wherewithal: I needed someone who could and would kill with impunity for the right cause, who understood what the vengeance drive takes to be fed and nurtured.

He knew. Oh, he fucking knew.

We’d met in Kabul, passing through the old “Embassy Annex,” as they called it in those days. It was a hotel that the Agency, some ODA and Team guys had taken from the Taliban in the early part of the war. I was a commo on loan to one of the outlying bases, up in the mountains in a place called Orgun-E. We met playing poker at the hotel bar. That place was like the fucking Mos Eisley Space Cantina in the early days. You could drink, but guns had to go in a rack outside the bar. They set poker tables up outside the entrance and people played to win money that they couldn’t even spend where they were going. It was just another way to get a rush – as if getting shot at while flying in the back of a blacked-out helicopter at night on NVGs wasn’t enough.

He was tall and rangy for a Mexican – at least the Mexicans I knew growing up in the projects. He wasn’t dumpy or scraggly. Olive-skinned, better than six feet, and carried himself with an air of…royalty. Like he expected to be listened to. We played cards together and I was immediately wary of him. Saved me some money, too. I folded the winning hand – at least on the board – and they all ridiculed me, but he had the nuts. I know he did. Impossible that he would have stayed to draw a straight flush? Maybe. He’s never told me if he had it, either, after all of that time together… and I kinda like that about him, too.

We got to work together later, when we needed some NSA expertise out our neck of the woods. He’d stepped off the helicopter and even at night I could tell by the posture of his silhouette who it was. He’d taught me about nurturing a grudge, about keeping the embers of vengeance stoked – he’d had family in one of the Towers and murder in his heart. He was ruthless to his enemies, but controlled in everything else.

We kept in touch after our respective time in the Graveyard of Empires. He stayed on at NSA or Orange or whatever the fuck he kept doing; I left it all behind. After Kendrick had my daughter and her family murdered, I reached out to Hector.

And then the bargain was struck. He’d support me for Kendrick, but he wanted the whole system broken. The fuck do I care about that system after Candace’s death, my grandchildren…?

True Confession #1: I don’t feel guilty about the killing. After Kendrick, I slept like a baby. Not a single dream. The deeper Truth I can barely admit to myself now is how good it had felt to inflict pain on him. Time had been tight, so I didn’t get to luxuriate in it, but, ohhhh, the look on his face when I’d told him who I really was… and pulled that hammer out of the box. That made it all worth it.

Yes, yes, cry, you fucking baby, meet your Maker. I am Revenge and I have come to extract payment. Beg me for your life.

Who’s your ‘boy’ now, huh, Harm?

I ran all of the philosophical implications to their rabbit holes and I can only conclude that you – yes, You, Almighty God – sanctioned all of this. You couldn’t possibly take my daughter from me like that and not know what would follow. How could I ever suspect that the anonymous hacker who gave us the AI and ML that we needed was my own daughter?

I’d always felt that the Greeks had captured some of the futility of the human condition in Oedipus, before Freud fucking ruined it, that is. Oedipus is abandoned at birth to die, does everything right to try to avoid a prophecy that he would kill his father, and in so doing bumps right into his old man on the road and kills him. But the modern interpretation is that it was his fatal flaw that caused what happened to him – modern intellectuals simply can’t stand the notion that we’re not in control of or responsible for what we do, that we might merely be players on the stage, acting out our bit part in the tragicomedy.

Hector understood. He’d become embittered (again); the second time was even worse. Who wouldn’t after what he endured to see the whole thing turned into just another excuse to take our freedom? The tools we’d used in Afghanistan to catch terrorists being turned on our own citizens – on us. Instead of going Snowden, Hector had bided his time… and then I’d turned up, like Oedipus on the road to Thebes.

So… who used who again? Was it Hector using me? Was it me using Hector? Or was it simply Fate forcing us together yet again to carry out some larger purpose of which we aren’t even dimly aware?

The Revolution may have been an afterthought for me, but it was a cause – for Freedom! Liberty! Whatever-the Fuck! – for others. I needed it to get Kendrick and yes, my pain was great enough to be indifferent to the destruction of my country. A bit like Antigone, I suppose.

Fuck it. It was gone, anyway. A disgusting, leprous behemoth of corporate-fascist pus, like the Kraken washed ashore, sick and engorged, but still able to drag itself inland, feeding on the innocent as it went. A bureaucracy of withered Creons, moral scolds with no morality.

What still strikes me, even now, was Kendrick’s shock when I explained the bug I put on his tie. He was more concerned that I had heard all of his casual racism than he was about the lives of my family. It was as if ordering a young woman and her family be killed was just politics, business-as-usual, but the idea that I might see right through his Progressive bullshit to the root of his racism was too much for him. I suppose in that sense he clung to his Progressive Gods right to the end.

I look at the whole thing now and it seems like You, Lord – Your Hand, the very Lathe of Heaven – guiding it all along. Everything I did, everything I learned, every moment of suffering, of persevering while I crawled in the mud, of forging my will…all to put me right where I needed to be. A modern Negro Oedipus, doomed by my Nature to wield that hammer, to bring it all to fruition, to be the final straw on the lumbering dromedary’s back that had been the Promised Land of the White Man… or maybe ushered in the new one? Thy will be done.

Fuck, I don’t know. It’s Hector’s now. El Unico. We called him that in Afghanistan as a joke after he’d come back from a cross-border mission gone bad. Everyone who knew him by that name is dead, so we resurrected it. That was my price – he had to take the name and the lead. I did it all just to see that look on Harmon Kendrick’s face before I pulled him up that lamppost, still alive, gibbering and begging, bleeding and dying.

Yes, O Lord, I have not love; and I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.

About The Author

Ozymandias

Ozymandias

Born poor, but raised well. Marine, helo pilot, judge advocate, lawyer, tech startup guy... wannabe writer. Lucky in love, laughing 'til the end.

238 Comments

  1. Yusef drives a Kia

    Dark, very dark,

  2. R C Dean

    If we do get to the point of armed insurrection, there are tens of thousands of people in this country who are trained in counter-insurgency. And a lot of them have already been consigned to the the underclass by Our Masters.

    • Ozymandias

      RC – I believe there are/can be/might be? stages of insurrection. It doesn’t have to go from full stop to 100%. For example, how would you characterize what we say in many cities in response to Derek Chauvin/George Floyd? Was that armed insurrection? Was it merely brownshirt ops testing?
      I think there are a million ways in which dirt can be put into the gears and – I don’t think most people appreciate – that highly developed and refined tech, as great as its benefits are – is also ALWAYS more prone to failure from “dirt in the gears.” Hard to operate fancy surveillance tech without power (for example).
      Harder to mobilize people who are hungry, too.

      • kbolino

        e.g. Facebook disruption

        While that was probably accidental rather than intentional or malicious, it’s an indicator that there are some serious vulnerability points. An enterprising shit-stirrer might find ways to disrupt social media well enough that they start begging the government to be given special protections (e.g. declared to be “critical infrastructure”). Get the system to overextend itself.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Sabotage, Sabot, Clog in the gears,

      • Ozymandias

        I’m reminded of the French Resistance, supported by the Brits, as described in the book “Churchill’s Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” They set out with the purpose of putting sand in the Nazi’s gears at every. fucking. turn. In ways that sometimes couldn’t even be attributed to anything other than bad luck. Industrial sabotage on a scale that we can’t even begin to imagine. Special compounds that look like axel grease that do the exact opposite – seizes railway axels and tank treads. Crazy inventive. It’s where Bletchley Park came from. The characters behind it are just so quintessentially British – but WW2 British.. so not too far from American. (I use my grandmother as the unit of measure for this. She survived Hitler’s bombing of London, but emigrated to the US shortly thereafter. My mom was born in America by March of ’47).

      • Raven Nation

        There’s a pretty solid record of slaves doing the same thing: “accidentally” breaking tools, burning down barns, etc. Since most slave-owners assumed slaves were dumb, the slaves played into that stereotype.

      • EvilSheldon

        Thank you again for recommending that book. It was an absolute delight. I’m getting a hardback copy for my pop for Christmas.

      • Ozymandias

        *Cap tip*

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Here is an article about the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. I particalarly like the part dealing with General Interference with Organizations and Production. I’m convinced some of the people at where I work are Chinese Agents.

        https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/military/simple-sabotage-manual/

        To anyone watching this is in no way advocating that these methods be used against any lawful government such as we have here in the US.

      • tarran

        One of my favorite stories of that time was a saboteur who had been instructed to sabotage a factory in German occupied France that made some component critical to German armament production. The guy got a job as a janitor in the factory, but after a couple of weeks was stumped. On a hunch, he marched into the factory-owner’s office and asked for a minute of his time in private. When that was granted he explained to the owner that he was from the French Resistance and he had been assigned the job of sabotaging the factory. He then told the owner that he knew the owner was a patriotic Frenchman and that he didn’t want to cause a significant financial loss by destroying equipment but merely to stop it from producing the components the Germans were demanding. He then asked if the owner would help him with this project. The hunch proved right; the owner jumped up and shook his hands and said he would be glad to.

        In the end, the owner identified one machine that was manufactured in Germany that was critical to the process and helped the janitor contaminate the system that oiled its bearing. Two weeks later the machine seized up. The Germans investigated, discovered the contamination and decided the sabotage had occurred outside the factory. The factory was allowed to keep running producing other industrial goods. That production line was down for six months while they waited for a replacement from Germany, and the owner ensured that they never returned to anywhere near full production.

      • Ozymandias

        I believe that one might be in the book. But there are so, so so many more – and imagine the ones that never made it into print. Imagine the “silent insolence” (one of my favorite old-timey military offenses) that existed in the hearts of frenchman everyone. I wonder if the Germans ever ordered “the cream sauce.”

      • creech

        All neat stories for French grandpas to tell the grandkids. But the fact remains that they would all be speaking German today if not for some millions of American young men (and a few ladies too) who traded a few years (or all) of their lives so some snotty waiter in Paris could look down on the rubes from the States.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        “Well, thank you, Mr. Manfred-St. John-sen, for popping in and protecting us!” ? ?

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Nah, They would have all been speaking Russian.

      • R C Dean

        WWII alt-history. Always fun.

        Without Allied material support, and the need for the Germans to keep major, major military assets in Western Europe, I think the Soviets would have lost.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Heh, probably, Herr Doktor.

      • Ozymandias

        Funny. No doubt – just like in the US, there are a lot of people who totally would have punched the Nazis in the mouth, ‘cept for…
        Just like there were all those New Yorkers at Shea when the Mets won in ’69.
        How amazing that the British saw the threat as so great that they intervened to help the French.

      • Rat on a train

        The OSS had the Simple Sabotage Field Manual. From a summary on the CIA site:

        Telephone: At the office, hotel, or local telephone switchboards, delay putting calls through, give out wrong numbers, cut people off “accidentally,” or forget to disconnect them so that the line cannot be used again.

        Movie Theater Patrons: To ruin everyone’s time at the movies bring in a paper bag filled with two or three dozen large moths. Open the bag and set it in an empty section of the theater. “The moths will fly out and climb into the projector beam, so that the film will be obscured by fluttering shadows.”

        Managers and Supervisors: To lower morale and production, think of the worst boss you’ve had and act like that. Be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work. When possible, refer all matters to committees for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large and bureaucratic as possible.

        Employees: Be forgetful. Clumsy. Work slowly. Think of ways to increase the number of movements needed to do your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one; try to make a small wrench do instead of a big one.

        Transportation: Make train or air travel as inconvenient as possible. One particularly effective trick: issue two tickets for the same seat on a train in order to set up an “interesting” argument.

        The government is doing its best on the last one.

      • juris imprudent

        Is that sabotage or union work rules?

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Yes.

      • Rat on a train

        There are more union-like suggestions in there. There is also restroom sabotage in the manual. Clog the toilets. Remove the toilet paper. Give them brown pants to match their shirts.

    • Gustave Lytton

      And there are others in that category who would flock to the radical left or the government.

  3. R C Dean

    Question: if this is from the Diary of El Unico, and El Unico is Hector, then why isn’t it written from Hector’s perspective?

    • UnCivilServant

      Artistic license.

      Don’t you diary about yourself in the third person?

    • Ozymandias

      Dude, no reading ahead.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Dread Pirate Roberts?

    • Ozymandias

      Seriously RC – this question gets answered… or, actually, perhaps better to say, suggested.

      • Gustave Lytton

        El Único is an idea not an organization.

      • DEG

        A round of applause please.

      • R C Dean

        It’s Hector’s now. El Unico. We called him that in Afghanistan

        Or, this is just misdirection.

    • CPRM

      Tyler: You were looking for a way to change your life. You could not do this on your own. All the ways you wish you could be, that’s me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.
      Narrator: Oh, no.
      (Narrator: Tyler’s not here, Tyler went away, Tyler’s gone.
      Marla: What?)
      Narrator: This is impossible.
      Tyler: No.
      Narrator: This is crazy.
      Tyler: People do it every day. They talk to themselves. They see themselves as they’d like to be. They don’t have the courage you have to just run with it. Naturally, you’re still wrestling with it, so sometimes you’re still you.
      (Narrator: We should do this again sometime.)
      Tyler: Other times, you imagine yourself watching me.
      (Narrator: If this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight.)
      Tyler: Little by little, you’re just letting yourself become… Tyler Durden.

      • Ozymandias

        I forgot how fucking good that was. Thank you for the reminder.

  4. Tundra

    What a story!

    Just keeps picking up speed. (It was nice to be right about Jefferts, too)

    Thanks, Ozy! These are a treat!

  5. CPRM

    OT, but pretty interesting to me. I just finished watching a documentary about movie poster art. Yes, movie poster art. Anyway, it gets into market economics and IP as well as going into the history and artistry. It’s free with ads on youtube (I didn’t see any ads, +1 Brave).

    24×36: A Movie About Movie Posters

  6. juris imprudent

    When we started I felt like Mephistopheles to his Faust, but now I’m not so sure who’s who in that analogy.

    Absolutely wonderful.

    • CPRM

      Mephistopheles is a human cat-but, that’s where reality has taken us.

      • Nephilium

        Mephaskapheles on the other hand…

      • UnCivilServant

        the source noted that the job of editing out all of the buttholes was ultimately left to one crew member who was hired specifically to excise unintended buttholes.

        I wonder how that job listing read…

      • juris imprudent

        Well we know where all of those edits ended up, in the hands of TPTB.

  7. Mustang

    Shit. This is getting too real.

  8. WTF

    BRAVO! This just keeps getting better and better!

  9. wdalasio

    Holy crap, Ozy! That was some of the best damned storytelling I’ve read in a long while. And kudos on the use of mythology. I think it can make a story richer, if it’s done well. And you used it very well.

    • Sean

      Yeah, he really hit full stride in this chapter.

  10. Ozymandias

    Oh, and I would like to at least get a little love for working in “Lathe of Heaven.” Who was it who suggested that name way back when? I apologize that I didn’t keep track of who said it, but I just loved it so much I had to do some “fan service” right there. It’s a beautiful phrase and it seemed a… shame not to find a home for it.

    • LCDR_Fish

      Good book – I did a micro review a few months back.

      Nothing like the classics.

    • rhywun

      Who was it who suggested that name way back when?

      Ursula K. LeGuin?

      • Ozymandias

        Okay – that ties it back together. Now I remember that convo and what it was about.
        Thanks, rhywun.

  11. Ghostpatzer

    Thanks, Ozy! Vicarious vengeance is better than none, I suppose. I must say, I’m having some trouble with the cultural references. Lets see… Greek mythology? Check. Teutonic legend? Check. Hindu scripture? Check. Star Wars? Check. What’d I miss?

    • Ozymandias

      No love for the “cultural Melting Pot,” GP? I gotta make it all Irish maudlin of Joyce?
      (I keed. I’m glad you’re picking it up. If you’re noticing it, it means I’m not the only one who’s got hodge-podge of literary sensibilities).

      • Ghostpatzer

        “cultural Melting Pot”. Here in WokeEmployerLand, I just got a Slack message from our DiversityInAction team informing me of the various goodthinkful events we are having during October, which is Italian Heritage Month. Of course, we will be celebrating “Indigenous Peoples Day” on Monday. *headdesk*

  12. Ozymandias

    I gotta run off to do some work, but I’ll pop back in a little bit.

    • DEG

      That has potential.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista are turning to Ben Affleck and Matt Damon with those two always showing up in the same movies and TV shows.

      • CPRM

        Except one of them can actually act.

      • Ownbestenemy

        And one of them isn’t always crying.

      • Gender Traitor

        Doesn’t look or sound like either one of them.

        Now THAT’S acting!

      • juris imprudent

        You should be horsewhipped for making that comparison.

    • Fatty Bolger

      Looks great.

  13. DEG

    I like the Classical references. I wonder who the Achilles will be? How are you going to top what Hector is?

    • Ghostpatzer

      How was he supposed to know the dogs hadn’t been fed for days? Surprised the owner hasn’t been arrested.

      • Gustave Lytton

        They’d have to figure out who Robin Masters is first.

      • Ghostpatzer

        He’s the guy with the cool wine cellar, right?

    • juris imprudent

      A friend of mine’s dog was given a police commendation for taking down a suspect that had fled into my friend’s back yard. The dog was a Belgian Malinois named Angel.

    • R C Dean

      Good doggies.

      Once the switch flips on pits, its game over. The big ones, especially (American Staffordshire Terriers) are incredibly strong. And with two – oof.

  14. Animal

    Good stuff again, Ozy. Inspiring, even.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I wonder if we are on a bunch of small lists, or just on the Big List?

      • Ownbestenemy

        Rand Paul said “be scared of your government” and made no bones about that they have the lists…many of them.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Source? Not that I don’t believe you.

      • Ownbestenemy

        https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/10/07/rand-pauls-warning-to-americans-be-afraid-of-your-government-n1522371

        In the wake of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s announcement that he plans to sic the FBI on concerned parents who speak out at school board meetings against critical race theory and COVID restrictions, Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) blasted the Biden administration and said Americans should “be afraid of your government.”

        and

        “I would say be afraid. Be afraid of your government,” he responded. “That’s a sad thing from someone in the government to say, but the thing is, is those lists already exist.”

      • Ed Wuncler

        Not to be all hyperbolic, but the school boards are the next big battle in the culture wars. Where I live, the school board elections are usually quiet affairs, but this past one was heated mostly due to COVID. A lot of parents firsthand saw how and what their children were being taught on top of witnessing their children having to deal with not being on campus and falling behind. A group of parents got super pissed and decided to run for the school board. The teacher union I believe for the first time ever in my village, endorsed and funded their opposition campaigns.

        The Democrats are poking the bear because people can take being shat on, but when you fuck with their children, people tend to take that shit personally.

      • creech

        Where I live in the increasingly blue Phila. collar county, the only incumbent to lose in the primary for School Board was the one who was most conservative. The Karens and Scotts are more reliable to show up and vote than the hardworking parents who deplore all the nonsense.

      • Ed Wuncler

        Where I live, it’s an odd mix of Democrats and Republicans which helps keep the excesses of both sides to a minimum.

      • Ownbestenemy

        “These were threats against public servants, threats against members of the school board. Regardless of the reasoning, threats & violence against public servants is illegal” -Lo Carb Strawberry Beer

        Remember, threats against its own citizens is okay, when you dare stand in the way of ‘public servants’ you are a terrorist. El Unico might be a time traveler.

      • Ted S.

        School board elections here are in May, which means the teachers’ unions generally get the handpicked candidates they want.

      • Ted S.

        They’re stopping covid vaccine mandates?

      • Stillhunter

        Breathalyzers in bars…

        How many lists can you get on!!

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I read that,

      • Animal

        Yes.

  15. LCDR_Fish

    Posted this morning with no responses. Trying again this afternoon before I go in to the office (and read w/out logging in).

    Speaking of which, I have a nice big block of time next year when I have what should be openings to conduct more reserve support/training/etc. Might finally be my chance to get some crane operator training or other heavy equipment training.

    Unfortunately, it looks like the place I was thinking about in the Richmond area is no longer around. Searching online…I come up with places in Ohio like PTSworks.com – seems like a good place – nice brochure and they do take the GI Bill. Asked my brother about it – but he’s closer to Lima and not as familiar with the Columbus area. Not seeing a lot of reviews or opinions online either, but seems like they’ve been around for a bit.

    Anyone have recommendations/experiences with these guys or want to suggest another GI Bill compatible place for Crane/Equipment training?

    Thanks

  16. Ed Wuncler

    “Hector understood. He’d become embittered (again); the second time was even worse. Who wouldn’t after what he endured to see the whole thing turned into just another excuse to take our freedom? ”

    This seems a little too real.

  17. The coolest vaccine-free BEAM in the world™

    . . . Your Hand, the very Lathe of Heaven . . .

    Ah, sweet release at last.

    • Ozymandias

      There you go.
      You changed handles too many times. Thank you.
      I hope you think I gave it a good home.

      • The coolest vaccine-free BEAM in the world™

        I’ll respond properly in a short while. I’m still too busy finishing my cigarette.

      • Ozymandias

        rhywun upthread reminded me of what that old thread was about – and it involved U. Leguin, the title to a book of hers.
        ISTR you mentioning it would make a good metal band name, as well.
        Anyway, it was too good not to use.

      • The coolest vaccine-free BEAM in the world™

        One of the ways I’ve interpreted LeGuin’s book over the years is as a meditation on how humans want to alter reality to fit their artificial views of what it should be, but The Lathe of Heaven always resists that attempt, sometimes in ways violent, other times in ways that shield from violence. In the end, reality always comes from The Lathe of Heaven, not from our own machinations, as ingenious as they sometimes might be.
        It’s a surprisingly deep book.

      • rhywun

        She was big on Taoism. I took the book as a sort of manifesto. Well, much later. I first read it as a little kid.

  18. UnCivilServant

    OT –

    In Unix, to get a quick summary of the disk usage of the contents of my current directory, all I need to do is issue one command:

    du -sh *

    Trying to do the same in windows, I finally got the command:

    $Directory = Get-Item .
    $FilesAndFolders =Get-ChildItem -Path $Directory
    Foreach ($FileOrFolder in $FilesAndFolders) {
    if ($FileOrFolder.Attributes -contains “Directory”) {
    $Length= (Get-ChildItem $FileOrFolder -Recurse | Measure-Object -Sum Length).Sum
    $FileOrFolder | Select-Object Name, @{Name=”Length”; Expression={$Length}}
    } else {
    $FileOrFolder | Select-Object Name, Length
    }
    }

    Why, Microsoft? I mean, it’s not like wanting to know the breakdown of disk usage in a directory is such a strange thing.

    • Ghostpatzer

      Hmm, I wonder if du would work properly in cygwin…

      • Richard

        It works. I often use cygwin to run find, grep, du, and other simple Unix commands on my Windows filesystems.

      • Ghostpatzer

        Yup. Was away from my workstation before. A bit slow, but does the job.

    • whiz

      Even shorter in Unix is “ls -l”, which gives disk usage plus other info like date and protections (the “-l” means long form of “ls”).

      • UnCivilServant

        Don’t need or want the other columns.

        Just name and size.

      • UnCivilServant

        And the -h flag for du gives me the size abgbreviated to the easy to understand prefix (T, G, M, K) so I don’t have to count blocks.

      • Ownbestenemy

        ls -l gives you file sizes and directory usage, not disk usage.

      • Ownbestenemy

        unless that is what unciv is looking for. I figured he wanted an overview of the disk as a whole.

      • UnCivilServant

        My Steam Directory is 720 GB. I wanted to see which games are surprisingly large and can be uninstalled to free some space. I need the disk usage.

      • Ownbestenemy

        I know you are a command prompt type of guy but TreeSize Free is a great GUI for that

      • UnCivilServant

        Is that built-in to windows? Sounds like a 3rd party workaround.

        Ultimately the whole purpose of the comment was kvetching. I already got the issue resolved.

      • Hyperion

        “TreeSize Free”

        I have found that guys who boast on the internet about their free huge wangers don’t actually measure up and in reality, they came up short.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Nah, 3rd party. Windows is terrible at disk management tools.

    • EvilSheldon

      It is strange, for Windows users. It’s probably even harder on an iPad, and harder still yet on an electric kettle.

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t have to do disk maintenence on an electric kettle.

  19. Not Adahn

    It’s nice to see more people relying on the non-aggression principle in their decision making.

  20. kinnath

    One the few good things left about FB is being in groups that talk about obscure hobbies. I have been following a group discussion on historical gardening (cause I have an orchard full of heirloom apples).

    Today, the administrator changed the name of the group to expand the area of interest to include modern gardening and said she would start posting articles on agricultural inequity, racism, and some other horseshit about food dependency.

    There is literally no topic the woke cannot fuck up.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      What do they want, a time machine?

      • kinnath

        No, they want to push out discussions on medieval peasant gardening in the forest and focus on why modern commercial agriculture (imposed by white people) is a crime against Gaia — who knows. I left the group as soon as I read the post from the administrator.

      • UnCivilServant

        Whenever I delve into the world of medieval agriculture, I’m trying to get a sanity check on how many people are going to be fed off of a given area, how much (if any) surplus there is, and what the taxes are likely to add up to.

        A frustrating number of those variables are “It depends”.

      • kinnath

        My hobby is historical booze. So agriculture and horticulture are adjacent interests.

      • kinnath

        No. But I have many friends that keep bees and who have interests in historical beekeeping.

      • Nephilium

        Interestingly enough, commercial beekeeping got started relatively recently (1860’s). The guy who did a healthy amount of the early heavy lifting did it just down the road from me, and the company he founded is still family owned and operational today (although they primarily do candles today).

      • Animal

        Me too. As in, not long after I get my hands on it, it’s history.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Er, was speaking of SJWs generally.

        “Crop rotation in the 14C was considerably more widespread after John.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOmiJ3Tf9Cs Sorry, I always post this…

    • CPRM

      Wait just one Cotton Pickin moment…

    • Ownbestenemy

      Apples are the genesis of the patriarchy and the origin of gender inequality.

      Am I doing it right?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Sounds damned right. Care to go into grant writing?

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        And because apples are the genesis of the patriarchy we’re on the eve of destruction.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Interesting, I was wanting to plant a couple of trees myself. What’s a decent warm climate variety that doesn’t taste like ass or is there any such thing?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Looks like 8a and thanks for the link.

      • kinnath

        Trust the Cummins Nursery to give you good recommendations.

        One of the biggest concerns will be “cold soak days”. The tree needs to experience a minimum number of “cold” days to know that spring has come and it should produce blossoms. Too far south, the tree may thrive but never produce apples.

    • Tulip

      Time to start your own group.

    • whiz

      “There is literally no topic the woke cannot fuck up.”

      No kidding, why can’t they just start a new group?

      • whiz

        It looks like I need refresh every minute to not step on other comments 🙂

  21. Ed Wuncler

    OT: https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/national-black-justice-coalition-urge-netflix-pull-dave-chappelle-the-closer-special-over-homophobia-transphobia

    “It is deeply disappointing that Netflix allowed Dave Chappelle’s lazy and hostile transphobia and homophobia to air on its platform,” NBJC executive director David Johns said in a statement to Deadline. “With 2021 on track to be the deadliest year on record for transgender people in the United States — the majority of whom are Black transgender people — Netflix should know better. Perpetuating transphobia perpetuates violence. Netflix should immediately pull The Closer from its platform and directly apologize to the transgender community.”

    One of the greatest things about having fuck you money is that you can disregard these assholes. This bullshit ass idea that you can’t say remotely mean anything about the trans community unless you’re praising them and denying biology needs to die a quick death. I have no issue with people transitioning nor think they should be harassed or discriminated by the government but I’m not going to deny basic biology or walk on eggshells for them.

    • Ed Wuncler

      I don’t have fuck you money, I meant JK Rowling and Dave Chappelle has fuck you money.

    • R C Dean

      or walk on eggshells for them

      I like that. People putting their pronouns in their email sigs is still quite rare at my company. If it every becomes an “expectation”, I’m thinking:

      Pronouns: Your call. I’m not the boss of you.

      I’d work in walking on eggshells, but I’m trying to keep it as short as possible.

      • UnCivilServant

        A handful have started doing that crap, and it makes me immediately disregard their opinion on everything.

      • Rat on a train

        If it is ever mandated at work, I’m going with the low-key, non-conformist “it”.

      • Ed Wuncler

        I told my wife that if we’re mandated to put pronouns I’m doing autobot/autobots.

      • Not Adahn

        Wingdings.

      • Not Adahn

        Actually, no. In order to make it easier for my coworkers to pronounce and remember it’ll just be Not Adahn/Not Adan/Not Adahn.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Your Majesty/Imperator Caesar Divi filius Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Consul XIII, Imperator XXI, Tribuniciae potestatis XXXVII, Pater patriae.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Dieu et ton droit 😉

      • Rat on a train

        Oh, and that is for 1st, 2nd and 3rd person.

  22. Animal

    “With 2021 on track to be the deadliest year on record for transgender people in the United States — the majority of whom are Black transgender people…

    Show your source, please.

    • Animal

      Meant to be a reply to Ed. Oops.

      • Animal

        A few years back I was in conversation with a friend who has some proggie leanings on social issues, including this one. He was bemoaning the fact that X number of “trans” people had committed suicide the year before.

        “What’s the denominator?” I asked.

        “Huh? What do you mean?”

        “You gave me a numerator. Now I want the denominator. That way I can compare it to the suicide rate in the general population and see if it’s lower, higher, or the same. You can’t draw any meaningful conclusion without that.”

        I’m not sure he was convinced, but he conceded the point.

      • Ed Wuncler

        If you dare ask them to show you the numbers and defend their assertions, then you’re a fucking transphobe. That’s their get out of jail free card though. If you force them to defend their bullshit, they hurl ad honinems at you.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The assertion is the source.

      Jesus, don’t you even woke?

      • Animal

        No. I don’t woke. I have active brain cells.

    • Suthenboy

      OFFS. No one ever points out who these transgendered LGBTQRX people of color are being victimized by.

      I am going to make a thin crust pizza. No, I am not putting pineapple on it. I am putting tomato slices and banana pepper on it.

      • Sean

        Meat. You should be putting meat on it.

      • Suthenboy

        peperoni and Italian sausage.

      • Sean

        🙂

      • Hyperion

        “OFFS. No one ever points out…”

        Anything at all. They just lie and never even try to back it up at all.

        They trash talked Trump for 4 years and I never heard even one of them ever give one example of why Trump was so bad. Never.even.once.

      • Suthenboy

        This.
        No matter how much I challenged them and asked why all I got was a bunch of foaming at the mouth and gibberish.
        Even today you can’t get a straight answer.

      • Ozymandias

        Loogit these two Trumpaloes!
        “Orange Man Bad; It is Known.”
        It’s like you guys don’t even know how to cult, bruh.

      • Hyperion

        Look man, we totally SCIENCE!

      • rhywun

        No one ever points out who these transgendered LGBTQRX people of color are being victimized by.

        I think was that Ngo guy who pointed out that it’s usually drug deals or hook-ups gone wrong. Or domestic violence.

        Lamentable, of course, but the reality is nobody is out there targeting them.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        I enjoy relative good news. To some it’s inconvenient.

  23. Stinky Wizzleteats

    What percentage of black people agree with the NBJC on this issue I wonder. It’s gotta be five tops.

    • Ed Wuncler

      Not many. These sorts are the overly credential who wouldn’t step foot in the hood but sue black issues as a means as a way to control people.

  24. Hyperion

    Go West Young Commies

    Yes, please, get on the 405 and keep going until you fall into the ocean and never come back.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Kinda curious here…where on the 405 would they fall in the ocean?

      • Hyperion

        I don’t care, as long as they fall in and never come back.

      • Hyperion

        But if there were a hugenormous scale 11 earthquake near Long Beach, couldn’t they potentially slide into the ocean? There must be some sort of hope.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Not everyone in CA — even SF or LA — is a lefty. “Shoot em all and let God sort em out”?

      • Hyperion

        “Not everyone in CA — even SF or LA”

        How much does CNN pay you to write this stuff?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        ?

        OK, I am guessing about LA and especially SF. I just receive occasional anonymous SOSes from there, bearing upside-down stamps.

        (NB: I don’t; I merely extrapolate from internet comments.)

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        She’s right Dude, it’s those who can, bail out….

      • R C Dean

        Somebody commented recently in connection with the nonagenarian Nazi that evil regimes only survive on sufferance of their population, so punishing the population is justifiable.

      • kbolino

        evil regimes only survive on sufferance of their population

        Pol Pot shows that the population’s sufferance does not necessarily impact the existence of an evil regime, and Hirohito shows that the evil regime can be ended even when the people would willingly suffer more.

      • Hyperion

        O’Grady is technically right however. Take deep blue shitholes like Maryland for example. I am here and actually did the research and collected all the data. There are 23 confirmed fake conservotards here, and 2 libertarians in the entire state.

        So God watched on his GodOscope and tried to determine if there was even one righteous in Sodom so that he should spare the place for their sake. And the 2 righteous spoke up and said ‘Oh Fuck no, nuke this shithole now, Oh Lord’.

      • Not Adahn

        I think only one in nine Californians is a southpaw.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        The LA River also works.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Which 405?

      OBE, I went to an event in DTLA (theatre district) a few years ago and have never observed such Taxi Driver anomie in my life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0suQJKV13A

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The entire concept of moving in order to change the political makeup of the destination area is incredibly narcissistic in the first place.

      The self-esteem movement has created a generation of self-absorbed assholes with oversized capacities for imagining themselves as humble and empathetic.

      • DEG

        The Free State Project haz a sad.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I suppose.

        These idiots are headed to places that don’t want them simply in order to spite the people that already live there, not in order to create something new.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        20k have pledged to move…some day.

      • whiz

        The Free State Project would like to have a word…

      • whiz

        Damn, late again by a hair.

      • Ownbestenemy

        But in before the hat…*glances at DEGs avatar* it works!

      • Ownbestenemy

        err..and behind the…not in before the…know what? Im taking my ball and going home.

    • Ownbestenemy

      All part of the normal process.

      Grainy video is probably the news putting it through a filter to “protect” the “child”

      • Hyperion

        Child? The child of a 3 ton gorilla? Queen Kong?

    • Hyperion

      Some sort of thuggish beatdown by a lowland Gorilla monster, filmed with a 1995 flip phone? The same phone used for all the UFO and Bigfoot sighting video ever in all of recorded history?

  25. ron73440

    This story gets better every week.

    • Ozymandias

      So…. am I up to mediocre yet? …from crappy 8 chapters ago?
      J/K Don’t answer. I’m having fun.

      • ron73440

        It’s a sliding scale, you’re up to “above average”.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I’m enjoying it,

  26. Not Adahn

    “We had some communication with his attorney,” said Arlington Police Asst. Chief Kevin Kolbye. “He did report to an attorney he was talking to our homicide detectives he drove him to our police station we took him in to custody.”

    The Arlington shooter had an attorney on speed dial?

    • R C Dean

      He did report to an attorney he was talking to our homicide detectives he drove him

      Authentic cop gibberish.

    • Sean

      I keep an attorney business card in my wallet.

      • Not Adahn

        I do now. I didn’t when I was a high school student.

        Of course, I also didn’t have the ability to google “criminal defense attorneys near me” on my phone back then either.

      • Not Adahn

        But on the gripping hand, yellow pages and pay phones were pretty common back then.

    • Suthenboy

      Suthenboy orders judge to go fuck himself.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Should have known not to click.

      *searches for eyebleach*

      • UnCivilServant

        You don’t have a stockpile?

      • Sean

        I pretty much warned ya…

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Cher Horowitz: As if!

    • Ghostpatzer

      The one in front might be a bit much even for Tres.

  27. Mustang

    I’m considering going back to school to pursue a dream of being an engineer and working in motorsports. I already have a degree in a different field and ten years experience, I just hate it. I won’t be taking on any debt to do it.

    Stupid idea with the impending collapse of America?

    • Not Adahn

      Check the companies you want to work for. We’ve added a paid apprenticeship here, they may have something similar.

    • Ozymandias

      I don’t know about that. Acquiring the know-how to keep cars running seems like it may well have some practical utility in the coming “Road Warrior-like” society of the future.
      I mean, other than all that wonderful perpetual-green-energy that is just like nuclear fusion that’s going to provide sustainable power for always. /greentard-progtard
      I expect the internal combustion engine may still have a lot of useful life left, just not the way people think it will.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        + many Cuban BelAirs

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        So instead of Flaming guitars we get rusted out Tauruses from the ’90s?

      • Mustang

        Mad Max, BSME.

        I am more concerned about being halfway through school when things take a turn for the worse, housing gets nationalized and I can’t shelter my family because I waited too long, and the green assholes in the EPA ruin my dream.

        I am going through several black pills a day at this point.

      • Tundra

        Fuck it.

        If things really get that bad it won’t matter what you do.

        I think you should pursue it. If I weren’t old and lazy I’d do the same goddamn thing.

        Good luck!

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Learn as many skills as possible, you never know what/ when you may need them,
        I plan on being a Wizard, “I can make that generator run, 5 gallons of Ethanol is me askin’ price”

      • Hyperion

        It’s a skill that should be sought after, right now. In Biden’s America, a decent used car will soon sell for 7 trillion dollars. So keeping them running will be a very lucrative business.

        Seriously, I have 2009 Pontiac G6 GT and I have people approaching me all of the time lately who want to buy it. I broke the negative terminal on the battery last week, so can’t jump it. I called a local roadside mechanic and he can’t even come out for at least a week because he’s all booked up.

        Keeping cars on cinder blocks in your front yard alongside the non-working washing machines from the last century is going to soon go from laughing at hillbillies to Beverly Hills trillionaires.

      • Suthenboy

        Hey, I want the motor out of that washing machine.
        I get people asking about my jeep quite often. No chance. I will drive it until the wheels fall off of it…or my wheels fall off.

  28. Suthenboy

    Good grief. I have a Lab mix that is about 20 years old. She has to pee every fifteen minutes. I just walked out with her so I could pee also. While I was standing there peeing she scared up a five foot long king snake that came zipping across the grass and went right between my feet. Harmless, I know , but it sure made me jump.

    • Hyperion

      “She has to pee every fifteen minutes.”

      Well, she’s a she. It’s what they do, you can’t even take them on a trip and drive more than 5 miles at a time before a bathroom break.

      • Suthenboy

        You must be married.

      • Hyperion

        How’d you figure that out?

      • Ghostpatzer

        This is why I have a garage full of toilet paper.

    • Hyperion

      Don’t worry, our new genius military leaders will scare off those robots with their new girly boy army.

  29. ignoreLander

    At this point in life, I’m pretty sure I can no longer have children. I mean physically I can, just need to find a woman in her 20s willing to do the deed. Multiple times if necessary.

    But I don’t want to be a dad in a wheelchair, at my child’s graduation, assuming I’m even alive at all.

    I never settled and had kids because I was having too much fun.

    We set the rules for our own extinction. My question is: Do we care? I don’t so much. What happens after I am gone doesn’t matter to me. BUT. Those of you with kids…. Bet it matters a lot.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Nope, they are self sufficient, and I have 7?8? Grandkids now. With Wendy gone, what happens to me now is of no consequence, So I’ll have a good time if I can, fuck it!

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      What made you think of that?

      • ignoreLander

        Toxteth, a little bit of drink, and a lot of retrospection, based on a jab mandate I know is coming. For better or worse that Beijing Biden’s hidden handlers, whoever they are, have done, they have started me to think about my exit from this world, I don’t want it, and I never planned for it…. But I know it’s coming soon, and I think I need to prepare for it.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Er, forums, hon? Who will start, you or me?

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I also taught my Kids that this was coming, and be ready, and they are as ready as they can be, I raise no fools,

    • slumbrew

      I have aged out as well (technically not, but don’t want to be wheelchair dad either). It is what it is – I wasn’t in a position to have kids when I was a more suitable age.

      Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

  30. Ozymandias

    Next Chapter is in the queue, Glibs.
    I’ll see you next week – if not sooner around the virtual watercooler here.

    • R C Dean

      Same Glib time, same Glib channel!