Phase Two, Day 7: Distaster Strikes!

We've got a problem, people. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that in the new Empire, Halloween (even Hallowe'en, if you prefer) is a BIG DEAL. Dressing up in outlandish outfits? Walking around outside when everything is crisp and smoky and mysterious? Eating sweets that include the phrase "chocolate-flavored candy coating" because it's that removed from actual chocolate? Check, check and done, right?

Wrong. I have been abandoned--deserted--by my very own sister.

Here's the story. Youngest Sister and I were going to go do Halloween things together. We were going to dress up as the Mythbusters. She would be Adam, because she is spastic all the time anyway and would only be lacking the black shirt and occasional cowboy hat. I would be Jamie, because I have long dreamed of wearing a walrus mustache, and this was a perfect chance. I was also totally happy because Youngest Sister is 14 and still wanted me to trick-or-treat with her. Youngest Sister agreed that since my schedule is super-busy trying to get the kittens bigger, she would pick up the supplies. Yesterday, she came home with a bag from the craft shop, and pulled out stencil letters and silver spray paint. My excitement was building as though someone had just told me they had a timeshare in Madagascar that they wanted to donate to the Empire. So imagine my confusion when she pulled out a solitary black t-shirt.

At first I didn't even recognize the significance. Maybe she already has an old black shirt, I thought. "Is this one mine" I asked her, all hope and innocence.

"Um," she said, "it's for me, actually."

Oh no, I thought. She hasn't realized I need a black t-shirt too. And there doesn't seem to be a mustache here. I need to find a way to gently let her know that I was depending on her for a costume.

"I...don't have a black t-shirt," I said.

Youngest Sister couldn't look me in the face. "I was thinking," she mumbled. "Hannah really wants me to come with her and her friends, and I thought since you have Andrew, maybe you guys could hgmff gnkll rtkjb..."

After a few tries, I realized the truth. Youngest Sister was officially ditching me, without even so much as a costume, two days before Halloween.

Hamlet was not more tragic than this.

So what now, minions and future minions? Will your Fearless Leader cave in and become a lame person who doesn't dress up at all and hands out limp candy bars from the doorway to everyone else who is having fun? No, this cannot be. But right now we are on shaky ground indeed.

Phase Two, Day 2: Save the Emo Kids

Is it just me, or are there fewer emo kids around these days? The herds used to be plentiful in malls, by the Hot Topics, under spreading trees. I even used to see one or two in my ballet classes. Xanga was full of terrible poetry involving the rhyme of "splinter" and "winter," and words like "shatter," "ink," and "bitterness." Now I can't remember the last time I saw one. And I miss them, you know? The way they made Perks of Being a Wallflower the new teen Bible, the way they fully mined the potential in the combination of black and red, or black and pink, those sad little panda eyes looking up at you.

Hipsters, now, we have aplenty. There's one at my job at the law office, wearing faded chucks in the elevator until he needs to put on work shoes. Dark-rimmed glasses are the new dark-rimmed eyes. And I enjoy the hipster kids as much as the next person, but I have to wonder whether they are the wisteria and ivy to emo's sapling elms. We can't let "offbeat quirkiness" become our only odd side group. We need to take whatever steps we can to preserve emo kids for the next generation.

Here's where video comes in. I am interested in making a video to heighten awareness of the plummeting emo kid population, remind people that emo kids are the most woefully adorable thing since Eeyore, and encourage them to support an emo kid today. The plan is to recruit some minions to stand in for the emo kids, since we don't want to disturb the few still out in the wild. I can use 30 seconds of "Use Somebody" for the soundtrack, and try and get some filming done in a bookstore or music store, and maybe some in the mall, the original habitat before other groups began to edge emo kids out.

I hope to bring some initial footage to class to work with, so we will see what I've got. The minions and I don't have a whole lot of time to shoot together, but there's got to be something we can do before the last of the Black Hoodies disappear.

Phase Two, Day 1: The First Plan...

We've been talking about videos lately, and I am trying my hand at a few beginner's attempts. Nothing too ambitious yet, but I am hoping to put something together to post here. There are injustices happening constantly. I'm feeling like a good Overlord would have something planned. Something both dramatic...and sneaky.




God I hope this works.

Phase One, Day the Final: One Door Closes

When I look back over what I've done over the past two months, the results are pretty amazing. I started working three new jobs, and have gotten fired from none of them (knock wood :-P). I made a frickin' website, which I am hoping to keep up after class ends. Most importantly, though, I completed Phase One of my World Domination plans.

That's right, people. Phase One is over. I've rallied my minions (and am still accepting applications -- let me know why you're qualified), laid out some of my initial goals, and picked some locations for the physical Lair. We are officially in Phase Two.

So what do we expect now? ACTION. I'll keep studying my Overlord flashcards every morning, but I think it's time for me to break out and start making some plans happen. It'll be in baby steps, perhaps, but especially now that we are to learn video, some interesting thoughts are percolating to prove that I can walk the Overlord walk. Some of the minions may be in on it, too, so fingers crossed.

See you in Phase Two,

Update: Word from the Empath

The Empath does not have a blog here, as far as I know, but she offered her assessment of my requests just about instantly:

"coffee mugs are totally doable. we can just get a crate of them to give her one at a time so if they break due to throwing them at someone or some imbecile knocking it over, we'll still be good to go."

And the calico?

"I also don't think that a cat should be outside of the budget, unless we have a really crappy budget. but can we see about it being hypoallergenic?"

I will do my best, Empath. I am not heartless, after all. And if it is impossible to find a hypoallergenic calico, I will modify your health plan to cover allergy medication.

Phase One, Day 48: The Fighting Kakapos Would be a Kick-Ass High School Sports Team

Since my last entry, I have spent every spare moment, it feels like, trying to beat that typography midterm back into the depths in slunk out of. I found tutorials, I changed a typeface, I have spent hours all over again fighting with tiny wriggling details, trying to make them submit to the power of my will.

But what of the Plan? What is this world coming to, that I have made it nearly 50 days without seeing an end to Phase One? The other day, I walked by a bowl heaping with packets of mayonnaise and didn't even blink. I ask you, where is the justice??

So today, I have some progress to report: I have been researching, and I have found a potential site for the first physical Lair. The neighborhood is sound, the rent is reasonable. I plan to contact my cousin and see if we can start touring the area and looking at places soon.

See, this is the thing about being an Overlord. Tenacity. When you rule the world, you wake up every morning and it is still there, and people are still trying to do stupid things, and keyboards will refuse to type the letters you are clearly pressing and you will have to go back 80,000 times in one paragraph so as not to publish something with typos peppered everywhere, and you will still have to rule the world when you are done. No pulling covers back over your head, unless you are in the Useless Days and no one is paying attention. Aspiring nemeses are going to appear and have to be dealt with, and the staff need their leader looking as bright and animated as they are. If you're going to have a kakapo day, you come back and make sure you're a fighting kakapo.

Mmph. I wish someone would make me a "World's Best Overlord" coffee mug. When I rule the world, I totally get a coffee mug, right? And a cat? With all the kittens everywhere, surely we can spare one to stay small and play with me and actually grow into a cat. No white fluffy or totally bald thing, either. Just a normal, orange or gray or brown or black-and-white cat that will pad around the Lair and sharpen its claws on my desk, even when I spritz it with the spray bottle, and rub around the minions' legs when they are trying to do work. Ooh, or a calico. Yes. I want a coffee mug and a calico cat. Empath: Can we check the budget for that?

Phase One, Day...46? 48?: Kakapo Days

One of the projects dearest to my heart when I rule the world is saving the kakapo. I first learned about it in Douglas Adams's book, Last Chance to See: basically, it's a large, flightless, probably delicious parrot with a mating call at a frequency that makes it very difficult for lady kakapos to pinpoint where the sexy male bird in question actually is. In times of distress, they forget they cannot fly, and attempt to climb up things and jump off them. It's a bit of a mystery they've made it so far at all.

There are times when I really relate to the kakapo, you know? Moments when I am convinced that I am utterly inept at everything, and that the only reason I am alive at all is because I can be fairly endearing. Like last night, when I'd hyped myself up about my project, and "my project is beautiful and I spent four friggin' hours on my table of contents, and it's creative, and everyone will love it," quickly derailed into, "I couldn't figure out how to make that thing work because we only talked about it for ten minutes at ten o' clock a week ago, and computers scare me, but apparently that is the Most Important Aspect of the project, and I will fail this midterm if I don't figure it out before Wednesday." That was definitely a moment I would have dearly loved to be waddling around a jungle, eating sweet potatoes, instead of wishing I wasn't That Girl who gets upset in class. 

 I am doing better today, fortunately. I conquered some Internet and got compliments on the poster I made for Ishion Hutchinson, both of which I sorely needed. I don't know what it is about Typography that is kicking my butt so hard, whether I'm blocking my inspiration being panicked about messing up, or whether being able to use color with Passager is what is opening my creative mind, but I feel like I am barely scraping along in that class. I am the Typography Kakapo, and I am feeling a renewed sense of empathy with these pointless birds who are trying so hard to make things work out for themselves, even though there are goats and dogs and less and less safe grassy space for nests. Once I am Overlord of the World, and people think I must have been a falcon or something all along, I want to be the one to make space for kakapos.

Phase One, Day 43: Good Uses for a Shrink Ray, Part One

So I just realized I still haven't told you about the Overlord education initiatives, which is so remiss of me I'm slapping my own wrist with my non-typing hand. You need more than a mayonnaise ban and a little more vacation time to get fully on my side, right? Or maybe you don't, which would be fantastic, and in which case you can look at the following plan as an extra perk.

As many Overlords before me did, I got the majority of my education through non-traditional means. Some go to Assassin school, some go to Wizard school, and some, like me, are chained to our desks in dank basements and forced to learn independently (sorry--homeschooling joke. We find it hard to understand sometimes how people think you can be homeschooled successfully against your will). I'm going to try not to go off on a public school tirade, since I'm sure some poeple feel they had a lovely experience there, but in my opinion the American public school system was created to turn out factory workers and drones, and no number of inspirational posters on the walls are enough to overhaul a severely flawed system.

NOTE FOR THE TEACHERS READING THIS: I love good teachers, and any disparaging comments I make about public schools are absolutely not directed at the educators. I do believe teachers have the power to impact their students' lives tremendously. What I don't believe is that any one teacher, or even most groups of teachers, are strong enough in and of themselves to completely overcome the inherent flaws of a systems that sees students as groups, rather than individuals. And now I really will stop before I get rolling.

One of my education initiatives ties in closely with one of my environmental plans. You see, I think a Shrink Ray in the right hands can do a lot of good. My idea is to devote one large area of the Lair to a series of terrariums and aquariums, all carefully designed to be the closest approximation of a scale-model of the real world as possible. A few of my environmentally-minded staff will spend their time simulating potential disasters in these controlled environments to look for patterns, make predictions on damage, and experiment with solutions. This is where students come in. We'll take applications from the best and the brightest who are interested in making a difference, or even being on the Minion Staff one day, to participate in an internship program. We'll shrink our selected interns down to take them to the Lair, so their perceptions will be too distorted to know exactly where the Lair is. Once there, we'll take them back up to size and give them a few weeks' training on what the environmental minions have been working on lately.  Then the environmental minions will simulate a crisis in one terrarium, shrink the interns down to scale, and put them in the terrarium to work on solving the problem, based on what they've been learning. We'll give them time once a week or so to call home, but this is meant to be an environmental immersion program. After working there for a month, we'll take them out to get feedback on what worked, what didn't, and what additional solutions they may have. Depending on how they did, we may even have them plan ther own crisis in one of the terrariums and formulate their own solution, with the minions acting as mentors. The interns would receive academic credit, a small stipend, and a letter of recommendation from me, which I think is a pretty sweet package for a high school senior or college student.

P.S. Another nice thing about the terratiums is that if a member of the staff wants a weekend "away" during a particularly busy time, they can arrange to reserve a beach or mountain simulation and do some swimming or climbing, but still be accessible if they're needed.

Triumph, #1

Well, holy crap, guys. I made a website. I'm an official aspiring writer, and once I get an acceptance from anywhere, I'll be a real live writer-with-a-website. I'm feeling pretty awesome about this. Computers are one of the biggest hurdles for me, so proving to myself that I can learn some things makes it that much clearer that I'm destined to eventually take over the rest of the world.

Sorry to make this so short, but I'm writing me Manifesto, don't ya know.

Work calls,

Phase One, Who Knows What Day?: Alternatives to the Rack

I think it's time we get serious for a moment. I hate to be the one to have to bring it up, but let's face it: I'm the Overlord here. I'm the only one who knows what my plans are.*

Even in the smoothest regimes, there are bound to be a few dissenters. Something about rotten apples and more nuanced cider, or some other agricultural justification for those annoying people who don't want me going through with my plan. In extreme cases, such as uprisings, or people planting enormous catnip farms to distract the kittens from their important work, there may need to be...repercussions. One of the statutes of an Overlord is that they have to have inventive torture methods, so it's time I warn you of what could happen:

First, we strap the victim down. Leather restraints, probably. Big buckles, grainy wooden slab. Standard instruments. We need to have the head turned to the side, one cheek pressing into the wood. We'll need some sort of vice to hold the head in place. The victim will be left there for a while, until we can come back with a small bowl of warm wax. The wax will be inserted into the ear to form a seal. The wax won't be too hot, because then it will run all over the place, and go too far down the ear, and that just sucks. The sealed ear will be filled with water, and then -- this is the clincher -- we'll take the tiniest goldfish, and put it in the ear, and it will swim around, and flip its little fins, and it will be adorable.

I literally just got tiny chills thinking about how adorable that goldfish is going to be. Those little fins are going to be practically transparent! That little tail is going to tickle that ear, and the tiniest goldfish will wiggle its little head in confusion when it reaches one of the ear crevices, because there will be nowhere for it to go! Oh no, little goldfish! Whatever will you do?

What does the tiniest goldfish even eat?

It is at this point that Odysseus pointed out to me that my methods, while highly unusual, seemed designed not so much to torture as to leave me in spasms of cute overload. While this is true, I must remind you that this is beside the point. Being an Overlord is all about indulging my whims in moderation, and I think an absence of cruel with a strong reminder that I am unusual enough not to be trifled with is the most sensible way to handle the question of Evil Empire torture.









( the   tiniest   goldfish!  )















*Actually, several of the Minions know most of these plans. But they heard them from me, so I stand by what I said.

Phase One, Day 36: Oh Dear

The week seems to have slipped past me again. I had some posts planned, but ended up fussing over a poster dedicated to Clarendon typeface and bouncing up and down anytime I remembered that Mark Doty -- Mark Frickin' Doty! -- is coming to UB tonight.

When I rule the world, I think one of the first things that is going to have to change is how time works. I understand the Time Monks* need to spool and unravel things faster or slower sometimes, but I think they have lost touch with the best ways to judge which time needs to pass quickly or slowly. Too much yak butter in their tea, I suppose.

When I rule the world, we need to start having more long weekends. We need to restrict Indian Summer to the first two weeks of September, and not drag it out all month, because otherwise we need to waste precious October days doing the kind of autumn prepwork that belonged to the previous month. October should be made of cloudless, sweet blue skies and fire trees, evenings that smell like rotting leaves and smoke, with those weird, burgundy-purple leaves on the trees waving back and forth. I need my wine air, and it hasn't happened yet.

Probably I need to get some minions on the whole climate control thing to help make this happen. There is still one problem left to address, and that is the matter of solstices. I don't see any sort of logical reason to starting seasons based on solstices. You end up with summer ending halfway through September, which only encourages sloppy autumn shifting, and then winter doesn't get going officially until December is almost over. What kind of nonsense is that? I propose we neaten things out and organize the seasons and months the way God intended:

December 1-February 28 (or 29, as the case may be--more on that later): WINTER
March 1-May 31: SPRING
June 1-August 31: SUMMER
September 1-November 30: AUTUMN

There. Done.

Another interesting possibility, to avoid having all the "thirty days hath September" mnemonic shenanigans, is to adopt an old Aztec (maybe Mayan -- I confuse the two at times) calendar device. That is, twelve months of thirty days apiece, leaving five or six "useless days" at the end of the year. You get the solid, predictable, even-number months to plan in, and almost a week at the end of the year made of nonsense. Businesses turn a blind eye to the useless days, they won't count against vacation time. It's a chance to sleep off the last of the holiday food, throw a party and eat more holiday food if you like, pray, make predictions about the upcoming year, whatever. It's calendar-sanctioned free time. Maybe it's just because it's been raining bathtubs and midterms are stressing me out, but I could use some useless days about now.




*to learn more about this honorable sect, check out Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time.