Sedimentary Soul

a.k.a the musings of a troubled mind

Sedimentary Soul

The stony face of a chasm wall,
That bleeds from its scars crimson tears,
That assemble a pool at its igneous chin,
That stands motionless amongst its smiling peers.

This wall stands lofty, mighty, dark,
Foreboding when viewed from a distance,
But for the deserving that venture to approach
To indulge the tears, to them there is no resistance.

For the wall that towers and threatens and mars,
That causes the voyager to err,
Is pliable of face and not hard of heart
As only the worthy few can concur.

The moral is as it always was,
The five senses must feed the mind,
See not only the wall, but touch, taste and hear,
For then the heart shall feed in kind.

Again published without Malice's approval

K

well well

it's K here

it's just wrong that we don't have any new posts on the drizzle, i am not quite clear on malice's idea of drizzle but we'll see soon (hopefully)

let's all hope this post will entice/provoke malice to any action other than correct our grammar :)

this is one of malice's old school emails (long before blogs and the like)

FYI: CAPS is a recruitment office in cairo university (just like the one in A.U.C)

and Malice tried to stimulate conversation/debates through email for over a year with little success, failing to do so, he issued this eloquent statement


title: Friends, Morons, Countrymen...


Ave Capsers, those who are to pontificate salute you,

?

I have come to the startling realization that I actually enjoy disciplining you, it serves as an outlet to my various forms of pent up frustration. If you guys weren?t such a bunch of flaming dyslexics, I might be in the throes of ulcer induced agony right now. Thank you.

?

Now that we have the niceties out of the way, let us resume our regularly scheduled verbal castration;

?

It seems that for every bright eyed and eager teen that has ever been adorned with the moniker ?CAPS Member?, there is a drooling, butt scratching Neanderthal staring at a computer screen and thinking, ?hey! I think this guy is insulting someone!? For every outing in which the greatest collection of young minds in the world congregated to discuss the complexities of our time and the nuances of geopolitical politics in the age of star shaped fruit , there are now coffee shops and restaurants that herald the daily existentialist whining of a sad bunch of twenty something who can find nothing better to discuss than the difficulty they face in finding a proverbial ball and chain.

?

Yes, I know what I just wrote has passed 40,000 feet above most of your heads, but I expect you to reply to me saying, ?Dude, I didn?t understand what you said, but your tone was a little insulting??. At which point I will look you in the eye and calmly request you to go suck an egg.

?

Until we beat again,

Yours Insincerely,

?

General Bedlam, (USAF, Retired)

Chief Exasperation Officer

Giveacrap Industries, LTD.






this is just one of the very different ways Malice used to sign his emails, he never just said regards, fahd

nope

we had
I miss you all.
May your fries always be crispy.
Fahd the barbarian.

Thank you for your time.
El sheikh Fahd bin lahlooh.

God speed.
Mr. Marketing

NO MORE FORKING FWDS! Capice?
Arivaderci
Don Fahado.

I leave You all with this deep thought.
God bless the girls of Lebanon!!!

In the words of the omnipotent mango, a long way is only long if you are not wearing shoes.
All hail the mango.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I am schizophrenic,
so am I. (this one is not his for sure, but i don't remember where he got it from)

May your fridge be forever cold and produce no frost.
His Excellency King Fahd bin Lahlooh,
Ruler of the tiny kingdom of insanity.

May the farce be with you
Fahd



so this is basically it, or the ones i remember/found when i was clearing my inbox, now i'll go before this sounds too gay (shut up pazuzu)

Quotes from the Corporate Anarchist

I had started a daily email service to my colleagues wherin I would come up with a humorous quote everyday based on the nonsensical happenings of office life. I will now share these with you. Bear in mind that any plagerism will not be well received.

All the progress, process integration and conceptual advancements made by companies over the past 3 decades can be negated in two activities;
Waiting for Management Approvals and Business Lunches.

Today's word is "Service"
The process of delivering the lowest quality, most exorbitantly priced, highest maintenance products you can get away with, and doing it with a smile.

Today's word is "hemorrhage"
An undesirable physical ailment caused by the insistence of certain individuals to constantly quote professional motivational speakers over and over and over and over.... ad nauseum.

Today's corporate equation is;
1 inferiority complex + 2 project management courses x level of authority = Failed project costing between a big loss and a declaration of bankruptcy

The four stages of corporate loss (with apologies to Freud)
1. Disbelief
2. Recalculation of loss
3. Acceptance
4. Scapegoat identification

HR must actively discourage the recruitment of single people;
More time is spent per capita in speculating about their personal life than in any other activity.

Today's corporate IT ratio;
For every qualified system administrator, there are 18.6 idiots who think an A drive is a luxury car.

Management Protocol # 14564
Once in a corporate while you will come across a staff member who is smart, professional, courteous and genuinely helpful.
FIRE HIM!

Dealing with Network Administrators is much like urinating,
It feels good when you are done, but later there is always that last annoying drop that irritates you

Management Protocol # 45239
The usage of $ymbol$, A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.S & abbs, wl hlp u prve that u hv an I.Q. > yr subs.

Management Protocol # 22276
Never underestimate the power of a well placed, totally vague email, it may just make the conceptual difference between failure and R&D

Warped management theory of the day;
Fact 1 : A large proportion of all customers are employees
Fact 2 : Employees are never right
Conclusion: The customer is WRONG!

Confucius say;
Life like bowl of cereal, good five minutes then soggy forever.

Life is like a faxed document;
Bland, unclear and you have to wait forever for something which is probably inconsequential

Today's word is "Vision";
A corporate synonym that must legally be used instead of "insanity"

If Einstein was an employee:
" The speed and quality level at which a matter is executed is inversely proportional to the number of managers involved "

Question: What has no windows, a depressing, isolated atmosphere and no hope of escape until you have served your time?

Answer: A cubicle


With the increased number of project management junkies being created and the stagnant rate of per capita productivity, it won't be long before we hear this phrase in companies around the world, "I want it done last year!"

Corporatising Age Old Proverbs;

"Every cloud has a silver scapegoat"
"Birds of a feather stab each other in the back"
"Where there's a whim, there's a way"
"Too many cooks? Perform a SWOT analysis"
"Look before you leeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaapp!!!"
"The meek shall inherit the cubicle"
"A fool and his money are both customers of ours"

Secret Management Protocol # 1845
When faced with two candidates with nearly equal credentials, merits and experience, bear in mind;
eenie, meenie, minee, mo.

The real reasons Managers favor technology over people;
It is easier to blame something that can't defend itself
Systems cannot show you up
You can be forgiven for beating a PC to death
Ambiguity can be incorporated into any process as part of a CYA protocol
Computers are much better looking and more sympathetic than subordinates.

The Managerial Utopia Project, Article 1.64;
All employees are required to take vows of silence as part of their employment contracts, the only things they are permitted to say are 'Yes", "It's done" and "Can I get you anything else?"

Secret Management Protocol #7682;
In the field of failure avoidance, it is entirely possible to claim a lack of departmental focus as the culprit for a given shortcoming, change the name of the department, do nothing about improving processes and claim the whole thing a "successful operational streamlining"

Aren't we technologically blessed?
The miracles of the information age have made it so that you can surf the net and unearth 1,445,689 sites that contain the keyword "compuutter"

The true test of ability when it comes to surviving in today's corporate clime is neither longevity nor positions achieved, those who have succeeded are those who have liberated the largest amount of office stationary.

Corporate (deluded) Optimism:
Don't think of your job as an oppressive regime imposed upon you by a sadistic society that takes the individual silk and processes it into practical and mindless potato sacks, think of it as an exercise that puts you in touch with your inner apathetic sloth!

Confucius Say;
Being moral is similar to running on hamster wheel, give you good feeling but get you nowhere. Ah so!

Esoteric Man

Today I will be utilising this forum to express a few of the more suppressed thoughts, this will be an unusual entry, so I would recommend that you put on some socks, pop some corn and make yourselves cozy.

5’ 8”, 76 kg, 164 IQ and an infinite disposition toward sarcasm noire. Vital statistics of a geographically unstable Egyptian. A string of failed relationships, the longest of which may have lasted 17 weeks. Issues, I should bloody well think so.

My demeanour is calm, collected, which I believe is a skill that I have mastered well. You will not be able to ascertain what I am thinking unless I explicitly permit you to. On the inside, however, I am a raging volcano of suppressed rage, given the wrong circumstances, I am liable to rip your arm out and use it to wipe my derriere before beating you senseless with the appendage. All in all, I consider myself a nice guy.

I count myself lucky on account of my friends, people who are smart, fun and capable of handling the fact that I may at any point fly off the handle and commit genocide. Thanks guys, this one's for you.

I get the distinct feeling that society is slowly slipping into a state of mass apathy, and before anyone jumps the gun and says that this has been hashed to death, allow me to elaborate. The individuals of a given society were historically labeled according to their place in the socio-sphere, smith, archer, were all signals of purpose. That has passed and has been increasingly replaced by a singular mentality by the majority of the populace that the importance lies in the perception of the individual of society rather than vice versa.

We are all guilty of this phenomenon to a certain extent, whether you have delusions of grandeur or have ever thought yourself better than someone rather than different, you are guilty. "So what?", you might ask. This id stroking approach to the world is a dangerous thing (although it does have merits), as it fosters ever more human boundries within a given society, and spews forths more 'isms' that are not even based on physical appearance or cultural distinctions. The new criterias for discrimination are now psychological, the fear (or belief) that other people would never understand you and the barriers that are erected as a result. The concept of "only I am me, and no one could ever fully understand, ergo, no one is worthy of me."

God help us all

not-so-darkly undressing

well here goes, it seems all attempts to remain annonymous are not gonna succeed and frankly i don't care about it anymore, as i really don't mind blowing the covers off everybody i wrote about on my other blog

well today's story little kids is about dreams, the ones you remember at least


i've always been a big fan of dreams and how they are a translation of suppressed thoughts, i couldn't agree more myself, and having a mother who's more-than-talented at interpretting dreams has been a great help ever since i've been dreaming.


dreaming about bloggers:

my latest dream composed of two parts, in the first i encountered either AZ or
Nerro i'm not sure who it was exactly, she was a vieled girl who was showing me around in a place i didn't recognize but was most definetly a bedroom, we were having a lot of fun and laughing all the time. nothing more, then part 2 started

all of a sudden i was whisked away to somewhere on the beach and found myself in the presence of people i didn't recognize, the only person who caught my eye was a certain Jazzy character, even though i never saw her in real life but i instantly recognized her in my dream, she was sitting crouched at the far end of the beach, huddled underneath a rock and crying

i approached her, introduced myself and asked what was wrong? and she shoved me away saying "leave me alone kareemfromegypt" and ran off



now although i find that both parts of this dream are as clear as june sky, it's not the lucid meaning behind the dream that allarmed me so much as the fact that i am now dreaming of bloggers.

when did all this happen? i used to be kinda cool, ask around and you'll know. i was once pinned with the label "the great white hunter of female flesh" and i was a successful one too. now keeping that in mind you fast forward to now and find that my social life resembles that a guy who went to the prom with his mom, if she's free that day

so, was it by choice? god knows i've lost touch with a lot of people over the past 3-4 years and mainly it was on purpose, thinking i didn't have time for them and that i was refining my circle of friends and indeed a lot of them were quite disposable but then in the midst of the purification process some good ones were lost in the debris.

i don't regret losing contact with said few, my regrets in life are close to none. no one has benefited himself of choosing to become a victim, but again i'm slightly alarmed on the narrowing of my options.

what matters to you most? you begin asking yourself... is it friends? work? love? all or none of the above? the need to feel good about oneself? does anyting matter? what's with the apathetic attidude? is it mild depression or altering perception? does anybody care? do you even care?

in the continuing tradition of writing first and second depressing posts in a new blog it seems that old habits die hard, but i was doing great i don't think i posted anything depressing (in my opinion) in the past 20 days or so



as long as i shall live i shall struggle with both depressions and delusions of grandior and feeling invincible, part of our natural cycle i believe and this has gone too long


i'm off to dubai to join Cup of Malice in a week from today for an extended weekend of R&R, let's pray it will get me out of the nonchalant apathetic state of mind and get him off the couch.




p.s this doesn't make much sense to me too

My Kingdom for a couch

Allow me to start off by saying that nobody has experienced true anguish until they have been forced to drive for two hours through Dubai traffic in order to get home. And no one shall ever achieve universal oneness until they have.

I have been exploring the rather mundane possibility that I may be getting older, and it is scary. It seems to me that I increasingly lack the vim and vigour required to partake in my favouriste hedonistic pursuits (one of which is currently being infuriatingly coy, but that's another topic). All I want to do after a long day of corporate warrioring is stretch my ravaged carcass upon the feathery warmth of a couch and vegitate, and if asked to do anything that involves a momentum change from zero, my answer is invariably, 'mmmruhboongreblah'.

I have also noticed a number of nonphysical changes, which although intangible are equally alarming. I am becoming exponentially judgemental and uncompromising in my dealings with others, my BS tolerance levels have plummeted like Aurther Andersen stock and I find myself passing by sporting goods stores and checking out baseball bats (a bad combination if one ever existed).

My physical state may actually be in response to my constant seething, I think my subconcious is trying to keep me from becoming a defendant in a manslaughter trial.

You may have noticed that I have intorduced a co-author to the pages of this little seen but soon to be famous blog (I am formulating marketing strategies as I write). Please put your hands together for Mr. K from Egypt, long time listener, first time caller. Once you have unglued your hands from one another, I would like you to use one to smack him upside the head and ask him to earn his non-existent pay.

And remember, people who live in glass houses, should undress in the dark. (KH)

Malice Steps up to the plate

A number of unrelated thought generating pulses have been leisurely swimming through my nervous system lately, and I wanted to get a few of them down on cyber paper before they dissolve into the nethers, you have been warned, this could get wierd.

Why, in this overly brand labeled society which we inhabit, has the intellectual conversation become a shunned prospect? I have first hand experience of people dumbing down their topics in order to fit in with the crowd, I find this more than a little sad.

The general vector that the masses are adopting nowadays veers toward social acceptance at any cost coupled with a parallel pontification of the rights of the individual to the various expresional freedoms. To paraphrase, "why did you buy that pair of (insert well known brand name here) Jeans?". "I did it to express my individuality". Stupid bleeding people.

Welcome to hypocritia, a land where the people smile endlessly and the dagger trade is booming, allow me to take you on a quick tour. To your left, you will find the house of paranoid, established by our lady of perpetual selfishness, this magnificant structure contains the worlds greatest collection of mirrors, to help visitors reassure themselves of their psychiatrist prescribed self worth and to allow them to constantly look over their shoulders.

Just down the road, you will note the tower of libido, this massive phallus represents the desires of everyone who has ever walked the earth. We have recently taken to painting flowers and candy on the exterior to hide the true intentions of its noble architects.

In this dingy side alley, we have the fabled mirror of self reflection, which, as legend has it, allows a person to view his or her real self. This claim, unfortunately, cannot be verified as nobody can remember the last time someone bothered to look into the mirrors depths.

This concludes our whirlwind tour, I am certain that you will enjoy your stay in our lovely home away from humanity, and if anything should tamper with your existential pleasures, too bad, there is no way out.

my first post on the drizzle



now that might seem like a good idea, although i feel it might compromise my level of Anonymity but here goes


i would like to thank jags for the invite, glad i came


although the tone of this blog is a lot different than mine


will post something real tomorrow

We interrupt our scheduled apathy to bring you this post.

I have gotten my derrier verbally kicked repeatedly for not posting, to those in the striking position, I would like to say, 'Ow! Dammit!'

Anyway, the K man had requested the unwieldier minds of his netizen group to answer a few rather prosaic and pseudo intellectual questions. I will indulge to get him, and the rest of the aspiring centre wings off my ass.

Here goes;

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as your dinner guest? As your close friend? As your lover?

Actually, the same person would probably fit the bill. If I must choose seperate entities, these would be my preferences, Sartre, Charles Manson and Christina Ricci.

2. Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by five years to become extremely attractive?

That is a situational question, as a 26 year old, hell yes (not that I consider myself bad looking to begin with, hell I'm gorgeous, and modest, and smart...). Ask me again in another 10 years or so, just about the time I start shopping for a Harley and trolling for 18 year old blond bombshells.

3. Would you rather spend a month on vacation with your parents or put in overtime at your current job for four weeks without extra compensation?

No contest on that one... being the world's foremost workaholic, there are few things that I would rather do than being in the office. I have even exchanged explicit encounters for the merrimement of potential carpel tunnel.

4. When did you last cry by yourself? In front of another person?

Hmmm, Last time I cried was probably during my first year of uni, homesickness and a badly stubbed toe. Crying to another person probably last took place somewhere in the 3rd grade

5. If 100 people your age were chosen at random, how many do you think you’d find leading a more satisfying life than yours?

Depends on the definition of satisfying, if it means comparitive success (age versus achievement), then I would guess 1. If satisfaction means complacency with what they have, then all 100.

6. If you had the choice of one intimate soul mate and no other close friends, or of no such soul mate and many friends and acquaintances, which would you choose?

Wouldn't make much difference to me, unless said soulmate was female and came with 'benefits'.

7. Do you think your friends would agree with one another about the kind of person you are?

What worries me is that everyone agrees as to the type of person that I am... I need to be more subversive, that way no one will be able to see me coming...

8. Would you prefer to be blind or deaf?

I would prefer to be neither, What kind of a question is that? If I had to choose, I would be blind, no great loss to humanity.

9. Which of your current friends do you feel will still be important to you ten years from now?

I don't like to gamble on people, you just wind up losing, either your belief in humanity, money or sanity.

10. If you could mould to your liking your memories of any past experience, would you do so?

wouldn't that effecively alter your personality? I would like the freudian fan club to comment on this one?

11. Would you be content with a marriage of the highest quality in all respects but one – it completely lacked sex?

Depends on whether extracurricular activities were condoned or not... (Join my movement to abolish monogamy, bring back the commune!)

12. If you were happily married, and then met someone you felt was certain to always bring you deeply passionate, intoxicating love, would you leave your spouse? What if you had kids?

Nope, man is not meant to be happy and in my opinion, if you say that you are going to be loyal, bloody do it (why you would want to say that is another matter altogether!)

13. Relative of the population at large? How do you rate your physical attractiveness? Your intelligence? Your personality?

I am exteremly self confident, and that is the crux of the query. Therefore, I will eschew this one as my response will make me out to be a pompous jackass.

14. If you could script the basic plot for the dream you will have tonight, what would the story be?

I think I would rip off the script of Apocalypse Now and cast myself as the psycho platoon leader. I know I would wake up happy after that!

15.While out one day, you are surprised to see your father holding hands with someone who is clearly his lover, he begs you not to say anything to your mother. How would you respond? What if your mother later told you that she was going crazy thinking that your father was having an affair yet knew it was just her imagination?

We would need to sit down for some family history before you would understand my response to this one.

16. If you had to spend the next 2 years inside a small but fully provisioned Antarctic shelter with one other person, whom would you like to have with you?

Anyone who brings along the encyclopedia britanicca (Getting bored of these questions)

17. You become involved romantically but after 6 months realize you need to end the relationship. If you were certain the person would commit suicide if you were to leave and were also certain you could not be happy with the person, what would you do?

Why am I involved with psycho chick in the first place? Two words people... Low Maintinance!!


Am wrapping up this session here... to be continued, Damn you K!!!

Much ego about nothing....

Allow me to clarify I couple of things before I get down to the business which is today's blog. I am an Arab of the cynicalis perpetualis species. I know the Americans think that they have the market pretty much cornered on paranoias, but compared to the denizens of North Africa and The Middle East, they pale.

I have had it up to the mental rafters with the number of frigging emails and face to face diatrabes on how the Arab and his world are being oppressed by the neofacist western oil guzzling monster. I am particulary peeved at how every single commercial, political, industrial and sporting incident that takes place on western soil (particularly the sod between NYC and LA) was designed and executed for the sole intent of offending, defaming, abasing or causing physical discomfort to the Arab populous.

The most recent of these incidents was the (unsuccessful) U.S. Congress proposed opposition of the mega

Memory Making Me Morose

This is a little diddy I had whipped up a while ago...

The Scent of Jasmines

All that is blessed in the world you see
Resides inside one entity
The sun, the winds the stars and sea
Have come together unquestioningly

On the surface slender, fair and eyes
Kneel me down and mesmerise
By smiles willingly given, unmatched by prize
Of her I daily fanaticise

To her light my dark doth gravitate
For her my heart doth jubilate
Of her my need never satiate
Near her my soul doth levitate

Under her calm facade there burns a fire
To quicken the pulse and poets inspire
To engulf the will and spark desire
To scorch the air that I respire

Closer Than Close Yet Chasms Away
I Pen This Bridge To You....

I ask all those who understand what I am saying to keep it to themselves.

The Day After Yesterday.

I went on a training / team building session yesterday and realised suddenly that i am either a lot older or i have finally achieved the pinnacle of cynacism. Either way, I am distressed.

While trying to keep my mind from taking trips down to bodacious babe land whence the candy is bountiful and the garments not, I was conciously (somewhat) belittling everything being said and everyone around me. This is now haunting me; have I become so small minded as to assume that I am infinately superior and more knowledgable (somewhat, yes, infinately was planned for about 2020)? Have I aged beyond the point where I am interested or facinated by anything? In either scenario, the will to live has just taken a major (I am talking Enron proportions) stock market plunge.

I sat awake for a large portion of the sleeping portion of the night, which to me is miniscule at best, trying to remember the last time I was excited about something... I did a few laps accross the bed during my mental excavation, consumed 3 or 4 thousand calories worth of triple chocolate cookies, felt guilty, did 127 push ups and innumerable bicep curls... Zilch, nada, nossing, the big zippo. So, I started worrying that my long term memory was shot, alzheimer's, brain cancer, lung cancer, nether region cancer, low sperm count.... Alarm.

There is a moral to this... but that escapes me right now.

Ferociously Fixatedly Fiending

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you an urgent news bulletin;

Titanium, adamantium, unobtainium, me... I am not made of metal people, I have needs too. Actually, strike that, I have one need, one all permeating, uber consuming, omnipresent, libido driven need.

I am, and have been as far back as I can remember, an insomniac, I have trouble falling asleep, and when I do manage to go under, rarely do I go all the way. Fact of life, adapt and move on. Only recently (say 3 months or so), I have not been able to sleep for pine cones, and its all down to craving.

Scenarios painted by my subconcious, fleeting regrets, midnight walking sprees and 3 am cold showers, all have contributed to the prolifieration of hefty bags under my eyes. This has got to stop!!!

I wonder if they make emotional botox?

Now that we are toasty

I knew, as I do in my omniwisdom, that there were a lot a spotlight hogging individuals out there who have made little nests of verbatim in the various nooks provided by the world wide whine, I did not, in my loftiness, realise to what depths they would submerge their blackened souls to ensure readership.

All manner of trickery, crass incentives and pan handling are being proliferated on the pages created by these hucksters with the sole purpose of stoking (or stroking) their fragile egos, I find this a slight counter to the flagstaff of the blogger nation; Individualism and fearless self expression. These are forums run by Stephen Covey clones. Sell, sell sell.

To the disappointment of the lifeless parasites amongst you, I will not be engaging in these low brow commercialism pursuits to foster in myself the illusion that I am in somehow superior by rewarding the net pedestrian for ignoring the prose scribed upon these digital pages and reaching instead for the box of vitamin enriched freebies. I know I am good, I don't need your hits or comments, if you don't like it leave, the purveyors of the gratis are personae non grata.

First person to leave a comment gets an autographed picture (shown here).

Here Goes Nothing...

And a very warm welcome to me. A little bit about the brain behind the blog is in order I think;

Now, I have been writing insidious pieces of prosaic prose ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper, it's a calling which I need to come to grips with... Hence, this little intrinsic and self centred forum.

I am a true child of the millennia, which is to say that I have no beliefs save for the generic phobias (don't eat anything, drink anything and everyone is out to do you in), I also possess very little in the way of loyalties, I disdain patriotism, fundementalism, favorite foods and have an attention span akin to that of a fish (just ask any of my previous girlfirends). I do however hold a near and dear place in the old blood pump for good intellectual palavar (the last word means talk, refer Steven King's Dark Tower series).

I am the proud owner of an above average IQ, a large underachiver complex and a collection of self reflecting / depreciating writings that would put the world's greatest hypochondriacs to awe, I am a surface stoic with an internal consistancy of a hershy bar left out in the nevada wasteland.

I enjoy arguing with people, even on points of fundamental universal constants, just to prove to myself that I hold the power to convince, or failing that, to confuse.

Intro's done, this is the bit where I call upon the solemn intellectuals of ubercyberspace to pose questions, post comments or posse up a lynchin' party... go ahead, make me fray.