"E-reader devices", naming

[GeoffC]

Did he ? what was her name ?

[pshrynk]

Harv worked feverishly at modifying the harnes of the parachute to the specs given by the sock with the safety pin. He paused briefly to try and figure out how he knew what the sock had been "saying," discovered that his mind went blank and went back to work. Vivalditried to engage the autopilot in small talk.

"So, been an autopilot for long?"

"You're just trying to cheer me up. It won't work."

"Not really, I just get bored easily."

"So you talk to inanimate objects just to pass the time?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Just an hour ago, I was talking to a pair of socks."

"It is difficult for me to fathom that there is someone in the universe more pathetic than me."

"Yah. Anyway, I've been working on a new story about Harv and Vera. I havne't been able to write much, because Harv keeps dragging me on these adventures. Do you suppose there's any way to put all this on autopilot so I can have a life of my own?"

"Don't talk to me about life."

"Okay! Got it! I hope this works." Harv eased himself back into the pilot's seat. "Um, Viv?"

"Yeah Harv?"

"Any idea why we're flying at about thirty feet elevation?"

"Well the autopilot seems a bit depressed..."

Harv and Vivaldi looked out the windscreen at the rapidly approaching coastline with its attendant small, but considerably higher that thirty feet, and severely hard mountains and started screaming.

[zelda_pinwheel]

best ! saga ! ever !!

Originally Posted by pshrynk

"So, been an autopilot for long?"

"You're just trying to cheer me up. It won't work."

"Not really, I just get bored easily."

"So you talk to inanimate objects just to pass the time?"

"Pretty much, yeah. Just an hour ago, I was talking to a pair of socks."

"It is difficult for me to fathom that there is someone in the universe more pathetic than me."

"Yah. Anyway, I've been working on a new story about Harv and Vera. I havne't been able to write much, because Harv keeps dragging me on these adventures. Do you suppose there's any way to put all this on autopilot so I can have a life of my own?"

"Don't talk to me about life."

best conversation between a depressed (android) autopilot, and a talking dog ever !!!

!!! :llamallol: !!! !!!!! :standingovation: !!!!!

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

"Any idea why we're flying at about thirty feet elevation?"

"Well the autopilot seems a bit depressed..."

Harv and Vivaldi looked out the windscreen at the rapidly approaching coastline with its attendant small, but considerably higher that thirty feet, and severely hard mountains and started screaming.

All squids, abandon ship!

[pshrynk]

Harv reacted automatically by ramming the throttle forward, pulling back on the yoke, turning the plane starboard, and swearing loudly.

"Beep! Beeeeeeepity beep! What the beeeeeeeeeep!"

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"That thing just about killed us, Vivaldi! I'm entitled to a few beeps. And a beeeeeeeep!"

"I don't know why you're so upset. You wouldn't have felt a thing. I know I wouldn't have."

"You're just a machine! You have no feelings!"

"Go ahead and rub it in!"

"Turn it off, Viv!"

"Check."

The control panel managed to look hurt and disappointed.

"What the hell was that?" demanded Myatake from the back of the cockpit.

"Nothing! Just an instrument malfunction!" The control panel looked disdainful. "When you took the radio, it damaged the altimeter."

"Well try not to do that again. There are several hundred pounds of high explosives baack here. I nearly had a heart attack!"

"Like I care," muttered Vivaldi.

[zelda_pinwheel]

The control panel looked disdainful.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

"Like I care," muttered Vivaldi.

dib dib dib

[pshrynk]

The Goose flew over the Miraflores Locks and climbed to Lake Gatun. Several large freighters were making their way through the Canal.

"I wonder what he's going to do with explosives," said Harv.

"Drop them with timed fuses at the upper and lower gates of the Gatun Locks, thereby causing a traumatic failure of the upper system. That, in turn, will cause the catastrophic flooding of the Miraflores Locks, the destruction of the American Zone and Panama City, and the crippling of the Panama Canal."

Harv looked over at Vivaldi.

"At least that's what I would do... If, you know, I wanted to destroy the Canal... Which I don't! Quit looking at me like that!"

"Put a little time into thinking about this, have you?"

"Hey, Myatake's kids are reprehensible little heathens! And Frau Myatake? Don't get me started! That woman is a Teutonic Nightmare! I had to clean up my own poo from the yard and double wrap it for the garbage! At night, I spent all my spare time trying to figure out how to get my revenge. I even wrote it down in a notebook... Oh. Crap."

"Well, maybe he destroyed it and the authorities won't be blaming you for the whole sabotage thing."

"I'm going to need a new identity when this is over."

[nekokami]

Er... does the Myatake family live in Panama City? Otherwise, I'm not seeing quite how Vivaldi's plan is meant to get revenge on the shums....

[pshrynk]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Er... does the Myatake family live in Panama City? Otherwise, I'm not seeing quite how Vivaldi's plan is meant to get revenge on the shums....

They run the "Flower Emporium" in Old Town. Any catastrophic failure of the Canal will rip through there like Patton through Germany. Also, HArv spends most of his time in Rick's Cafe Americain Panama City, so that would go, too.

[DixieGal]

(It's funnier if you read it as Panama City Beach, Florida.)

[pshrynk]

The Goose skidded to a alnding on Lake Gatun. Harv taxied it to his landing, called, oddly enough, Adrian's Landing. He never quite understood why it had that name. It was just a stretch of shore when he took it over and after that everyone started calling it Adrian's Landing. He felt sure that it ought to be Wallbanger's Landing, or at the very least Goos Landing. He shrugged. Right now, he had bigger things to worry about.

Vivaldi jumped out and pulled the mooring lines to their stantions, which were palm trees. Harv shut down the engines and did his final checklist. He hoped that the socks' plan worked and it wasn't also his "final" checklist.

He jumped to shore. Miyatake and Fujimora were there already, Vera held between them.

"Mr. Wallbanger, if you please. What do you call that maneuver that you and the dog used in our fight that ended so dishonorably?"

"The Harvaldi."

"Ah. Just know, that I have spent the day in contamplating the moves and have devised a means of countering it, should we have occasion to test our skills once more."

"Then all you have to worry about is the Reverse Harvaldi, I guess."

Fujimora's lips moved silently. His eyes widened in fear.

"Enough talk!" said Miyatake, "Get the cannisters out of the plane and into the sailboat."

"You're stealing my boat?"

"I doubt you will have much use for it after today, Mr. Wallbanger."

Harv and Fujimora started unloading four cylinders from the cargo bay of the Goose.

[GeoffC]

We interrupt this program with a News Bulletin....

Authorities in Lake Gatun are concerned that activities on the lake are incompatible with the environmental nature of the reserve.

The FBI, CIA, local police and the Panda-Brigade are currently investigating.

We shall bring further news as the situation develops....

[badgoodDeb]

The ninja-squirrels are on alert too.

[DixieGal]

Meanwhile, outside Biggles office, Ingrid's mighty heart pounded, almost as though someone she loved was plunging toward a horrible death driven by a depressed autopilot. But then, it was over, and she could draw breath again into her massive, breastfeeding, working bosoms. She bustled into Biggles office, her face red from the effort of bustling.

"What's wrong, my dear," Biggles asked.

"Nein, mein Capitan, nein. I must leave work early today as all nein.. nine... of my children got sent home from school due to lice," she improvised on the fly in order to not appear to be fibbing.

"Then go, my dear, and shave those heathens... ahem... HEAvenly angels," sputtered Biggles, all the while hoping that she had not carried the heathens' parasitic plague into the office with her that morning.

"Donkeyshane (Ed. I don't know how to spell "thanks" in German.) mein Capitan," and she rushed from the office, department, building floor, lobby, and building, before hailing a cab. Happily, her pager was on vibrate when it went off in the cab. (I'm leaving this in as a temporal anomaly, because really, don't we all need more vibrators.. vibrating pagers?)

Later, much less frustrated and safely sequestered in her secret solitary shelter, she logged onto wwww.largegermanspy.net and checked her couriered mail.

"What's this? Mein got in himmel, I must leave my children in the kennel... with the babysitter... and meet a squirrel dressed like a man in Mexico City," she spoke aloud to herself, and shuddered with her accustomed dread of being in a city that is so dangerously close to an active volcanoe with a squirrel.