EDIT: THIS IS FINISHED NOW WINNER WILL BE PM'D
I've got a challenge for the writing types among the Giant Bomb community. With the cooperation of CharlesAlanRatliff (who you might know as the user behind the The Giant Bomb Community Game Giveaway threads) I have been granted the power to give my favourite entry here the game of their choice from the latest giveaway thread!
So here's your challenge. Write a story. Your base point for the story is "Jeremy is reading a newspaper"
The idea is to write as long a story as you possibly can, but using no more "story" in it than the premise suggests. For example, you could describe the old creaky chair he is sitting behind and the ruffling sound of the pages as he is reading.
Write about as few different things as you possibly can (If you HAVE to mention him walking through other rooms to get to the newspaper, then fine,) but use as much words to do it as possible. The #1 key thing here is wordcount. A mediocre writer who wrote a 1000 words has a bigger chance to win than a great writer who wrote 400.
This will run until November 23, and then I will pick my favourite entry and the winner gets to pick a game from this thread.
A writing challenge! (There's a free game in it for ya!)
This topic is locked from further discussion.
Is this just an excuse for getting someone to do a creative writing assignment for you?
It honestly isn't. I have an use for the winning story in mind, but that use won't be seen by anyone.Is this just an excuse for getting someone to do a creative writing assignment for you?
@Ventilaator: Keep your weird newspaper fetishes to yourself!
(tempted but not sure if i'll have time)
OOh that could actually go way dark.
@Ventilaator said:
I have an use for the winning story in mind, but that use won't be seen by anyone.
This is more fucking weird than my initial suspicion.
Jeremy is reading a newspaper. It read as such:
Airport security, RCMP violating Canadians’ privacy rights: watchdog
OTTAWA — Canada’s airport-security agency is collecting too much information about innocent travellers and is not protecting it properly, the federal privacy watchdog has discovered.An audit by federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart found the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) had exceeded its mandate by conducting security reports on incidents that had nothing to do with aviation security. This involved instances where travellers were not breaking the law.
In one case CATSA collected information about air passengers who were carrying large sums of cash on domestic flights. The agency contacted police in such cases.
The report comes as a separate audit revealed that the RCMP is also running afoul of privacy protections by keeping records in a database about criminal offences for which people have been pardoned or that resulted in a wrongful conviction.
The audits was released Thursday along with Stoddart’s annual report to Parliament.
Stoddart said that since CATSA is not empowered to be collecting personal information about legal activities not related to aviation security, it should halt the practice. She said the agency has agreed.
The audit also found that other types of personal information collected by the agency were not always properly secured.
“Documents containing sensitive personal information were left on open shelves and in plain view in a room where passengers may be taken for security checks,” Stoddart revealed.
Meanwhile, the audit found some problems in how the agency was screening passengers.
Auditors visited the rooms where CATSA officials screen full-body scans and discovered a cellphone and a closed-circuit TV camera — even though these devices are forbidden under the agency’s operating procedures.
“Fortunately, these irregularities were uncommon,” wrote Stoddart, adding that she was pleased the agency had moved quickly to correct the problem by issuing a reminder to staff and conducting inspections.
Stoddart wrote that in the decade since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, “safety in the skies has come at a growing cost to privacy.”
“In a wearisome modern ritual, we shed shoes and boots, and unzip our luggage to exhibit tiny toiletries in clear plastic bags. We ‘choose’ whether to be patted down by a uniformed stranger, or to stand spread-eagled in a glass-enclosed scanner. We accept that our travel plans, passport numbers and other personal information are shared among airlines and governments.
“We endure all this because we have no alternative if we wish to travel through Canadian airports. And, at the end of it all, we anticipate a significant payoff: a flight safe from terrorists and other threats.”
Stoddart said there’s more to the issue than just that.
“In addition to providing physical security, the state also has an obligation to treat individuals with respect — to preserve their dignity and to safeguard their personal information.”
Meanwhile, Stoddart’s audit of the RCMP also found some glaring concerns.
She examined the Mounties’ management of operational databases that are widely shared with other police forces, government institutions and other organizations. Although the RCMP has policies and procedures to safeguard the sensitive information contained in the databases, there were some disturbing gaps found in the audit.
The Privacy Act, which governs the information-handling practices of federal government departments and agencies, requires that organizations retain personal information no longer than absolutely necessary.
And yet, information about offences for which a pardon had been granted, or that resulted in a wrongful conviction, continues to be accessible in a database called the Police Reporting and Occurrence System.
“When a person receives a pardon for a past crime, or is found to have been wrongfully convicted of an offence, the RCMP is supposed to block access to any information about the incident in its database,”wrote Stoddart.
“This hasn’t been happening, so even though people have a right to get on with their lives, information about their past can continue to be shared.”
Stoddart concluded that “without question, the state needs personal information to govern.”
She writes that no government could avert a terrorist attack, fight crime, issue a passport or administer the tax system without data about individuals.
Modern information technology helps government conduct that task because data can be be processed, stored and disclosed more readily than ever before.
But she stressed: “So much personal information in the hands of government can also pose risks to the privacy of individuals.”
Wall Street shutdown fails as Occupy protesters clash with police
NEW YORK — Hundreds of people protesting against economic inequality marched in New York’s financial district on Thursday and there were minor skirmishes with police, but authorities thwarted their bid to shut down Wall Street.
Police barricaded the narrow streets around the New York Stock Exchange and used batons to push protesters onto the sidewalk as they marched through the area during the morning rush hour to prevent financial workers getting to their desks.
Protesters banged drums and yelled “We are the 99%” — referring to their contention that the U.S. political system benefits only the richest 1%. Some chanted at police: “You’re sexy, you’re blue, now take off that riot suit.”
Related
Photos: Occupy Wall Street protesters clash with the police in front of the New York Stock Exchange
Occupy Toronto can’t stay on church grounds if they get evicted: Dean of St. James Cathedral
“I feel like this is a beautiful moment to take back our streets,” said Rachel Falcone, 27, from Brooklyn. “We need to prove we can exist anywhere. It’s gone beyond a single neighborhood, it’s really an idea.”
About 75 people were arrested, police said, but by 11 a.m. protesters had returned to nearby Zuccotti Park, which had been the two-month-old Occupy Wall Street movement’s camp headquarters before police evicted them from the space on Tuesday.
The New York Stock Exchange opened on time and was operating normally.
The turnout for the march on Wall Street, which kicked off a day of action in New York and elsewhere in the United States, fell short of expectations by a spokesman for the protesters and city officials for tens of thousands of people.
“We certainly want to see more people mobilize and show up,” said Occupy Wall Street spokesman Jeff Smith. “It was a fantastic turnout, we occupied corners and intersections all over downtown.”
Protesters are also planning to take their protest to 16 subway hubs later on Thursday, then return to City Hall for a rally before marching across the Brooklyn Bridge. Last month, more than 700 people were arrested during a similar march across the bridge after some protesters blocked traffic.
The support of labor unions and liberal group Moveon.org could boost numbers at the New York City Hall rally.
In Los Angeles, hundreds of protesters and union members marched through the city’s financial district chanting “Whose streets? Our streets” in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, while in Dallas more than a dozen people were arrested when police shut down their six-week-old camp near City Hall.
‘GET A JOB’
New York taxi driver Mike Tupea, a Romanian immigrant, said his car was stuck amid the protesters for 40 minutes.
“I have to make a living. I pay $100 for 12 hours for this cab. I am losing money every minute,” he said. “I have all my sympathies for this movement but let me do my living, let working people make a living.”
The Occupy Wall Street movement was born on September 17, when protesters set up camp in Zuccotti Park, and sparked solidarity rallies and occupations of public spaces across the United States. It has also re-energized similar movements elsewhere in the world.
Peter Cohen, 47, an anthropologist from New York, wore a suit for the protest in a bid to improve the movement’s image.
“I have a job and [the suit] on because I’m tired of the way this movement has been characterized as a fringe movement,” said Cohen. “I’m not looking for money, I’m not looking for a job, I’m not a professional activist, just a normal citizen.”
Protesters say they are upset that billions of dollars in bailouts given to banks during the recession allowed a return to huge profits while average Americans have had no relief from high unemployment and a struggling economy.
They also say the richest 1% of Americans do not pay their fair share of taxes.
As he tried to get to his financial district office, Paul Layton, a trial lawyer, said he hoped “that through [the protesters] efforts they can convince government to regulate the financial industry.”
Derek Tabacco was not happy as he tried to get to the offices of his financial technology company and was carrying a sign with a message for the protesters that read “Get a job.”
The clearing of the Occupy camp in New York followed evictions in Atlanta, Portland and Salt Lake City. Unlike action in Oakland, California, where police used tear gas and stun grenades, most protesters left voluntarily.
Before dawn on Thursday, police cleared away a protest camp from a plaza at the University of California, Berkeley, where 5,000 people had gathered on Tuesday night.
Megyn Norbut, from Brooklyn, said she holds down three jobs and that she joined the protest on Thursday “because we got kicked out of Zuccotti and we need to show that this is a mental and spiritual movement, not a physical movement.”
“It’s not about the park,” said Norbut, 23.
Barack Obama wants cigarette companies to butt out
Ex-smoker President Barack Obama kicked the habit and now he wants to give cigarette makers a little shove too.
In a video released on Thursday (embedded at bottom) to congratulate Americans taking part in a national drive to quit smoking, Obama took aim at tobacco companies fighting graphic labels his administration imposed to warn consumers about the risks of their habit.
Calling tobacco “the leading cause of preventable early deaths in this country,” Obama said the labels were a new tool to keep cigarettes away from children.
Cigarette makers, he said, wanted to block them “because they don’t want to be honest about the consequences of using their products. Unfortunately, this isn’t surprising.”
The 50-year-old president managed to quit smoking last year with the aid of nicotine gum and was confirmed as being
“tobacco free” at his last physical checkup in October.
He made no bones about how difficult it was.
“Fact is, quitting smoking is hard. Believe me, I know,” he said in the video for the Great American Smokeout aimed at helping some of the country’s 46 million smokers to stop.
A U.S. judge last week blocked the rule requiring tobacco companies to display graphic images on cigarette packs, including pictures of dead bodies and rotting teeth. But that judgment is widely expected to be appealed and the legal battle may go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Reynolds American Inc’s R.J. Reynolds unit, Lorillard Inc, Liggett Group LLC and Commonwealth Brands Inc, owned by Britain’s Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, sued the FDA in August, citing their right to free speech.
Tobacco has also popped up in the 2012 election, when a campaign video for Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain that showed his chief of staff blowing cigarette smoke at the camera went viral on the Internet.
Kate Middleton pregnant with first child, U.S. magazine reports
A U.S. magazine is claiming to have scooped all of Britain’s Fleet Street media with the news that Kate Middleton and Prince William are expecting their first child.
In Touch Weekly cites “royal sources” confirming the Duchess of Cambridge is six weeks pregnant and that the couple have already picked names for the child.
According to In Touch, William and Kate “want something traditional” with Edward, Philip and Michael the likely choices for a boy, or Alice or Rose for a girl.
An unnamed palace insider tells In Touch that Kate is now preparing three royal nurseries at a number of royal homes, including Kensington Palace.
The magazine quotes its source as saying of William: “He’s very much his mother’s son, and he also knows that his father, Prince Charles, would like a granddaughter.” Kate is said to agree.
The palace would not comment on the claims, saying only that: “We never confirm or deny these rumors” and that any news of a royal pregnancy would unlikely to be leaked to a U.S. magazine.
The magazine promises more details, including the fact the couple is planning three separate nurseries (in different locations, not suggesting Kate is expecting triplets), and that William is promising a US$1-million gift to his bride, and “her crazy cravings!”
The rules of succession have been recently updated, with all Commonwealth nations — including Canada — agreeing that the baby’s sex will not affect its place in the royal lineage. Previously, the ancient rules of succession had stipulated that a royal daughter must stand in line for the throne if she has a brother — even if that brother is younger. William is “secretly hoping for a daughter,” In Touch reports.
In Touch apparently does have a history of royal scoops, claiming to have been correct about the location of Kate and William’s honeymoon, and the Queen’s wedding gift to Kate. In Touch also accurately reported in a September “exclusive” that Jessica Simpson was expecting. However, in August, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith reportedly considered suing the tabloid after it alleged the couple’s 13-year marriage was over.
Wednesday marked one year since the couple became engaged on November 16, 2010. The Duke and Duchess were married on April 29 in London’s Westminster Abbey before 1,900 guests and a TV audience of millions.
Italy faces ‘serious emergency,’ new PM says
ROME — Italy is facing a serious emergency, new Prime Minister Mario Monti said on Thursday, as he promised rigour and fairness in painful reforms to dig the country out of a financial crisis that threatens the entire euro zone.
Making his maiden speech before an evening confidence vote, Monti said the survival of the euro partly depended on Italy embarking on radical reforms in the next few weeks. The European Union is facing its most difficult challenge, he added.
“The government recognises that it was formed to resolve a serious emergency in a constructive and united spirit. I would like to use the following expression: a government with a national commitment,” he said.
“Only if we can avoid being seen as the weak link of Europe can we contribute to European reforms,” said Monti, who was sworn in on Wednesday at head of a technocrat government after a rushed transition from discredited ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Monti, who is rushing to end a collapse in market confidence that has pushed Rome’s borrowing costs to critical levels, said he would consider more reforms after implementing pledges made to the EU but never passed by Berlusconi.
But he denied that the measures were imposed by Brussels.
The speech confirmed expectations that the respected former European Commissioner would waste no time in pushing through deep reforms of Italy’s stagnant economy.
Monti said measures to vanquish a crisis that has put the euro zone’s third economy at the centre of its expanding debt crunch would focus equally on cutting Italy’s huge public debt and boosting chronically poor growth.
He said the new government would target widespread tax evasion, sub-standard education and training and Italy’s creaking welfare system as well as liberalising the labour market in what are expected to be unpopular austerity measures.
In a 45-minute address, he said the key goals of his technocrat government would be to improve public services and help women and young people to get jobs.
Making clear what he would target, Monti said Italy had a higher average retirement age than in France and Germany and that chronic tax evasion must be fought.
He would also set out a schedule for the sale of public assets, while lower taxes on labour and output would be balanced by higher levies on consumption.
Italy’s notoriously closed professions would be opened up in a major campaign to modernise the economy, he said.
In another shot at a notorious problem, Monti said the use of cash should be reduced to cut an underground economy that accounts for nearly 20 percent of GDP.
He further promised to reduce the cost of Italy’s political system and cosseted politicians, which has caused increasing public outrage under Berlusconi’s outgoing government.
SECOND VOTE
Monti will see a second confidence vote in the lower house on Friday.
He was comforted in his daunting task on Thursday by an opinion poll that said an overwhelming majority of Italians supported him.
The poll taken by the respected Piepoli Institute for La Stampa newspaper said 73 percent of those asked believed his government would be capable of leading an extraordinary effort to fix Italy’s problems. Even 60 percent of voters from the centre-right, the grouping that backed the last government, said they had faith in Monti.
But there were early signals of the problems facing the new prime minister, who has taken the economy portfolio himself.
Berlusconi, after a few days of silence following his ignominious exit on Saturday, told deputies from his PDL party that the new unelected government was imposed on the country by President Giorgio Napolitano. He said it would last only as long as the PDL wanted, Italian news agencies reported.
Monti will need strong parliamentary support for radical reforms that have been promised by most of the parties, but could evaporate as the measures become more unpopular.
There was also opposition on the streets where thousands of people protested in several cities against what they called a “bankers’ government”. Protesters clashed with police in the business capital of Milan and in Turin.
With the euro zone debt crisis spreading wider by the day, Monti’s policies are unlikely to be enough on their own to rebuild shattered market confidence.
But they will be vital to restoring credibility with international partners who had long lost patience with the repeatedly unfulfilled promises of Monti’s flamboyant predecessor Berlusconi.
Italy’s welfare system allows many to claim a pension before the standard retirement age of 65 and current labour market rules protect some workers but discourage job creation.
The uphill task Monti faces was underlined by the continued surge in Italian bond yields.
Yields on 10-year bonds were over 7 percent, near the levels that forced Greece and Ireland to seek an international bailout, but which would overwhelm the euro zone’s current financial defences if similar help was needed by Italy’s much larger economy.
The appointment of Monti, a sober and reserved economist and tough negotiator with a decade of experience as European Commissioner, was greeted with palpable relief by foreign leaders exasperated by the scandal-plagued Berlusconi.
The growing threat that Italy’s economy will slip into recession next year will make it increasingly difficult to keep control of its huge public debt, which amounts to 120 percent of gross domestic product.
Canada’s strip malls crumble toward extinction
The first time cultural geographer Merle Patchett saw Edmonton’s sprawl from the airplane, she felt the culture shock shared by so many European immigrants to the Prairie city.The place was built for the automobile: Endlessly sprawling suburbs, winding highways and, above all, strip malls.
This month, Ms. Patchett, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, and the University of Alberta’s City Region Studies Centre have launched Strip Appeal. It’s a contest calling on designers, architects — anyone really — to retrofit the much-maligned strip mall for the future.
“It’s just a rectangular box surrounded by a sea of empty space,” said Ms. Patchett. “It’s a really easy building to redesign.”
Crumbling, tacky and unloved, the bland 1950s-era strip mall remains the scourge of developers and urban planners alike.
They are seen as patches of “underperforming asphalt,” treading water until they can be swept aside in favour of pedestrian-friendly marketplaces or a multi-storey mix of offices, shops and condos plugged into a light-rail network.
“It’s easy to hate them and it’s hard to love them,” said Lance Berelowitz, a principal with Vancouver’s Urban Forum Associates.
Yet, as Canada’s aging strip malls prepare to join castles and drive-in movie theatres in the trash can of architectural history, their brightest days may yet be ahead.
First taking hold in the 1950s, strip malls were originally an auto-friendly twist on the corner grocery store. Even in their heyday, they were never particularly useful — they were just easy.
“It was the dumbest, lowest-risk thing that a developer could do,” said Mr. Berelowitz.
Driven by no central plan or configuration, strip malls are markets of chaos: Maddeningly random hodge-podges of drycleaners, video-rental stores and nail salons.
“You have to drive from strip to strip to strip just to get anything done,” said James Smerdon, director of retail and strategic planning at Colliers International, a real estate firm.
And once the sun sets, the mall’s dark back alleys become magnets for drug dealers, arsonists and graffiti writers.
Which is probably why nobody builds strip malls anymore.
Today, most city-dwellers shop in multi-storey complexes sandwiched between condominiums and underground parking. In the suburbs, they prefer massive multi-acre “power centres” of big box stores.
Caught in the middle, strip malls are slowly drifting into extinction. Their parking lots are cracking, their roofs are leaking and vacancies are soaring.
South of the border, strip-mall vacancies are reaching historical highs of more than 11%.
Mr. Smerdon does not mourn them, calling them “a necessary evil when you have to go there for your drycleaning or your shawarma. There will be no nostalgia for the strip mall.”
Not everyone agrees.
In June, the county board of Arlington, Va., next door to Washington, voted unanimously to add two 1930s-era strip malls to its list of “essential” preservation-worthy properties. “What are they preserving it from? Another strip mall?” one online commenter asked.
“Not every [strip mall] falls into the detritus category,” said Richard Longstreth, an architectural historian at George Washington University.
Indeed, when developers in Kansas City cut the ribbon on history’s first suburban shopping district in 1922, they packed it with a high-brow collection of murals, statues and fountains. Huntington Beach, Calif., has a whimsical 1970 strip mall designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Jr.
As a member of the Society for Commercial Archeology, Mr. Longstreth is dedicated to preserving the remnants of 20th-century architecture: Filling stations, diners and gaudy roadside neon signs. Strip malls remain plentiful for now, but their days are numbered.
“Take another look,” he said. “Although strip malls may be fleeting, they still perform an important role.”
“New ideas must use old buildings,” wrote Jane Jacobs in her legendary 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
Pop artist Andy Warhol established his “Factory” in an old electrical substation in New York, Apple computers started in a garage in Los Altos, Calif., and even the Ghostbusters set up shop in a dilapidated fire station.
Affordable and easy to reconfigure, strip malls have emerged as ready venues for artist studios, tech start-ups and ethnic hubs.
“They are small, but they can have big hearts,” said Ms. Patchett.
In the suburbs of Vancouver and Los Angeles, Asian shop keepers have repurposed blocks of strip malls into thriving communities of specialty grocery stores and restaurants.
Carolyn B. Heller, a Canadian food writer, admits she was a “strip mall snob” when she first moved to Vancouver, but gradually became disarmed by the top-notch Asian fare being served up in some of the city’s most unassuming venues.
“Who cares if the exteriors are ugly when you can get fresh, authentic dishes from across China, Taiwan, and Japan just a short subway ride away?” she wrote in an email to the National Post.
At the 1990s-era Payal Business Centre in Surrey, B.C., real estate offices, lawyers, jewellers and Indian clothing stores are nestled amidst four banquet halls. Throughout the week, the parking lots abound with bridal parties, political rallies and high-school-age children in suits and ceremonial dress.
In Toronto, urban strip malls have often been fingered as the scruffy foundations of the city’s multi-ethnic mix. A home to Jewish bakeries, Hungarian butchers and Chinese acupuncturists, they have “become as important to their communities as the old warehouses and market districts have been to the inner city.
“We demolish them at our peril,” wrote Toronto urban affairs journalist John Lorinc in a 2005 essay.
Downtown it is a different story.
“We’ve probably reached Peak Car to some degree in North America,” said Gordon Price, director of the city program at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University.
Amid soaring gas prices, better transit and a slow crawl toward denser cities, the children of today may be the first to own fewer cars than their parents.
“But we’ve overbuilt for the car, so you’ve got to start thinking about what you can do with structures that were never intended for the purposes we know need it for,” said Mr. Price.
In Vancouver, the car rollback has already begun.
Even during the day, there are enough empty parking spots in the city to account for 3% of all land downtown. In the core, more than 100,000 people share only two gas stations. Pushed aside by soaring land prices, the Vancouver strip mall is similarly nearing extinction.
In the rest of Canada, the march to reclaim car-friendly infrastructure is only beginning. In the Prairies, as Calgary and Edmonton’s development pushes to the edges of city limits, urban planners are finally infilling existing sprawl. In the cities of southern Ontario, planners are simply trying to devise a future free from choking traffic.
“In midtown Toronto, the one- or two-storey strip malls have most likely passed their time,” said Josh Matlow, a Toronto city councillor. “They just don’t make sense in the heart of an urban centre anymore.”
Larry Beasley, former co-director of planning for the city of Vancouver, takes it a bit farther.
“I think they should be banned,” he wrote in an email to the Post.
He does not object to neighbourhood shopping centres, only when those shopping centres are packed into alienating cubes surrounded by asphalt.
“It’s not the principle of strip malls that is the problem, it is their form,” he wrote.
Montreal is saturated with underused churches left over from the city’s staunchly religious past. Because they too beautiful or historic to rip down, they have forced developers to compromise, awkwardly fitting them into apartment blocks or nightclubs.
In Germany and Austria, cities are cursed by networks of wartime bunkers that are virtually immune to demolition.
But strip malls? The average complex can be torn down and trucked away in a few hours – and hardly anyone will raise a finger in protest.
“The real virtue is that we don’t give a damn about them,” said Mr. Price.
Many of the submissions received by Strip Appeal are surprisingly basic: a seating area, some flood lighting, a bit of streetscaping, maybe some back doors to connect retailers to neighbouring residential communities.
But some designs have verged into the abstract. One particularly far-fetched submission proposed sprucing up a neighbourhood strip mall with stacks of colourful, renovated shipping containers.
Another suggested ringing the strip mall with food trucks during the summer and ice rinks during the winter.
The Strip Appeal website reprints drawings from the 2010 book The Sprawl Repair Manual detailing how to transform a strip mall into a hip urban shopping complex: Box in the front parking lot with a pair of recycling centres and turn it into a courtyard, and then greenify the roof for colour.
The trick now is to figure out how Canada can destroy its strip malls while saving their cultural “genetics,” wrote Michael von Hausen, a Vancouver-based community planning consultant, in an email to the Post. Canadians must figure out how they can destroy their strip malls without destroying the small businesses and cultural hubs within them.
It is, he believes, “a noble and difficult task.”
Tired of bearing witness to the weight the world is currently bearing, Jeremy sighed and put down his newspaper.
I would, but I'm french-speaking and I would have a hard time writing something long in english.
Might still try, we'll see.
I'm too busy with my own writing and NaNo or I would do a thing.
Oh for fuck's sake...@thehexeditor said:
@Ventilaator said:
I have an use for the winning story in mind, but that use won't be seen by anyone.
This is more fucking weird than my initial suspicion.
Uhh yeah. This is something shady...
The contest idea came to me first. After that idea was already in my head, I was thinking that the main reason I dislike 99.99% books I read is that most classic novels I've read are supremely slow, and full of the author taking way too long to describe something unimportant in way too much detail. So I was thinking that after this is done I should take the winning entry and compare it to some of my most hated bits in some novels, just to laugh at the fact that someone trying hard to not say anything meaningful will come up with text that to me looks straight out of a classic novel I'm an idiot for not liking.
Nothing sinister there. Let's try to not start discussing the fact that I don't like the majority of books.
ON TOPIC, YOU CAN FIND THE LIST OF POTENTIAL PRIZES IN HERE
Jeremy is reading a Newspaper. He is reading the newspaper in a diner at 3 AM. Why is he reading this newspaper? Because he is unemployed. Because his wife left him for her tennis instructor. Because he needs to know what is happening in the world. The waitress walks over, her eyes haggard with fatigue. "Would ya like more caw-fee hon?". Jeremy nods. He couldn't go to sleep if he tried anyways. The dark black liquid, no doubt made from the finest beans only grown in the depths of the amazon, pours into the cup. Not too hot, not too cold. The headline of the newspaper reads: "Brutal Murders in quiet suburb!" It is yesterday's paper. The story details the deaths of a woman, aged 36, and a man, aged 40. The man was stabbed repeatedly in the back, and the woman was strangled. Jeremy is not impressed. The paper fails to mention that the man was a tennis instructor, or that the woman was cheating on her husband. Or that the police have been chasing the murderer all day. He looks up to see the glow of red and blue flashing lights. Sirens. He finishes his coffee and whispers to himself "Great job Jeremy"
@ArbitraryWater said:
Jeremy is reading a Newspaper. He is reading the newspaper in a diner at 3 AM. Why is he reading this newspaper? Because he is unemployed. Because his wife left him for her tennis instructor. Because he needs to know what is happening in the world. The waitress walks over, her eyes haggard with fatigue. "Would ya like more caw-fee hon?". Jeremy nods. He couldn't go to sleep if he tried anyways. The dark black liquid, no doubt made from the finest beans only grown in the depths of the amazon, pours into the cup. Not too hot, not too cold. The headline of the newspaper reads: "Brutal Murders in quiet suburb!" It is yesterday's paper. The story details the deaths of a woman, aged 36, and a man, aged 40. The man was stabbed repeatedly in the back, and the woman was strangled. Jeremy is not impressed. The paper fails to mention that the man was a tennis instructor, or that the woman was cheating on her husband. Or that the police have been chasing the murderer all day. He looks up to see the glow of red and blue flashing lights. Sirens. He finishes his coffee and whispers to himself "Great job Jeremy"
While I don't think I'll participate, can I nominate this?
I don't think I have the patience to intentionally write like shit.
Can we write the entry here, as @ArbitraryWater: did?
Go right ahead, but if it gets horribly long (like the dude who copied newspaper articles) you might want to put it in a spoiler box maybe?Can we write the entry here, as @ArbitraryWater: did?
How did I not see this coming. I should have seen this coming. I should have seen this coming before I even posted the thread..............He finishes his coffee and whispers to himself "Great job Jeremy"
@ArbitraryWater said:Honestly, I thought that's why you picked Jeremy as the name.How did I not see this coming. I should have seen this coming. I should have seen this coming before I even posted the thread..............He finishes his coffee and whispers to himself "Great job Jeremy"
One day Jeremy was reading his newspaper. It was a day just like any other day. He slurped his slurpee that he got along with his paper at 7/11. Why 7/11 you ask? Well, because it was close to his house. Why a slurpee you ask? Because while Jeremy was ordering coffee a thought came to him ~What if....~ Jeremy was unable to finish his thought because at that very moment a shady looking midget sidled up next to him. Jeremy thought nothing of this short man, he even gave him a friendly "Hi, How ya doin'?" The man looked up at him with his beady little eyes and said "Are you Jeremy?" A little worried Jeremy said "How do you know my name?" The man answered "It says it on the back of your Jersey." Jeremy (Feeling a little foolish) responded "Oh. Haha." Jeremy was wondering why it was taking so long to get his coffee. Looking at his cup, he realized he had not pushed the button...before he could, he noticed that the strange little midget was gone. Jeremy wondered where he could've gone in such a hurry. He looked around the dairy section, and up/down every row but he couldn't find him. Tired of this ordeal Jeremy decided that it was time to go. Going back to the coffee machine he noticed something was amiss, there was no longer any electricity going into the machine. Jeremy searched for someone he could complain to...he was getting more than a little angry with this 7/11. Finally Jeremy found the man at the cash register...The man was sitting slumped in his chair as if he was asleep. Jeremy was nervous now, he slowly inched up to the man at the cash register. Poking the man didn't work, so Jeremy decided to poke him a little harder....still nothing. Jeremy knew it was in his best interest to leave but his curiosity outweighed his fear and he wanted to see what was wrong with this man. Jeremy grabbed the mans shoulder and hoisted him up - LJABFOUF! - said the man. It turns out he really was asleep, once again, Jeremy felt foolish. After apologizing to the man Jeremy explained that there was a problem with the Coffee Machine, that there was no power. The man said "That's strange, I'll go check it out for you." Jeremy waited by the cash register but the man never came back. Jeremy was now getting thirsty and he really wanted some of that 7/11 coffee, nothing else would do. So, he decided to check on the man to see if he needed any help. The man was no longer there, Jeremy searched up and down the aisles but couldn't find him. Going into the back offices Jeremy was greeted by a horrendous sight. The man he was talking to earlier was sitting on the toilet and a rather foul noise was emanating from his bowels. Disgusted Jeremy decided that it really was time to go. He went back to the coffee machine (Which the man had fixed) and got himself a cup. After he filled the cup Jeremy waited for what seemed like hours for the man to surface. By now, the entire 7/11 was engulfed in the horrific smell. The man finally appeared from the back room, Jeremy reached for his wallet and realized that it wasn't there. That dastardly little midget had stolen his wallet! Not having enough money for coffee, Jeremy decided to buy a slurpee and newspaper instead (Cheap newspaper and small slurpee instead of large coffee. I know, Jeremy doesn't make sense right?) On his way home, Jeremy saw that devious little midget on the sidewalk. He stopped his car right next to the man, Jeremy threatened the man and got a crowbar from the back of his car. That sniveling wretch of a man just kept walking and paid no attention to Jeremy. Jeremy stomped up to the man and asked him why he had stolen his wallet....no response. Jeremy, with a mighty blow, brought the crowbar down on the mans head....it made a sickening -THWOMP!- as it shattered the back of the mans skull. Jeremy was terrified, he frantically searched the back pockets of the corpse for his wallet but couldn't find it...a pool of blood was forming now. Jeremy turned the man over and to his horror....it was a little boy. He bolted to his car and screeched away. When he got home he decided he had to calm his nerves. Were there any witnesses? Did anyone see his car pulling away? These were questions Jeremy did not wish to answer at this time. So he sat down and slurped his slurpee and read his newspaper. The Headlines read "HOME INVASION MURDERS NOW REACH AN ALL TIME HIGH!" -BLAM- Jeremy always wondered what it felt like to die. It turns out that while Jeremy was at 7/11, the midget had gathered his crew and they were in the middle of cleaning Jeremy's house out when he got home. When they heard his car screech up to the driveway they hid and waited for the opportune moment. Poor Jeremy was now just another statistic on a long list of home invasion murders.
Headlines the next day read "Young Boy brutally murdered on the sidewalk in front of his home!" There was no mention of Jeremy and as the days wore on the crime was soon forgotten and Jeremy wasted into nothingness.
@Ventilaator: You've got to take this post with a pinch of salt, Venti; most people who are taking you seriously are most likely scribbling away, whilst the nay-smiths bare their teeth; it's how these things work, duder. I think this is a great idea; though I'd very much like to know how in the hell's bells you reckon this isn't a sinister idea. You're dangling rewards and carrots infront of our noses whilst you sit back and contemplate how deeply you scorn the very nature of our attempts. That's downright mephistophelian (or "diabolic" before someone makes the pun).
But tell you what, if I find time in my schedule, on which I've planned in plenty of time for Skyrim, work, playing Skyrim at work when nobody is around and my own reading; I'll chip in and write something, myself.
@Unknown_Pleasures said:@Ventilaator: Your basing your decision on word count? Always a sign of good writer.
Why are you encouraging quantity over quality?.....isn't that the exact opposite of what writing is all about?
GOOD writing is about quality, but this is very clearly not about good writing, because no good writer would specifically try to say absolutely nothing with a whole big bunch of words.
Quality still matters here, but it's not the number one thing.
Jeremy is reading a newspaper. He's sitting in a subway car as it stops and goes, stops and goes, stops and goes. The body of the old bag next to him lurches forward and slams back with the stop-and-go flow of the train, something he used to pity but now has faded to the background. He is barely awake, it's a Monday, and the only thing separating him from re-enacting The Taking of Pelham 123 (the original, not that John Travolta bullshit) is an extra large coffee that was always either too hot or too cold. There's a drug addict sitting across from him. He is always on the train with Jeremy in varying states of consciousness. Jeremy breaks his gaze from the paper for a moment just to observe him. The man seems to not give a single fuck. His jeans are torn, dirty, and cling to his undoubtedly-oily skin like a weathered extra layer of flesh that has yet to be stripped from his bones completely. His frailty and shabby wardrobe make him appear snake-like.
For a moment, Jeremy spends a day in the addict's life: get up, get high, score. Here was a man that was in a constant race for survival. He had to get high, get money to get high again, and MAYBE get some food if the drugs permitted. He envies him. Jeremy had a house. He had nice things. And yet he was still a faceless, silently-suffering zero like the rest of the train. At least this guy did what he wanted, even if the rest of the world frowned upon him. "This whole story seems like a really awful Trainspotting reference." A woman next to Jeremy says. "What?" He asks, perplexed. The woman only looks at him strangely. "I didn't say anything."
Before he can get the chance to ponder what had just happened, Jeremy's newspaper slips and out pops the weekly Sears flyer. Manufactured white women wearing manufactured sweaters and jeans. Jeremy was overtaken with embarrassment despite the fact that, you know, the newspaper fucking comes with shit like this. He is 13 again. He picks up the flyer with an air of playful shame, as if he had dropped an issue of Playboy, picking it up with an expression of "Oh Jeez, how did THIS get in here....?"
As his stop neared, Jeremy looked back at the drug addict and back at the Sears flyer. He had gone through years of therapy for this, and right now was his biggest moment of tension since he had left the therapist's couch and was once again deemed sane by the system. Now he could unravel all of that or rekindle his most primal of desires. The stop to his workplace came, and he stayed seated. He would not return to the office today. Today, he would truly live.
For this reason he would never completely abandon the trenchcoat. It was the last remnant of his alter ego, the last and most difficult part of his former identity that he had yet to throw away. He always kept it in his briefcase, it had been there more than ten years, waiting for the day to make his return to the subways of America. Now was the time. He got off at the next stop and walked hurriedly to the grimy bathroom of the subway station. He donned his fadora and stripped completely naked before once again donning the trenchcoat. He had remained scrawny throughout the years due to social isolation and a stomach that was always sour. He put on the trenchcoat and stepped back out onto the platform, ignoring the stares and whispers and getting onto the next available train.
Now was where his life's work would resume. He worked up a woody and began to masturbate discretely, yet furiously, enough to show an expression of tension but not completely alluding to what he was actually up to. When the train stopped next, he sprung from his seat, still jerking it, and awkwardly hobbled to the door as it was just opening. There were a pack of unknowing commuters, completely unaware of the horror that awaited them. Just as he had done years before, Jeremy released his pearly, piping-hot treats all over the five people crowded into the doorway of the train. One woman caught a load to the eye. She shrieked. One passenger remarked that he had heard the Wilhelm scream, and how illogical it was to hear in a story where there are no actual sounds. His remarks, however accurate, were mostly unheard of by the revolted travelers.
Jeremy would do this for three more stops until the local authorities cornered him in the Subway bathroom. He fought until the blue-balled finish, forever blinding one officer in his right eye. Following his death, many immortalized his memory through subway graffiti and t-shirts bearing his image. He would become a new-age martyr like Che Guevara and was the face of the revolution in Egypt the following summer. RIP.
---
Bring it, motherfuckers.
To be clear, Akrid IS disqualified right? I can do this all day, but there are less tedious ways to obtain video games than trying to compete with an entire office of writers in sheer quantity.
It was the snowy morning of November 19th, and Jeremy was sitting in his study reading his copy of newspaper. He was wearing his rather large spectacles to read the paper, though he always told his wife that he didn't need to, since the paper's font was so big. His wife, Margaret, had left a few minutes ago to go to work. She was a nurse, which she never failed to remind since she was always telling him horrible, disgusting stories of the insane people and the problems they would have when they came in. Though Jeremy loved his wife - being married for 25 years usually needs that sort of thing - he always relished the hour he had in the morning, alone, to read the paper and watch the news. He hadn't advanced to the news part, yet. He was still reading the paper. He usually flipped over the the channel news once his wife gave him a call. She always called when she reached the hospital, and he always called when he got to the office. It was just a tradition of theirs that they did. She usually rang at about 7:30 or so. That was his sign that he had read enough, and if he didn't turn on the TV he'd miss the second-run of top news stories.
He loved the feel of the pages, and the ink in them. Rough and course, but solid. Solid work. Meticulously crafted and formatted, but, in a way, careless in their construction. It made him think of hard work, commendable work that would get you a hot dinner at the end of the day and a soft bed.
This fascination he had with the paper would get out of hand, sometimes. Sometimes he'd stare - not even read, just stare - so intently at the paper that the ink would start to blur, and take strange shapes. Like splattered eggs on the kitchen floor, or oil floating above water. He didn't know why, after he'd snap out of the fugue state, this happened. He would say out loud that he was getting old, or his eyes were failing him, but he knew that wasn't the case.
Usually he'd rock back and forth in his chair. He read in a very comfortable lazy boy, and while he read he'd gently swing back and forth, unconsciously. His feet would push off of the fuzzy carpet below and propel him back and forth. The chair would squeak. Next to him, under the window, was a small drawer. His coat lay on top of it, neatly.
He flipped past the first few pages. He always though that they were so depressing - all that was in those first few pages was death, murder, thievery, assaults, rape, arson, car crashes and drunk drivers and bank robberies and hijackings and terrorist attacks. No, none of that for him! He skipped forward to the community section. He liked to read the political cartoons, although since he didn't keep up with the elections or most politics the jokes usually flew over his head. He liked to read the faith section, but only when the reverend talked about generosity and God's gifts to mankind, not that hellfire nonsense. He liked to read about coming cultural events, like concerts and exhibits in the museum.
Though he didn't like to read about violent deaths, Jeremy enjoyed reading the obituaries. Not because he liked death in any way, but he always liked seeing the appreciation that the living gave the dead in the paper. They said what they really should have said when the dead weren't dead, but Jeremy liked to think that they got a sense of closure from the obituaries.
Thomas Rinwold passed away peacefully in the night of November 22nd. Thomas was eighty two years old, and was a loving father and husband. He leaves behind three children, six grandchildren, and goes to join his wife in peace. He will be dearly missed. Bye, dad. I wish you could have had my Christmas pie one more time.
Jeremy read the rest of them over the course of the next ten minutes, slowly. Sometimes he re-read the particularly heartwarming ones. There wasn't a single sound in the whole house except for the ticking of the clock in the hallway, the squeaking of the chair, and Jeremy's slow, quiet breathing.
He felt like he was making good time, since he finished off the obituaries and his wife still hadn't called. With nothing else to really do, and with no desire to catch the end of the first run of the news, he flipped to the front page. He didn't read the actual stories, but started looking at the headlines. One of them caught his eye.
KILLER KILLS 6, WOUNDS 4 IN MORNING HOSPITAL SHOOTING
He scowled immediately, and threw the paper off to the side. There was a good reason why he didn't read the first few pages, and that was it right there.
He twiddled his thumbs for a minute, waiting. Wondering about what kind of events were going on in the world today. He hated reading about death and destruction, but somehow, with a news anchor actually talking about it, it was tolerable. It was the only way he could manage the big stories.
Becoming impatient, he reached over to jacket and pulled it close. He dug his hand into it's pocket, looking for his watch, and pulled it out. He adjusted the spectacles lying on his nose.
The watch read 7:55.
Curious.
------
bah. it was way too hard to only write about a dude reading a newspaper.
I might actually enter this just to see if I can make up enough shit to draw a story out on the topic. The only issue is that, if I was to win (don't worry; I won't), I don't have a PC capable of running those games, and I don't have an NTSC Xbox. I'll see what I can make up all the same. This could be a laugh.
Jeremy is reading a newspaper. No one knew that he was a functioning illiterate.
Yes. Accepting that entry would be silly both for the fact that anyone could copy-paste a longer text than he did, and for the fact that the contest is about writing the longest story without actually including any story in what you're writing. Copying newspaper articles is a LOT of actual story.To be clear, Akrid IS disqualified right? I can do this all day, but there are less tedious ways to obtain video games than trying to compete with an entire office of writers in sheer quantity.
@cancerdancer said:
Jeremy is reading a newspaper. No one knew that he was a functioning illiterate.
This made me laugh more it had any right to. Followed.
@Ventilaator said:
@nintendoeats said:Yes. Accepting that entry would be silly both for the fact that anyone could copy-paste a longer text than he did, and for the fact that the contest is about writing the longest story without actually including any story in what you're writing. Copying newspaper articles is a LOT of actual story.To be clear, Akrid IS disqualified right? I can do this all day, but there are less tedious ways to obtain video games than trying to compete with an entire office of writers in sheer quantity.
Assuming that it works out as planned, mine is going to subvert the underlying concept of your contest.
Here's mine.
Edit: Formatting sucks, can't fix it.
Jeremy is reading a newspaper. He doesn't like the actual news section; he usually reads the sports sections and movie reviews. Sometimes the obituaries, just in case someone he knows is in there. He is reading the sports section.
“The Braves won last night,” he says.
“That’s great, honey,” his wife, Myrna says.
He looks over the newspaper at his son, Michael, playing with his food.
“Enjoy the pancakes?” he asks.
“Yeah, Dad. I’m just full.”
“Well, you should eat your eggs, they’re good for you,” Jeremy says.
He continues to read the newspaper. Basketball, no thanks. He turns the page, onto movies.
“That new George Clooney movie got great reviews. You want to go see it tonight, Myrna?” he says.
“Sure, honey.”
He looks over the newspaper across the table,“You sound upset, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing…” she says.
“Come on, now, what’s wrong?”
“Daddy, can I go too?”
“Sorry, kiddo, it’s a grown-up movie. Maybe you’d like to go to Fred’s house tonight? Or we could call a sitter?”
“Okay.”
“Myrna, can you call Fred’s mother sometime today and see if it’s alright?” Jeremy says.
“Sure, dear.”
“Thanks, babe.”
Here we go again, something else is wrong. I’m in for it now.
He continues reading. Of course the new Twilight movie is bad.
J. Edgar is bad? Whoulda thunk.
Nothing interesting. No one in the obituaries to be concerned of either. Time for work.
He folds up the paper, “Alright, I’m off to work.” He stands up and pats his son’s bloody head, “Eat up, buddy, or it’ll get cold.”
He then walks around his lifeless body and toward his wife. He gives her cold lips a kiss, “Love you, I’ll be home by 5.” He throws the paper in the garbage and leaves.
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