Story of a webmaster

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[vik_c]

Alec stirred in answer to the shrill alarm that went off, much like it had every single day since he had sold his struggling start up to be 'acqui hired' a little over a year ago. The acquirer was a company that everyone seemed to admire.



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[mack]

But it had yet to reach its potential, and Alec wondered if he had done the right thing by selling it so soon. Perhaps if he had waited the revenues would have increased and long term he would have made more money by sticking to his guns.

[StoutFiles]

"It's getting cold in here" thought Alec, as he turned off the air conditioner. Alec was a nudist who NEVER wore clothes under any circumstances; hence, typical jobs weren't available to him. He needed the rent money, and selling the company gave him some breathing room to come up with a more successful idea.

[bhonda]

As he started to wake up more, he realised the alarm wasn't coming from his alarm clock. In fact, he thought, it was more like a siren. Alec rubbed his eyes, and as he blinked in the light, suddenly remembered where he was.

[Essex_boy]

Alec,sleepy, reached for his coffee and drank hard. Sadly for him he realised where he had woken up, in a chemists shop below the poison store. It wasnt coffee but Cyanide.

Story over.

[Bewenched]

... or so he thought.

Alec, now fully awake realized he'd had a dream within a dream. Must have been the effects of working 69 hours straight coding to make his web business a reality.

After wiping the drool from his keyboard and rubbing the side of his face where the keys had left intentions he reached for his now very cold cup of coffee.

[johnhh]

Just as the doorbell rang..

[lucy24]

As he staggered toward the door, still undressed, he tried to remember whether he was really a nudist ... or had that only been one of his nested dreams?

[johnhh]

Alec reached for the bathrobe that lay on the floor and put it on. He twisted the door-knob, only then noticing that his right hand was deformed from all those months of using a keyboard and mouse.

[Rosalind]

The knock came louder now, and more insistent.

"I know you're in there, Jez!" came a man's voice. "You owe me a grand, and I'm not leaving without it."

There was a shrill mechanical whining that set Alec's teeth on edge.

[StoutFiles]

Alec took off the bathrobe and lit it on fire. He was tired of conforming to society's expectations of him; he was a nudist and would stay that way forever. He opened the door...the man quickly strolled in unfazed, as he already knew Alec was a nudist and was mature about it.

"Where's my money Alec!" he screamed as his hand wavered at the gun hanging from his belt.

[vik_c]

Alec smiled wryly, picked up a roll of notes from the top drawer of a chest positioned close to the door and gave it to the man. He grunted in approval and left. An hour later, having showered, shaved and dressed, Alec realized it was Pattie's birthday today. Pattie was his coworker, a tall brunette with a mixed Irani-Caucasian parentage that gave her soft beautiful eyes, glowing skin and the strange attractiveness only such a mixed parentage could bestow. She had an ample bosom and a waist that never let anyone know what a large eater she was. Alec sighed as he thought of the warmth of her presence, the softness of her body and her fragrance. Pattie was fascinated by geeks, something that had worked to Alec's advantage. While she had trouble updating her Windows, Alec could code a mile-long bash script in his head.

[lucy24]

It took another five minutes to shake himself loose from the daydream. He had last seen Pattie at her wedding two years ago-- just before he stopped wearing clothes, started working for himself, and went through a period he preferred not to remember.

He'd wasted enough of the day. It was time to start acting like someone who had bills to p--

Bills! Only then did he realize he had forgotten to demand a receipt. He had a feeling the oversight would come back to haunt him.

He returned to the computer and checked his e-mail, hoping to find something-- anything!-- that would allow him to turn down the project he had been offered last week. His first glance at the site had revealed a sprawling mess of hacks, patches and splices, overlaid on a design whose WYSIWYG editor been cutting-edge in 1998.

Worse, the prospective employer was impossible to please, a vengeful back-stabber and an incurable tightwad. He had never worked for her before, but knew the description was more than a nasty rumor. She his mother.

[johnhh]

Alec munched a cookie as he wandered onto the balcony of his penthouse apartment, but was startled when the sound of 'You have Mail' echoed around him.

[Old_Honky]

He thanked the mail man and told him for what seemed like the millionth time that it is unnecessary to climb all the way up to his balcony just to deliver a few letters, but something seemed wrong... he suddenly realised this was not Hank his usual mail man, then he was looking into the barrel of a shotgun and an effeminate voice said "we don't allow nudists in this community geek boy" he saw the flash as the gun went off but he was dead before he could hear the noise.

[bhonda]

After what seemed like an eternity, Alec slowly opened his eyes. He carefully lifted his hand up, and patted his chest - surely a shotgun blast would leave a gaping hole, he thought to himself. After realising there was no hole in him, he lifted his eyes to the sight in front of him. The mail man was lying in a pool of blood. Beyond that stood someone else holding a smoking pistol. Out of the recesses of his mind, he recognised the face.

[johnhh]

"Mum what are you doing here ?" he gasped.
"Well son, someone has to cover your back, especially after you sold out to that other company, what was it called, Oggle or something ?"

[aakk9999]

What happened to me today - this would make a great blog post, Alec thought, if I could just get rid of this dead body on the floor first.

[Leosghost]

Hey.. ( he thought!) ..I know ! ..adwords for ebay.."dead bodies"..So he wrote ..."get your dead bodies cheaper here" ..and his adwords copy was sure to be accepted..'specially 'cos it was for ebay..

Now ..how to arrange shipping..and would paypal co-operate..

Oh no!.. he thought.."Google payments" was out..( "bodies" was OK ..dead bodies" was OK..but his dead body" was "nude" ) ...

Ah ..No ! he wasn't thinking clearly .."nude was out for adsense"..But if he was buying adwords he was OK ;)

Or ..he could forget the "profit"..and run an ad on Craig'slist...."free ".."dead body" ( for re-cycling ).."to be collected..from the waterfront..at a time to be arranged"...interested ? IRC* * * *

( he had thought of putting something about it on G+..re-cycling and all being "cool"..but only Larry ..and maybe Matt..would see it )

I suspect, many of us here, have read "The Long Orbit" ;))..and those who have not done so ..should ;)