MiSTing: Stephen Ratliff's Revenge Challenge [3/6]

[Matthew R Blackwell]

[The bots and Mike stand behind the control console. Smoke hangs heavy
in the air.]
Crow: Say Mike, these stories have me thinking. Wouldn't it be great
if we could get revenge on our writers too?
Mike: [pause] Crow, we're not fictional characters, so we don't have
writers.
Crow: Oh.
[The trio stands silent. After a few seconds, Tom speaks up.]
Tom: Mike, maybe you better play along with him. Otherwise we'll be
standing here for the next two minutes.
Mike: [Nods] Good point. Okay Crow. What was your idea?
Crow: Well, I was just thinking that if we got to enact revenge on our

creators, then it would go something like this. . .
[The screen dissolves in roughly the same manner used in the Wayne's
World flashbacks. We now see the living room of a small Minneapolis
home. A young woman, looking remarkably like Bridget, sits in a chair,
reading a paper. After a moment, the doorbell rings.]
Michael: [offscreen] Hon, could you get that?
Bridget: Sure thing.
[She walks over to the door and opens it. Beyond the door stand Mike,
Tom and Crow.]
Bridget: Oh, hi guys. What are you doing back on Earth?
Crow: Oh my gosh! She's right! We're back on Earth! We're free!
Tom: No more movies! Hooray!
[The trio runs happily away. Bridget shrugs, closes the door, returns
to her chair, and resumes reading the paper.]
Michael: [Offscreen] Hon, who was that?
Bridget: Just some of your psycho fans.
Michael: [Offscreen] Oh. [pause] They weren't carrying any bags full
of teeth, were they?
Bridget: Not this time.
Michael: [Offscreen] That's good.
[After a moment , the dissolve effect occurs again, and we're back on
the SoL.]
Tom: Crow, that was really lame. We didn't even do anything!
Crow: Well, after we run down the street, we became multi-millionaires

and lived well for the rest of our lives. Now isn't that the

best revenge?
[The lights begin to flash.]
Mike: Oh look. Challenge sign.
[The usual mayhem occurs.]

[6. . . 5. . . 4. . . 3. . . 2 . . . 1. . . ]

>Title: "Revenge"

Tom: A thrilling tale set aboard a battleship just prior to the Second

World War.

>Author: Don Buchan, s...@my.sig
>Rating: G/PG
>Series: TNG
>Story Series: "A Day in the Life of the Wuss"

Crow: The wuss?
Mike: Apparently, some of the die-hard Star Trek fans referred to
Wesley Crusher as the wuss, because they hated him.
Crow: Oh. [beat] So, they obviously hadn't ever seen Neelix then,
right?

>Part: 6/?
>Synopsis: Stephen challenged us to write a story about the characters we
>write about exacting revenge on the author. (Normally, this series'
>synopsis is "Everyone hates the wuss, and as such play pranks of varying
>degrees of nuisance on him,"

Tom: Coincidentally, that's also a reoccurring theme in Tony Danza's

life.

>therefore the Wuss exacts revenge in like kind on ME!)

Crow: Crusher's playing pranks on the Medical Examiner?
Tom: Quincy! Look Out!

>Historian's note:

>A) At some point after which the wuss began being a constant victim of
>spam as a result of earlier pranks -- first mentioned in part one,
>which takes place at least part way through the first season or part
>way through season three (see historical note in episode one.) Obviously
>according to B), it would seem that all he had to do was step on board
>for it to begin! :)

Crow: I thought these notes were supposed to clarify things?
Tom: Geez, even in the 24th Century, they still have spam. So much
for Roddenberry's vision.
Mike: Or is that Spam(tm)?
Tom: Eww, even worse.

>B)

Crow: Point B, or an evil sunglasses-wearing smiley? You be the
judge.

> During the episode "The Naked Now" (reference to the episode.)

>Author's note/warning:

>If you dislike the Wesley Crusher character, stop reading now. While not
>particularly so, this story is somewhat PRO-wussley. Oh, regular
>readers: If you like the Wesly Crusher character, stop reading now.

Mike: What is it about Wesley that no one can spell his name right
even half the time?
Tom: At least it's not spelled "Westly Chrusher."

>While not offensive, this story is also anti-wussley.

Crow: Thus, it will annoy the "For Pete's sake, take a stance on
Wesley" crowd.

>More anti-wuss stuff can be found at:

>ftp://ftp.cam.org/users/malak/startrek/wussley/

>Note that you may find some of the items there mildly offensive.

Crow: Ewww. Nude pictures of President Taft!
Mike: That's not mildly offensive, Crow. That's a crime against
humanity.

>And of course, Paramount owns what they own, while I just own the story
>and am borrowing Paramount's properties to interact the way I want them
>to for a while.

Mike: But, officer, I just borrowed his car to interact with the road
for a while!

>*****

Tom: Orion's belt!
Mike: I think that Orion's Belt only has three stars.
Crow: Maybe he's gained weight.

>Things were not quite as they were supposed to be, but I was unable to
>determine what it was;

Tom: . . .perhaps it was that the subject of my second clause didn't
match the subject of my first clause.
Mike: Oh, picky, picky.

>perhaps a sense of always being watched, there always being a prank waiting
>for me. Maybe people were stalking me from my net activities.

Crow: He's using his "AdultCheck" number! Get him!

>Not that I suspected that this was a real concern; it's just that after
>all the years I've spent on the net, hosting a few web pages, some ftp
>archives and maintaining an FAQ for a well-read newsgroup, I figured
>that I'd become a bit of a public figure.

Tom: Well, I was mentioned on E! as a "FAQ-Master to watch."

>And I'd always heard about being careful of those chat lines where you get
>lured into meeting all those shady figures. I had soon gotten over any such
>concerns, though, after meeting this person on a Star Trek chat line.

Crow: Since, as we all know, everyone in Trekkiedom has a good grasp
of reality.

>I arrived at my place; after I cleaned the door handle of grease, I
>opened the door and it immediately crashed against the coldroom door.

Mike: We have those too, but we call them "refrigerators."
Tom: Actually, in Mike's case, he called it a cracked Styrofoam
cooler.
Mike: Hey!

>'Funny, Mom and Dad are still at the cottage,' I thought. 'And I know
>that I closed that door this morning.'

Crow: El Nino strikes again.
Mike: Yep.

>Walking through the garage, I wasn't looking and tripped over my box of
>empty wine bottles, waiting to be washed for future bottling of homemade
>wine. 'I guess I'll have to wash these bottles soon; they're piling up
>faster than I thought . . .'

Tom: [singing] I never understood a single word he said, but he helped

me drink my wine. . .

>I went to the sink, put some iced tea powder in a tumbler, and filled it
>with water.

Crow: He drinks an iced tea drink, he drinks a vodka drink, her drinks

a lager drink, he drinks a cider drink.

>Once stirred,

Tom: When I say stirred, I mean "using an object to swirl the liquid
around, thus allowing substances added to the liquid to
become absorbed into the liquid itself."

> I downed it,

Tom: When I say downed it, I mean "I poured the liquid into my mouth,
thus allowing my taste buds to taste the liquid and then
allowed the force of gravity to cause the liquids to flow
down my trachea and into my stomach, where the liquid could
be digested."

> and repeated the process.

Tom: When I say, "repeated the process" I mean that I once again
retrieved some water...
Mike: Enough, Tom.

> Carrying the full tumbler, I went to my computer, booted it up. 'I have to get
>a new computer. This 486 SuX-33 is getting to be a little slow,'

Crow: A tribute to Robocop. . .

>I thought to myself. Logged into my net account, I start downloading my
>mail. 'Damn, seventeen messages; four of them spam.

Mike: Thirteen legitimate messages to four spam and he's complaining?

> How are the spambots
>getting my email address?

Crow: Well, you are buying ad space at Yahoo saying "E-mail me if you
have questions about wine."

>It's been cut out of almost all my postings! I
>wonder if someone is giving out my email address? SPAMFORD!!!!'

>Cleaning it up, I started looking through the normal newsgroups. 'Hmm;
>the winemaking newsgroup has a lot of posts today; way more really
>stupid questions.

Tom: "I found this old half-full juice box of grape juice in my
lunchbox. . .if I bottle it and sell it as wine, will I be
sued?"

>Newbies should check the FAQ before posting a question
>.. Uh oh . . . looks like a possible spam attack on the group. Damn.'

Mike: Neuron?

>I started looking up things at random on the web; there was supposed to
>be a lot of interesting things on scouting.

Crow: But since he was just looking up things at random, he ended up
with a large number of sex sites, lists of CDs that people
own, and a bunch of pictures of people's cats.

>However, once actually looking, most of the pages I found on a few of the
>indexes were unrelated or inactive.

Tom: He must be using WebCrawler then.

> The few left spoke of baseball scouts. Stupid
>thing to happen, considering I'd specified 'Boy Scouts.'

Crow: Damn you, Hotbot! Damn you to hell!

>After the line was freed up, the phone rang right away. "Don! Meet me at
>Maison des Bieres Importees!"

Crow: House of Imported Beers?
Mike: Must be a Bennigans.

>He hung up right away.' Funny -- there was
>something about Andrew's voice that wasn't quite right.'

Mike: Later, I realized that the strangeness of Andrew's voice was
due to the fact that Harvey Firestein sent me that
message, not Andrew.

>On my way over, I stopped in at the winemaking shop. "So, what's new?" A
>new corker

ALL: [singing] My gal's a corker, she's a New Yorker, I'd buy her
anything to keep her in style. . .

>was on demonstratation; I provide them with some advice, and
>pointed them to the winemaking FAQ on the net.

Tom: I'm just waiting for the commercials where IBM tries to convince
the winemakers that they have to get wired to compete in the
global winemaking marketplace.

>The rest of the bus and metro rides to the pub was uneventful.

Crow: Well, a werewolf was killing people and the Pope roller bladed
by , but that's immaterial to the Wesley story.

>Once there, Andrew wasn't there. I waited. "Je prends un Younger's
>Tartan, s'il vous plait," I ordered.

Mike: "I pretend to be a young Scotsman's kilt, please?"

>A while later, "Je prends une Chouffe, s'il vous plait," I ordered
>again. Still no Andrew.

Tom: He's the main course.
Mike: Tom! That was very dark. Good show.

>Finally I got up used the phone. "Andrew! I've been waiting for you at
>Maison des Bieres Importees! Why are you still at home?"

Crow: [Andrew] I rented "Wicked Lady," "Blind Date" and "Red Shoe
Diaries 2." You're on your own, sucker.

>"Uhhh . . . You never called to say we were meeting there," he answered, a
>bit confused.

>Annoyed, I paid and hopped onto the Metro to go home.

Tom: And there was a soldier sleeping next to him.

>*****

Mike: It's Posh, Scary, Ginger , Baby and Sporty asterisk!
Bots: Hooray!

>Work the following day was uneventful, although I did get a number of
>calls from people asking about an 800 number commonly referred to in the
>office as a joke.

Crow: "1-800-SUX2BU, may I help you?"

> Seemed they all were referring to the same kind of
>information as well. It was also otherwise very slow.

Mike: Somewhat like this story.

>Knowing I had a hike coming up that weekend, I quickly made a stop over
>at a sporting goods store; Andrew had spoken about 'Gaiters' that he
>always wore for hikes and how good they were for keeping dry. 'Hmmm. . .
>nobody's able to take my money . . .

Mike: [salesman] Don! Your money's no good here!
Tom: [Don] You mean it's free?
Mike: [salesman] No, I mean we don't take money drawn in crayon on
construction paper.

>always seeming to want to serve someone else.' Finally after an eternity,

Crow: . . .entropy overran the universe and everything just stopped.

>I paid and got out of the store.

>Around the corner, a couple of thugs knocked me down for no apparent
>reason and ran off.

Tom: "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" they shouted as they left.

> "Oooomph. That hurts."

Mike: "Oh, they jabbed me with a knife. That's why I'm in pain!"

>Finally I walked through the door at home. 'Hmmm. No grease today,' I
>thought. I plopped down on the couch and flipped on the TV. 'Oh, it's
>seven.

Crow: That would explain that box containing Gwenneth Paltrow's head

sitting on the kitchen table.

> Turn on Star Trek.' The 'Naked Now' from the Next Generation was
>on. 'Ohh, the wuss acts like a drunk, orders icecream and takes over the
>ship, then saves it; Data falls over; Engineer Whatshername is in it.

Mike: I thought they still had that big, fat male Chief Engineer with
the beard in this one.

>Let's see: besides a having a silly, rehashed premise that was faulty to
>begin with, it actually is a good episode -- even if the wuss in in it.'

Tom: WHAT? The Naked Now is a good episode? It's the most blatant
example of the first season's tendency to rip off the
original series! It had *Data* getting drunk, for Pete's
sake! *DATA!* THE CHARACTER WHO DOESN'T BREATHE
OR HAVE A CIRCULATORY SYSTEM! And it's got a plot that could
have been averted if the Enterprise had tractored the other
ship away from the blasted star before performing their
investigation of the other ship! AND YOU CALL IT A *GOOD*
EPISODE?
Mike: Do you have issues with this episode, Tom?
Tom: A few.

>During a commercial break, I went to the sink, put some iced tea powder
>in a tumbler, and filled it with water. Once stirred, I downed it, and
>repeated the process.

Crow: [Don] Do you think I'm in a rut?
Tom: Cutting and pasting is what separates us from the animals, Crow.

>On the screen, the wuss demonstrated his voice replicator. "Yeah, right!
>Spock did better job 85 years ago!"

Crow: So is using articles, Tom

> I call out to the screen. "He was able to record the message himself and run it
>through a filter to change it. Dumb wuss! Your invention needs actual voice
>samples!"

Mike: Of course, he *is* a fifteen-year-old human. That's pretty
good.
Tom: Yeah, you think you could do better, Don? Until I see *your*
voice synthesizer, just shut up!
Crow: Wouldn't you need a real voice sample anyway to get the
frequencies right?

>A while later, the phone rang. "Don! Meet me at Maison des Bieres
>Importees!" He hung up right away. 'Hmmph. I got caught last night. Not
>again; anyway, Andrew told me a couple of days ago that he was packing
>for the upcoming hike with the Scouts.'

Crow: Is that what you kids are calling it these days?

>On the screen, the wuss was talking to Picard about being "drunk."
>Suddenly he paused and seemed to shift his gaze as though he were
>looking straight at me, smirked, then continued according to the script.

>Quickly I called Andrew to confirm whether he'd just called;

Tom: So what was the point of that? I thought he'd already figured
out it was a trick.

>"Uhhh . . .no," he answered, a bit confused.

Mike: And, then it just sort of peters out...

----------
>Don Buchan malak&pobox.com (&=@)

Mike: I have no idea what that smiley face is supposed to represent.

>http://www.pobox.com/~malak/ From there:
>Winemaking linx & FTP, rec.crafts.winemaking FAQ,

Crow: So, can I use grape licorice to make wine?
Tom: <Sigh.> No.
Crow: Not even if I put it into really skinny bottles?

>Missing Link Rovers (Mtl Que Can), firstarter FAQ,

Crow: Q. How old was Drew Barrymore when she was in this thing,
anyway?

>Scouting FTP & Super Scout(er), Star Trek
>linx & FTP, Help Stop Spam, Zee Svedish Cheff, Summer Camp selection

>There could be a caution for adult language, but hey, this is real life!

Mike: It can't be. I don't see six annoying twenty year olds.
Tom: Let's go.
[They leave]
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