Wednesday, January 7th, 2026, I am at the main fruit stand. Relatively quiet, I am very busy; it’s very strange. Strange in the sense that I’m much busier here than I am there.
The people out there are much more animated than the drones here. And I had words with somebody on the phone and barely understood him, but he’s a mush mouth anyway, and I was able to do whatever he requested. I did expect him to stop by the desk to find out who the idiot who answered the phone was, i.e., me, but he did not. Oh, Paddy Miller, will you ever find your spot in this world?
Mike called earlier. He was on my computer, and all of a sudden, a message came up, supposedly from Microsoft, telling him that there was a virus on my computer, not turn off the computer and call this 866 number.
I asked Mike to photograph the messages and have them send them to me, and I called the 866 number, and it turned out to be some guy on the other side of the planet who insisted on talking to the person in front of the computer, and I tell them that would not be possible and that I would call him later.
Instead, I called up Mike and told him to unplug the computer despite it saying do not unplug the computer. After about a minute, Mike plugged it back in, and it all seemed to be working normally.
https://malwaretips.com/blogs/error-ox800vds/
So one catastrophe avoided, perhaps. Since I had gotten the computer from Rafe Dais a few years ago, I sent him a message, but it turns out I didn’t need to. The greeting was basically good morning, Happy New Year, and nothing more than that.
I have been here for a little over 2 hours, and not much is happening now. Anise is having a one-to-one with Yancey and a conference room somewhere in the land of the fruit stand.
Time is crawling.
It already feels like it is going to be a long day, and with a slow passing of 2 hours, I feel that long day situation is taking hold.
So I ordered a Smashburger for 1:15 pickup, which is less than 1 hour away. It’s been good working with Anise today.
Perhaps I would go to bed earlier than I did last night. I believe I went to sleep around 11:00. Mike fell asleep around 9:00, and by 9:30, he was snoring, so I sent him to bed as I sat and watched TV.
He got up around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. and probably shot a video or two, then came back to bed to finish up his sleep.
I am listening to REM’s Automatic for the People.
I think I am getting better with things, meetings on I don’t have to report every little thought that goes on in my head, especially since those thoughts generally change and evolve into something later on.
Mike’s beloved is expected to come to the East Coast next week, and I mentioned a meeting with him, which may have some regrets, and part of me feels like I’m committed to doing that. Of course, all depends on when Bill returns from his sojourn.
The day before Yancey’s birthday
Google Gemini rewrite as a Hunter S Thompson riff
## Fear and Loathing at the Main Stand: The Microsoft Jihad and the Smashburger Mirage
**Wednesday, January 7, 2026. The Main Fruit Stand.**
The clock is a jagged instrument of torture. I am entombed in the Main Stand, vibrating with a high-velocity busyness that makes no sense in a place this quiet. It is a specialized kind of hell. The drones here move with the grace of sedated cattle, a stark, terrifying contrast to the animated savages out there in the real world.
The phone screamed earlier. Some mush-mouthed greedhead on the other end, barking orders in a dialect I barely recognized as English. I handled it—god knows how—but the air was thick with the expectation of a confrontation. I waited for this creature, this **Paddy Miller**, to stomp over and demand to know which brand of idiot had answered his call. He never showed. A coward’s move. Will he ever find his place in this foul, swerving world? Probably not. He’ll die in a cubicle, wondering why the light never changed.
Then the panic hit.
Mike called from the bunker, voice trembling with the kind of digital dread that only a “Microsoft Alert” can induce. A virus! Total system failure! Do not turn off the machine! Call this 866 number or face the wrath of the Silicon Gods!
I smelled the swindle immediately. It was a classic Third World shakedown. I had Mike photograph the evidence—document the crime—and I dialed the number. A voice from the dark side of the planet answered, demanding access to the person in front of the screen. I told him that was impossible, a physical and metaphysical impossibility, and hung up.
“Unplug the bastard,” I told Mike.
“The screen says don’t unplug it!” he squealed.
“Unplug it anyway. Kill the power. Let the machine see the void.”
He pulled the plug. A minute of silence—the kind of silence you only get after an execution—and then he plugged it back in. Everything was normal. Another catastrophe avoided in the high-stakes game of tech-paranoia. I sent a courtesy flare to **Rafe Dais**, the man who sold me the rig, but the danger had passed. “Happy New Year,” I told him. The war was over for now.
I’ve been in this office for two hours, and the air is turning into a thick, gelatinous soup. Time isn’t just crawling; it’s dragging its broken legs across a floor of jagged glass. Anise is locked in a “one-on-one” with **Yancey** somewhere in the bowels of the building. A summit of the fruit-stand elite.
To keep from slipping into a catatonic trance, I ordered a **Smashburger**. 1:15 pickup. A desperate, greasy beacon of hope less than an hour away.
Last night was a blur of domestic rhythm. Mike went down at 9:00, snoring like a chainsaw by 9:30. I sat there in the flickering blue light of the television, a lone sentry, before finally surrendering to the sheets at 11:00. Mike rose in the dead of night—3:00 a.m., the witching hour—to shoot some videos, a ghost in the machine, before returning to the dream-state.
Now, Michael Stipe is moaning *Automatic for the People* through the speakers. It fits the mood. I’m learning to keep the internal monologue under lock and key. No need to report every twitch of the brain, every fleeting impulse. Thoughts are like cheap whiskey; they change, they ferment, they turn into something lethal if you leave them out in the sun too long.
There is talk of Mike’s beloved arriving on the East Coast next week. A meeting has been suggested. I feel the cold shackles of commitment tightening around my wrists. It’s a gamble, of course—everything hinges on **Bill** and his return from the great sojourn.
Tomorrow is the eve of Yancey’s birthday. The pressure is mounting. The fruit is waiting. We are all just passengers on a sinking ship, and I’m the only one looking for the lifeboats.
—