2/3/03 1:30 AM PST: Another Sunday has passed, so I find myself with nothing interesting on TV, the lump of a sleeping wife by my side, and it feels like time to blog.

The funny thing for me is that, years before there were blog engines and it became such a big whoopty-doo on the web, I was quietly recording the ins and outs of my life, uploading these mad blatherings to the web as artifacts for the world to see. I still have all of 'em on CD. Maybe one day I'll repurpose 'em for this site. Who knows?

Tonight, in the nimble hands of a dear (if largely deranged) friend, my comic book proposal to Image is on its way to its destiny. I blew $20 of my own money to stalk Jim Valentino at this convention in Pasadena and chat up the project. He recognizes the Operative Network logo now, god bless 'im, and again I am thankful to my time at eHobbies for the lessons in branding. "Hannibal Tabu" is a brand you can trust, god pound you.

I have no idea if it'll be accepted, even with its pedigree and the extensive groundwork I've done to grease the tracks. Whadda ya gonna do? I'll let you know what happens as I find out, god willing and the creeks don't rise.

I'm also spending my time doing some other things. The four year anniversary of my first date with Yuri is a mere 17 days away. Now, anybody that knows me is well aware that Yuri's not exactly my favorite person in the world right now. I'm not terribly interested in going into the why (more on that in a second). Regardless, I've gone to quite a lot of trouble preparing for the event. I have one of her presents hidden in the house (I'm confident typing this since she never reads the site, so many people say they wish they could get a better handle on how I think but never do anything about it), I've spent an inordinate amount of time learning how to make liner notes for a CD case and custom designing a very special CD for her, and just moments ago made a purchase of an item I think she'll enjoy a great deal. Oh, and I got a very symbolic gift off eBay a few days ago.

I expect I'll maybe get a shirt. Maybe.

First of all, we divvied up holidays -- this one is more important to me so I concentrate on it. The wedding anniversary in September is more important to her, so she makes a fuss for that one. However, and this is a secret I've learned from a number of older married men, "being married is like guaranteeing you'll never get a present you want, ever, ever again." I was never a big receiver of presents anyway -- despite the literal mountains of free stuff that's gone into the hands of my closest friends and family, I often end up on the short end of the stick, empty handed at special events as others were surrounded by ribbons and wrapping paper. I was very, very shocked when my good friend Daniel got me a birthday present this year (which, of course, makes me competitive -- wait'll he sees what he's getting this fall), and for the most part I've stopped giving presents. Bugger 'em all, I say. No profit in it.

Still, the anniversary is my "thing." I debated "getting her attention" by blowing it off, but my attempts at subtlety have been staggeringly unsuccessful thus far, so I decided against that. Instead, I went all symbolism. Nobody ever listens to most of what I say anyway, so may as well throw as much as I can at the wall and see if any of it sticks. Why not?

So I'm getting my full gift on, a literal barrage of both things she's mentioned she wants, messages she's said I should send, and things she has been unable to hear. We'll see how all that goes. No fair any of you wankers trying to get word to her, either! *Hannibal tsks you*

So, back to that "why?" thing. The question "Why?" is one I rarely get into. One of my favorite quotes comes from chapter 11 of Jack McKinney's Force of Arms in which Zor, the wunderkind scientific trailblazer says to Dolza, his appointed guardian, "All things are so simple to you: The eye sees the target, the hand aims the weapon, a finger pulls the trigger, an energy bolt slays the enemy. You therefore conclude that if the eye sees clearly, the hand is steady, and the weapon functions properly, all will be well. You never see the subtlety of the myriad little events in that train of action. What of the brain that directs the eye and the aim? What of the nerves that steady the hand? Of the very decision to shoot? What of the motives that make the Zentraedi obey their military Imperative? [Ed: I'll explain that in a sec] Ah you call all of this sophistry! But I tell you: there are vulnerabilities to which you are blind."

Y'see, Dolza was the supreme commander of a race of sixty-foot-tall warriors called (as noted) the Zentraedi. The Zentraedi, at the behest of the Elders of Tirol (not important right now), went and shot up anybody who they were ordered to. It was their "glorious Imperative," a kind of psychological conditioning that inspired them to fight and resist thinking too much. Armed with a million-plus ship fleet of fearsome warships, they scoured every part of the galaxy they came to, laying the smackdown on anybody who stood in their way.

They were operatives, you see.

Now, there was a time in my life when the question"why?" riveted me, it devoured my every waking moment. I was exposed to a body of knowledge that called into question virtually every fact I had ever known, that laid bare the operating system of deception humming quietly behind the user interface of my life. I spent years deprogramming myself of the evils of western so-called "civilization" and did my best (within the limitations of the language, which shapes the way I think) to recompile myself as a conscious Afrakan presence.

After that, after doing what I still consider was one hell of a job (and one which is admittedly ongoing -- I was programmed one way for eighteen years, and all the tools of that programming remain thrust into my consciousness, from the bikini-clad white women leering at me from magazine covers to the fantasy and science fiction that imply people who look like me will barely exist in their shining future), I look at the clock on the wall and see I don't have much time left. Originally I felt it was even shorter -- I had every belief I would die in my fortieth year, blood on my hands, the scourge of polite society and a name whispered in terror along the corridors of power. That was my plan. That was the life I wanted.

It was not the life I chose.

I don't expect to be dead by age forty -- the concept of advanced age is much more real (and in a lot of ways much more terrifying -- I'd never want to lose control and need to be cared for as an invalid) with the shackles of mortgages and interest rates holding me firmly. Still, my time is woefully limited, and when I ask myself "how long am I going to be dead?" as noted in Matt Groening's Love is Hell (thanks for that Brandi, it's been a constant solace) I find his answer amazingly apropos. "With that perspective, you can now make a free, fearless choice to do just about any goddamned sneaky thing your devious little mind can think up. Go ahead. Have your fun. You're welcome. Go on.

See you in hell."

"Oh, Hannibal, but what about the struggles of the Doctor Martin Luther King? What about all the people that sat in and slept in and begged in and died in so you could vote for one rich white guy over another rich white guy, or support racist agribusiness by sitting elbow to elbow with fine white people at their lunch counters?" I didn't ask for any of that. In many ways, it made things worse, if it changed anything at all. I can't find the exact quote from Ellis Transmetropolitan right now, but in that spirit, when history looks down its evolved snout at us from thousands of years from now, do you think it'll be proud? Do you think it'll see the coverage of the space shuttle Columbia tragedy and Malice Green and tourists at Ground Zero and Joe Millionaire and Latosha Harlins and Strom Thurmond ... do you think the denizens of the future will see all that and be proud of being descended from us? Please. The concept is ludicrous. They'll laugh nervously and change the subject, as dead set on destroying as much evidence of our woeful era as Thutmoses III was in hiding Hatshepsut from time.

So, with that cheery thought ricocheting around inside the vast chasm of your head like an incindiary billiard ball, let's return to "why?" Given the endless horror that is time, the inevitability that, when the sun goes nova, carbon based life on this planet will more than likely become an amusing afterthought for whatever evolved spirits exist, and of course remembering O'Brien's reminder from 1984 that "there is no possibility of perceptible change in our lifetime," looking around for "why" seems to be a massive bloody waste of time in almost every case. Things happen.

I am an operative. A gun for hire (well, pixel for hire most of the time). That is the life I chose, even in a slightly different direction than I originally planned, but when I make a decision, I commit to it, even if it's wrong (which it rarely is, but as noted briefly last time, I've had a surprise or two). Thinking about "why?" is a misuse of my talents, it can actually hinder the finger that pulls the trigger. I saw The Bourne Identity a few days ago, yet another "What do you do with a broken super soldier?" movie (which leads me to believe there's scores of those broken mad homicidal bastards lingering around ... luckily for me they never seemed to have any interest in the 'hood), and the title character failed his mission and got half of the US intelligence community on his butt for getting sentimental at the wrong time, thinking about what he was doing instead of doing what he was doing.

Think bad! Hannibal smash!

Is this a universal truth? Of course not -- every young person should have questions and be able to seek answers. After a certain point in your life -- it comes rather late for many, but I've always been a quick study -- it simply ceases to matter. I hit that point early enough to try to accomplish the work I'm here to do -- my writing -- with the potential of several decades to make it happen.

Unless I screw up horribly, in which case I have a whole new set of problems.

Anyway, that's the news as I see it, so there you have it. Carry on.

(Funny side note -- I sat down and thought to myself, "I don't have much to say, why am I even typing?")