Hole Foods

AUSTIN, June 24, 2017 – Eight leading business leaders and early-stage investors today announced the formation of Hole Foods Inc., a groundbreaking donut food-truck supporting stomach growth statewide through investment in pastries.

Juan Besos, an experienced early-stage investor who was chief dessert officer of MaguSoft will lead the foundation. Mr. Besos and seven co-founders have made pledges totaling nearly $6 US dollars.

"Hole Foods Donuts is a dynamic leader in the quality dessert business." -- Mr. Besos said -- "We are a mission-driven company that aims to set the standards of edibleness for food retailers." The company has strategically allocated resources to research if edibleness is even a word. "We can change it for passableness if it is not" -- Mr. Besos explained.

In order to handle day to day operations, Hole Foods has announced the creation of parent company Lacandon Jungle.

The Five Movies We Want For 2017

Back to the Future 4: In this zany sequel, time-traveling duo Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) travel to the year 2016 to save Marty's future sons from the disaster that was the 2016 election.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotted Mind: When Cruella de Vil's plan to get a dalmatian fur coat turns sour, she undergoes a procedure to have her memories erased. But it is only through the process of loss that she discovers what she had to begin with.

Sploosh: In this animated reboot of the 1984 classic, a young Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) is saved from drowning by mermaid Pam Poovery (Amber Nash). 20 years later she returns to seek him out and they fall in love. Before they can choose between life on dry land or a deep sea paradise the lovers are rudely interrupted by the intervention of scheming scientist Dr. Algernop Krieger (Lucky Yates).

Dr. Strange-love: U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) goes completely mad, and sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He suspects that the communists are conspiring to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people. Only one man can avert this tragedy: former Nazi genius Dr. Strange-love (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is now wheelchair bound and must embark on a trip to Tibet to become the sorcerer supreme and stop General Ripper.

Fast West and Furious: In this sequel to the 2015 movie Slow West ex-lawman Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), Mia Torretto (Jordana Brewster) and her brother Dom (Vin Diesel) have traveled border to border to evade authorities. In 1800s Colorado they must do one final job before they can gain their freedom for good. Assembling an elite team of horse riders, including a bounty hunter (Michael Fassbender) they must escape from the sheriff (Dwayne Johnson) who wants them dead.

Timeline-wise, this last movie makes about as much sense as the rest of the Fast and Furious franchise. 

Influencia

Justo antes de su función en Saturday Night Live, Kanye West (rapero mediocre y auto-nominado ser humano más influyente de la historia) se enteró que habían cambiado el escenario que construyeron especialmente para su actuación.

Kanye no estaba feliz con esto y mientras estaba en su vestidor tuvo un pequeño episodio: 

"Are they f***ing crazy? Whoa by 50 percent Stanley Kubrick, Picasso, Apostle Paul, f***ing Picasso and Escobar. By 50 percent more influential than any other human being."

Que básicamente se traduce a algo como: 

"¿Están pinches locos? Whoa por 50 por ciento Stanley Kubrick, Picasso y el apóstol San Pablo, que el pinche Picaso y Escobar. Por 50 por ciento más influyente que cualquier otro ser humano"

Imma let you finish, but Kanye had one of the best meltdowns of ALL TIME

Fuera de lo entretenido que es escuchar a Kanye tener su episodio, lo que me llama la atención es la facilidad que tiene Kanye para medir porcentajes de influencia, y por lo tanto me gustaría continuar el experimento con algunos porcentajes más:

Pedro Picapiedra está muy enojado

Y también vale la pena analizar cómo la influencia de Kanye ha cambiado con respecto al tiempo:

Seventeen Hobo

In the second episode of Gotham, the murder of a homeless man leads Gordon to investigate the abductions of street kids by Patti and Doug, who have been posing as members of the Mayor's Homeless Outreach Program. In one of the later scenes we see the street kids who were kidnapped: a group of attractive teenagers with beautiful perms, perfect teeth and designer clothes.

Even if Gotham is corrupt and gloomy at least its street kids seem to be doing fine. But this begs the question: where are all these teenagers getting their fashion tips?

My favorite part is the horoscopes section

All Lives Matter

I read an article today titled When simply existing is dangerous, everything is a risk. In it, the author talks about her experience helping create a game that puts people in the shoes of a transgender person and shows them all the challenges this entails.

In the article, the author also mentions she is depressed because 81 transgender people were murdered in 2015 across the world.

Well, I have good news! Data collected by the UNDOC places the worldwide number of homicides at 437,000. It is difficult to give a precise total count of transgender people but estimates vary from 0.3% to 0.5% of the total population, that would mean that worldwide the expected murder count for transgender people should be somewhere between 1,311 and 2,185 people killed by year; so transgenders are beating the odds (by a lot!).

With a world population of 7 billion, we can estimate there to be about 21 million transgenders, which, if we go by the number of 81 murders puts the murder rate for transgender people at 0.00038% which we've already shown is lower than the world average. Blacks in the US, on the other hand, have a murder rate of 0.0055% or 14 times higher than transgender people!

Now, if only somebody made a game to put us in the shoes of a black person and all the challenges they have to face.

Oh, that's right. Thanks GTA 5!

The Hateful Gun Control

Last year the United States had almost as many mass shootings as it had days. President Obama has decided he cannot ignore this problem any longer and has called on congress to take our guns.

Fortunately I had a lot of time to think about a solution for this problem while watching The Hateful Eight, since the run-time for the movie feels like 17 hours. In the movie, a couple of bounty hunters and the sheriff of a Wyoming town take shelter from a blizzard in a cabin which is currently inhabited by four other men.

After getting inside the cabin, the group asks the current inhabitants to surrender their guns in the name of safety. This should be our first warning that something is about to go terribly wrong. And true enough, five hours into the movie (about halfway through) somebody poisons the coffee and kills several characters.

At this point I started thinking that obviously the solution would have been to hide some more guns around the cabin and for everyone to open carry their revolvers.

Unfortunately, later on the movie we learn the characters had thought about this already and they had half a dozen guns hidden around the cabin. We also learn they used these guns to kill the previous owners of the cabin. From there things escalate pretty quickly, every single character is killed in rapid succession, mostly by gunshots.

This seems like a powerful blow to the more guns equal more safety; however, people are missing the obvious point: if only one of them had an assault rifle they would have all lived happily ever after. Unless they killed each other with the assault rifle in which case the only solution would have been a tank.

Double-wield for twice the safety

The one percent of the one percent

During a hunting trip on the show The Good Wife, one of the characters mentions that she saw "the one percent of the one percent of the one percent" referring to someone who is absurdly rich.

She probably did not realize that the one percent of the one percent of the one percent by income is basically only one person (doing simple interpolation of the data here); however, lets give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she was referring instead to the 0.0001% of the population, which end up being about 319 people.

This gave me an amazing idea for a new movie: In 2015 a state of war exists between the poor, led by Joseph Stiglitz (founder of the 1% movement) and the ultra rich. At the battle of Scarsdale (median household income of $233,311), Donald Trump, king of the ultra rich, leads his badly outnumbered warriors against the massive poor army. Though certain death awaits the one percenters, their sacrifice inspires all of the normal rich to unite against their common enemy.

During one of the first scenes a messenger for the poor will be sent to deliver a message to Donald Trump. After the message is delivered Trump, clearly irritated, threatens the messenger:

Messenger: Madman! You're a madman!
Donald Trump: You bring the checkbooks and platinum cards of conquered rich to my city steps. You insult my lover. You threaten my people with slightly higher taxes! Oh, I've chosen my words carefully. Perhaps you should have done the same!
Messenger: This is blasphemy! This is madness!
Donald Trump: Madness? This. IS. WALL STREET!!

 Later in the movie, as the rich are preparing to defend the all-out attack from the poor the following exchange takes place:

Donald Trump: Ultra rich! Ready your caviar and eat hearty; for tonight, we dine in Restaurant Le Meurice in Paris!

I suspect those abs were computer generated.

I don't want to ruin the ending, but it does not end well for the US.

Nostalgia Ain't What It Used To Be

Growing up reading Isaac Asimov, one of my dreams was to become a successful science fiction author. However, actually figuring out how to write good science fiction is very complicated and requires a lot of work and patience to get the science right and the writing perfect.

Zach Weinersmith wrote that reality has two dimensions of time: proper time and remembered time. Proper time is the one we store in watches (for example: August 8, 2015 at 3:32 p.m.) while remembered time is stored in our neurons (for example: the time I visited Costa Rica).

Because remembered time will only remember the things that I liked (and those memories will be further reinforced because I will talk about them and think about them often) humans tend to idealize the past and associate the past with a better state of things. This is what we call nostalgia.

But if our brains aren’t very good at remembering things, they are pretty amazing at making connections (even when they aren’t there). That is the reason for this list of parallels between the lives of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln and it is also how I feel about Ernest Cline (author of Ready Player One) and Andy Weir (author of The Martian).

You see: both authors were born in the US in 1972, both authors published their first book in 2011, the plot of both books relies on nostalgia and both books didn’t do amazingly well on release but are now considered classics of modern science fiction.

And this brings me back to my original point. Becoming a science fiction writer must be a matter of finding a magical formula that anybody can copy and then just writing lots of words. In order to find this magic formula, I will analyze these two books.

I will start by looking at Andy Weir’s book. The Martian was painstakingly researched in order to have correct science, which required lots of complicated mathematics to get right. It creates rich characters with feelings and limitations, characters who are afraid of losing and uses nostalgic elements to tie them up to Earth and make you identify with them. So, obviously, that is too much work. Moving on!

Ready Player One is far simpler. The basic idea is to throw as many nostalgic references as possible in the hopes that someone will say “hey! I know that one thing!”. The first element of nostalgia appears all the way in page number 2: an Atari 2600. After that references show up every couple paragraphs (always presented in a list of items because that makes it even more annoying to read). We will read lists of consoles (Apple IIe, a Commodore 64, an Atari 800 XL, TRS-80), games (Galaga, Defender, Asteroids), comics (Spider-Man, X-Men, Green Lantern), refuges (Batcave, Fortress of Solitude), fictional worlds (Middle Earth, Vulcan, Pern, Arrakis, Magrathea,Discworld, Mid-World, Riverworld, Ringworld), spacecraft (UFOs, TIE fighters, old NASA space shuttles, Vipers), etc.

Additionally, the book treats the reader like an idiot. Every single joke is explained, and then if people are too dense to get it, it is explained again. Every term that isn’t completely obvious is expanded upon. Don’t know what an NPC is? Can’t be bothered to Google it? Don’t worry, the book says they are “non-player characters” – still don’t get it? No problem, the next paragraph will explain – “computer-controlled humans, animals, monsters, aliens and androids.”

So, insulting my readers and listing things? I can totally do that!!

And so I present to you the first paragraph of my science fiction masterpiece:

"thanks Obama!" – He said sarcastically while rolling his eyes. Some members of the audience were still not getting it – "I was being sarcastic" – he further explained, explainingly (sarcasm is the use of irony to mock or convey contempt) – "in this case I am not really thanking Obama, I just say 'thanks Obama' in an ironic way" -- he added expositionally [1]. 

Footnotes:
[1] Expositionally is the adverb form the word exposition. Adverbs are words or phrases that qualify adjectives, verbs or other adverbs. Some of the possible categorizations of adverbs include: Genitive, Conjunctive, Flat, Locative, Interrogative, Collateral, Prepositional, Pronominal and Relative

Some attentive readers might notice that collateral is really a form of adjective, to which I reply: who cares? Determining the correct list would require work and by that point my target audience will be thinking: "ohh!! Look, locative adverbs, I remember those from school!! This book is super cool!!"

Fourth of July

The United States are widely known for adopting other cultures and celebrating them, for example in Cinco de Mayo, where they celebrate by putting on sombreros, drinking tequila and listening to Latin American music (to which they refer by the common national name of "Mexican"). It is in this spirit that, during my trip to Mexico, we decided to celebrate Fourth of July (pronounced Fort of Hoolie).

We began our celebration with a typical steak and eggs breakfast. To prepare this breakfast you have to sun-dry the steak, pound it and heat it in a pan. After the meat is brown you add tomatoes, onions, serrano chile and eggs.

Steak and Eggs

Once the steak and eggs are done, you put them as a topping in a traditional American pizza:

A typical American breakfast

Once we were done with breakfast we engaged in the characteristic ritual of shopping, from the French word chopîn which means: buying things I don't have money for. During this shopping spree, we bought a plush dinosaur, hamburgers, coffee and horchata among other things.

Once we came back home, we dressed in typical American formal wear.

An American Cowboy and the customary American hat.

Before the meal we had some American hors d'oeuvres.

A map of the United States; we put the flag in the capital: Washington D.C.

We also learned a bit about the history and culture of the United States. The Fourth of July is the celebration of the day when the Native American Indians taught the Americans to make hamburgers after the famous battle of Waterloo. Ever since, in order to commemorate this event, Americans make hamburgers and hot dogs.

Almost as good as McDonald's

Little known fact: hot dogs are shaped after American submarines, which is why they are sometimes called subs.

An American sub.

We wanted to celebrate American culture fully, so we even bought a soap dispenser shaped like the American national bird: the bald owl.

You can tell he is bald because he is wearing a pilgrim hat.

Unfortunately we could not find Bud Light so we had to substitute using good beer.

Boldly Running

Lincoln Chafee announced he wanted to run for the Democratic bid under a platform of "bold ideas" including the idea of switching to using the metric system.

While discussing this at work someone mentioned that the idea of using standardized units would not be well received by the general American population, to the point where that single idea could have cost him the nomination.

I am hoping that some Republican candidate realizes that the issue is polarizing and decides to run under a platform of "bold ideas", including the idea of switching to units which are even further away from the metric system.

To help that hypothetical Republican candidate in his nomination I want to submit a proposal to change the unit of energy from Calories to horsepower per hour (or horses for short).

This has many benefits; for example: horsepower per hour is a bigger unit than calories, so instead of eating hundreds of calories we will be eating only half a horse (note: call this a pony). I am sure this will boost morale and have a positive effect on people who overeat.

And so that people get accustomed to the change, some meals in horses:

• Bruléed French Toast from Cheesecake Factory -- 4.33 horses 
• Big Hook Up from Joe-s Crab Shack -- 5.11 horses 
• New York Steak "Contadina style" from Maggiano's  -- 3.77 horses.
• Deep Dish Chicken Bacon Ranch Pizza from BJ's -- 3.36 horses
• Large Chocolate Oreo Shake from Baskin-Robbins -- 4.05 horses

Chicago Bullies

Chicago Bulls fans who watch their team in the United Center receive coupons for a free Big Mac if their team wins and scores at least 100 points.

This has lead to some mathematically-challenged fans who will boo the players when they do not score at least 100 points, because they do not understand that 99 < 100 and the players just saved them from having a dinner which, nutritionally speaking, compares slightly disfavorably to cheap car oil and doesn't taste much better than it either.

This has also lead some of my more sophisticated readers to wonder: "well, but why is McDonald's torturing Bulls fans by forcing them to consume their burgers?" and I would like to remind them that this is America; we do not condone torture. Giving out free Big Macs is only part of the CIA's enhanced celebration techniques.

The Diversity of Sand-grains

Today I read an article by Susana Polo in which she discusses the news that DC Comics is scrapping the New 52 in favor of a more diverse, character driven series of comics.

This is all great for DC. Diversity in media is definitely a good thing. It is realistic because the world we live in is diverse and it gives us different points of view and better characters and interactions.

From the article we can see that DC is attempting to steal some of Marvel's market with their more diverse super heroes, led by the new Ms. Marvel, who is a young Muslim woman. Polo continues to congratulate Marvel on the great work they are doing for diversity saying that "[Marvel] has shown other commitments to diversity on the page [...] with all-female Avengers and X-Men teams".

She is using "diversity", of course, in the less well-known form where it means: "not differing from one another, not containing people of different genders".

Dear ACL

Rebekah Gregory DiMartino's life changed drastically after she attended the Boston Marathon in 2013. She was standing next to one of the bombs placed during the attack, which left her with an injured leg that doctors have fought for months to save. Unfortunately, the leg couldn't be saved and Rebekah finally decided to have it removed but this has not made her lose her positive attitude.

This amazing display of energy and positivism has really inspired me and has made me think: if she can milk her injury for all it's worth, why can't I get a little attention and money for mine? 

And so it is that I decided to write a letter to my ACL:

Hey ACL, it's me.

I know that some times you feel like I'm tearing you apart, but I want to tell you that my feelings are true and that I never wanted to hurt you. I'm not saying that this isn't hard for me and I understand that you want to leave me; however, I don't want this thing we have to come to an end. Every day that I spend without you is a day where I am unstable and I feel like I can trip and fall at any moment. I'm not sure I can reach my full potential if you are not here. I love you, I really do, and you are crucial to my happiness. Please come back (and bring your friends MCL and cartilage back too).

Wishing you the best,
Magus

I have also started posting corny puns in my Facebook:

ACLimatizing myself to living without you is hard.

After the previous pun I realized that it is really hard to make good puns with ACL so instead I decided to post some super positive images instead:

To fully appreciate the previous image watch it while listening to this.

And now that all of this is done I am just waiting for the money and interview requests to pour in.  

We're All Gonna Die!!

Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are in the middle of what Joanne Liu, president of Doctors Without Borders, named "the worst Ebola epidemic in history" and warns that "the world is losing the battle to contain it", Judge Jeaniné from Fox News says that "[the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention] don't know what the hell they are doing, they are lying to you or they are plain incompetent" and Dana Ford says that the "odds of survival are not good". So, should we be terrified or just really, really scared?

Lets look at the whole thing from a numbers perspective: 

• As of October 14, 2014 there are 9,216 reported cases, of which 4,555 have died (49.4% death rate)
• Most of the deaths have been people who have no access to health care and who, for religious reasons, are not able to dispose of the body in the ways required to avoid spreading the disease.
• In countries with access to medicine the death rate is around 33%

At this point the part of our brain that tells us if something is bad is screaming "4,555 deaths! That's terrible!", but lets take a look at some of the other leading causes of death for this year: Just in the US, heart disease kills around 596,577 people every year and cancer kills another 576,691. We might think those aren't valid comparisons because cancer and heart disease aren't communicable diseases. In a year, the flu kills 53,826 people. Put another way: every single month, just in the US, influenza kills more people than the Ebola outbreak has killed in the whole world.

If you live in the US, in the past five years you have the same chance of dying of Ebola than you have of being stabbed by a rooster (I am doing my part by eating chicken wings in order to stop the stabbing chicken outbreak) or chocked to death by cockroaches. This year you are twice as likely to be killed by bears, than you are to be killed by Ebola.

But lets stop focusing on the US, and lets look a bit more closely at Liberia. So far in Liberia there have only been 2,484 reported deaths. Since Liberia has a population of 4,092,310 inhabitants it represents around 0.06% of the population. In comparison, the Black Death is said to have killed around half the population of the entire European continent. Joanne Liu and Dana Ford get away with the "worst Ebola outbreak" on the technicality that we don't really have any data for any other Ebola outbreak.

Not all is perfect; however, Wikipedia conveniently has a chart of the new cases contracted in Liberia day by day

What is the previous chart telling us? First it is telling us that the growth is exponential:

cases = 9.3249e0.0505days

Bad outbreaks generally tend to kill around 30% of the population in a country or region. If Liberia has 4,092,310 inhabitants we can solve for the number of days that it would take to have about 1,227,693 reported cases of Ebola:

The attentive reader will notice that my equation is only giving us reported cases, and not really deaths and that the number of deaths will only be half that because the mortality rate is 50%; however, it turns out to make little difference because the function is exponential and it would only take another 10 days or so for the number to double. 

That sounds bad, but for the equation to work two things must continue to be true: victims will continue to receive inadequate treatment and the number of cases will continue to grow exponentially (both of which are very unlikely). 

Places with health care have even less to worry about. The infection rate in the US seems to be pretty low; the family of the guy from Dallas will finish their quarantine in a couple hours (from the time of this writing) in what they are calling "a tremendous miracle" and of all the nurses and medical staff that treated the guy only two contracted the disease (even though the medical equipment they were using was insufficient).

Even if you do contract the disease, the death rate in places with health care seems to be much closer to 33%, and now that the whole world is aware of the outbreak it is very likely to go even further down. 

So, should we be terrified or just really, really scared? Neither just yet, but we should still be careful, because if we ignore the problem for a few months then we will really have something to be scared of.

La [Censurado] y [Censurado]©

Hoy fui a ver el musical de la Bella y la Bestia de Disney. 

El músical empieza con una bruja que, para enseñarle una lección a un principe, le pone una terrible maldición y lo convierte en un monstruo horrible (piensen Elba Esther Gordillo pero con cuernos). 

Después cortamos a varios años después, en un pueblo cercano donde Belle, una inteligente super modelo que además es sumamente hacendosa, fiel y cariñosa es menospreciada por todo el pueblo (un problema común que enfrentan todas las mujeres atractivas). 

En este pueblo también conocemos a Gaston, un presumido cazador que quiere casarse con Belle, a pesar de que todos sus intentos de conquistarla han sido fallidos, y al padre de Belle, un inventor que obviamente es considerado como un loco por todos los demás.

Mientras prueba una de sus invenciones, el padre de Belle se pierde en el bosque y termina llegando al castillo de la Bestia, quien inmediatamente lo captura. Al enterarse de esto Belle sale a rescatarlo, negociando con la Bestia que deje a su padre ir y a cambio, ella se quedaría en el castillo.

Ya estando en el castillo, Belle conoce a personajes inolvidables como Lumiere y Cogsworth que interpretan la famosísima canción Be Our Guest para invitarla a quedarse. Eventualmente Belle descubre que la Bestia en realidad no es tan malo y obviamente se enamora, rompiendo la maldición del principio y vivieron felices para siempre.

La escenografía es simplemente inolvidable

En fin, el musical me gustó muchísimo. Lo único que no me gustó es que no nos dejaron tomar fotos para proteger el copyright de Disney. 

The Picture of Grayson Dorian

"How sad it is!" murmured Grayson Dorian "I shall grow old and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will always remain young. If it were only the other way! For that I would give everything! I would give my soul for that!"

But in a cruel twist of fate, that monstrous moment of pride and passion did not let him keep his unsullied splendor of eternal youth. As each sin of his life still brought its sure swift penalty along with it, but the picture remained exquisitely young and beautiful.

The Ironing Fairy

"I swear it is true!" – Jessica's look of disbelief didn't help, but Emma pushed on – "I would leave my dirty clothes before leaving for class and when I came back they would be washed, ironed and folded in my closet"

"But it had to be 'the Ironing Fairy'? Wouldn't it make more sense if it was your parents?"

Jessica turned and entered the parking lot.

"Drive all the way from a different state so they could do my laundry and not even say hi?"

"Then your roommate"

"I don't know, I never really got along with her" – the University had a program where you could room with someone with a disability and they would pay for a part of your tuition. Thinking back, Emma couldn't tell what her roommate's disability was, she had always looked normal to her.

They got out of the car and looked for Sean. They hadn't seen each other since college. Emma remembered how they had promised to stay in touch "I won't cry" – she said – "because this is not goodbye" – and then she cried anyway, for dramatic effect. She remembered making the same promise in middle school and high school but now she couldn't even remember her friend's names.

"How are you girls? Long time no see" – Sean waved from the entrance – "Should we get a table?"

They sat and ordered a round of drinks. These reunions have a way of becoming a nostalgic trip to the past. In their retellings, the four pillars of different colors that they used to sit by now represented friendship, the windowless classrooms in the basement with their underpowered computers now seemed like state of the art labs and all the professors had a new-found charisma and insight that they lacked while they were actually giving class.

"Do you remember John from intro to accounting? He was so into Emma" – Jessica had a wide grin

"But he was also super creepy" – Scott added – "they say that he would go into the girl's dorm to steal clothes"

"Unless he wasn't stealing" – Jessica filled Sean in on the Ironing Fairy

"You think that creep was doing my laundry every week?"

"He sure was into you"

"Well, crap"—Emma took a sip from her glass as the table fell silent

"All right, change of subject" – Jessica knew how to keep a conversation going – "Have you seen anyone from school?"

"Yeah! Of all people, I am now working with Cindy, Emma's old roommate" – Sean answered – "she is our floor admin"

"Really? How is she?"

"Not too great, she has really bad dust allergies and with the construction site of our new building so close she has been missing a lot of days. Even before the construction began she would get to her cube and clean everything thoroughly, I think she has a mild obsessive compulsive disorder and wants to have everything tidy"

"That poor girl"

Their conversation sucked the light off the day and they eventually walked to their cars. They agreed they should get together more often. Emma thought back to her nameless friends from middle school.

Olimpiadas de Invierno

Cuando uno vive en el extranjero, los eventos a los que está acostumbrado se vuelven un poco diferentes. En navidad comes algunas cosas que nunca habías visto, la independencia la celebras borracho en la alberca en lugar de borracho en el Ángel, a la hora de cantar el himno te paras incómodo y mueves la boca como si te supieras las estrofas mientras que... bueno, algunas cosas sí son iguales.

Con las olimpiadas sucede lo mismo, así que mientras en México los noticieros deportivos cubren las apuestas en el hockey y el marcador de Pumas-América en Estados Unidos la narrativa ha sido lo horrible que es el gobierno Ruso porque utiliza los medios para manipular a la gente y por las retrógradas políticas en contra de la homosexualidad, en contraste con los Estados Unidos donde Fox News sólo brinda la información más objetiva con comentaristas pertinentes y sagaces y los gays nos caen de lujo siempre y cuando no se estén casando porque francamente eso de casarte con otro hombre está a un paso de casarte con un perro.

Pero con la clausura el día de hoy ha sido más para recordar los momentos mágicos de las olimpiadas de invierno pasadas. Como parte de la cobertura completamente objetiva de los medios, todos estos momentos mágicos son relacionados a los Estados Unidos y ninguno es más mágico que la historia de Nancy Kerrigan.

A principios de los años 90s el equipo de patinaje de los Estados Unidos tenía a varias de las mejores patinadoras del mundo, entre ellas Nancy Kerrigan y Tonya Harding. Acercándose las olimpiadas de invierno de 1994, Harding comenzó a preocuparse de que ella no tenía oportunidad de ir a las olimpiadas, por lo que comenzó a planear una manera de deshacerse de Kerrigan.

Meses después, durante un viaje de entrenamiento a Tarsonis, Harding comenzó su plan. Primero plantó un emisor psi para atraer a los Zerg, mientras que un golpeador a sueldo le rompía las rodillas a Kerrigan y la dejaba abandonada a la voluntad del enjambre Zerg. Videos de ese día muestran a Kerrigan preguntando "¿por qué?" mientras es arrastrada hacia el Overmind.

Kerrigan, impulsada por la rabia, se curó rápidamente de la herida y volvió a practicar con la misma intensidad que antes, por lo que durante las olimpiadas de 1994 tuvo lo que muchos consideran la mejor actuación de su vida. Los jueces, asombrados con su participación y aterrados por los Hydralisks que los tenían clavados a su asiento le dieron la medalla de oro, plata y bronce.

Kerrigan durante las Olimpiadas de '94

DTS

William had been in places like this before. The air felt heavier, the lights seemed dimmer and people wore dark colors to match their humor. People who worked in the DTS would always be "between jobs". Will checked the computer connection, checked his Approved and Denied stamps and opened the small window where a man in a suit was awaiting eagerly. William mustered some patience to get him through the day and said "Papers, please".

After his shift ended, William left for the living quarters. The accommodation was adequate, but a far cry from the luxurious apartment where he stayed during college. He thought back to those days. He could see a younger version of himself walking back from school. He recognized that jump in his step, that care-free smile, both of which were lost to him now. Young Will sat down to watch TV. Like a motorist slowing down for an accident, William couldn't take his eyes off his younger self. Young Will realized it was late, he had lost track of time again. He stood up and realized that he was no longer home. He turned around hoping to find his house, but instead he only found the entrance to the Department of Timeline Security.

The first few weeks after arrival are spent in training. "Welcome to the DTS" – said a voice that Will could only describe as patriotic – "Time Travel, as you all know, is a very serious matter. It is the responsibility of the Department of Timeline Security to insure that the timeline is safe, secure and resilient against terrorism and other hazards. It is our duty to secure and manage the different time periods through enforcement of our immigration laws. For the next weeks you will be trained on all the processes and checks that are necessary to keep our timelines safe."

Will learned that it is fairly common for people to lose track of time and end up in a temporary limbo. The DTS will sometimes drag those people back into the timeline. These people, like Will, are then required to work for a number of years verifying documents and making sure nobody smuggles illegal technology.

The last day of training Will was taken to the time portal. Once a person has legally obtained a visa, undergone a background check and gone through migratory control they would be brought here. William saw a girl in front of the portal getting ready to jump. The girl owned a camera and a mirror and brought both when she dived. Will wondered if she even kept the camera around her neck when she bathed or changed. Most people would think it is weird to imagine a girl bathing the first time you see her, but Will thought it was fairly normal. Then the girl disappeared and the portal turned off. Will looked at the portal with a pinch of hope. One day, if he worked hard, a new group of kids would be watching from the rafters as Will stood in front of the portal.

Crazy Enough

The helicopter was flying over the drop zone. Agent Hunter Strength felt adrenaline pumping through his veins as his grip tightened on the handle bar. Some people might confuse his hesitation to jump with fear; in reality, he was just trying to think of the most badass way to jump. He decided to go with a manly dive.



Weeks earlier, Hunter entered the room. His eyes had trouble adjusting to the darkness as he closed the door behind him. He could see suited men sitting around a table, their expensive suits illuminated by small lights installed in the table’s side, but their faces covered in shadows. Hunter took his place at the table and made a mental note to get facilities to fix the lighting in this place.

“We suspect a terrorist organization has been using the Jackson building to plan an attack.” – The chief said – “We need an agent to extract a group of sensitive documents from the building. Doctor, please take it from here”

A screen turned on with a map full of annotations, green wires covering the background in an expansive grid.

“What is that, Doc?” – Hunter asked

“My screensaver.” – The doctor moved the mouse around to reveal a Power Point™ presentation with the plan of attack – “We will approach the building by sub, within a few miles of it we will launch a Swimming Delivery Vehicle which is similar to a torpedo except it has no propulsion of its own. As it gets close to the sewage system you will have to dispose of it and swim”

“You want me to swim in a sewer?” – Hunter’s voice betrayed incredulity

“Well, it’s the safest way. As you can see in the documents I gave you...”

Hunter couldn't read the documents in the dim light (why did they schedule meetings here?), but he didn't need to – “I have a better plan, Doc, I will take a chopper and use the squirrel suit to fly to the top of the building, take the main elevator to the floor with the plans and jump through the window to exit in a dramatic fashion.”

“That is insane! The building has sonar capabilities, they will detect the helicopter from miles away and windows in a skyscraper cannot be broken by jumping through them!”

“But they will never expect a front-on attack. Do you have a better plan?”

“Well, as I was jus...”

“I like this plan, Hunter” – The tone in the Chief’s voice was final – “It is crazy enough to work”



Hunter spread his arms to slow down his descent. The building’s defense systems sounded an alarm and dozens of armed soldiers marched to the top of the building. Hunter could not return fire while flying. Fortunately, terrorist organizations have terrible target practice programs. Unfortunately, one of the bullets hit Hunter in the leg, which made him lose his balance. His altitude was now much lower than needed, he would not make the ceiling, but he had another crazy idea and he started diving. As Hunter’s body sped towards the window he pictured the translucent disembodied heads of his friends making speeches about the power of love and friendship. This made him feel invincible, certain in his victory. When he crashed into the building the window creaked slightly, with hardly a crack.



Hunter realized that his plan had failed; he was falling fast. He cursed at a universe so unfair that it would not let the good guys win no matter how preposterous their plans were. He probably would never realize the irony of what he was thinking.