Visual Basic Sucks.

By D. Ebenezer Baldwin Bowles
CornDancer & Company

The system is a house of cards, he would say.

Not the system of government. It stood on guns and paper money. Not society. It stood on necessity. The system of networked computers is the house of cards.

It could collapse in an instant. Probably it won't, but it could. The inherent instability of the byted beast is incredible.

He was prone to paranoid nay saying and cynical pessimism. Especially when too many of the Others were assaulting his motives, or insulting his imagination.

Insipid attacks of insecurity rolled over him like hot, salty undertows. He knew he would fail. He would fail miserably in abject conditions.

A Trap Sprung by Vanity and Foolishness.
A viral attack destroyed thousands of his files. He wanted to blame the certified systems engineer who sent the vile, pernicious, sh**ty Visual Basic Script attachment to his E-mail address. Blame, however, was another useless exercise in futility. Besides, the Zone Alarm had dutifully warned him: Don't open the attachment. Don't do it! He fell into a trap of vanity and foolishness -- and opened it.

Earlier in the day, a potential reader had denied him, refused to join the list. Called him something stupid like an E-mail poet.

All of these mean ass people, he thought.

The sweet mistress of the citadel would hear him rave. She would interject. She would remind him of the many sharers he professed to like and admire. He was all too wound up.

He would admit to her that it didn't take much to buoy him: a kind word once in a while, the casual speaking of his name, some form of simple acknowledgement of his existence.

He Was Warned, but He Chose Wrongly.
What stamp of fortitude could he muster to retain a cloak of dignity? He didn't give a cat's ass if he was mixing his metaphors, repeating the curses. (He wished Major D. would leap to his defense with a rousing warrior's speech.)

The thousands of lost files were a pity. Thousands! Lost, destroyed, rendered into useless hulks of .jpg refuse. Of course he had taken all due diligence in building a firewall. Of course he paid attention to security. When the attack came, the gatekeeper dutifully warned him: Don't go there. He pondered the next move. He chose wrongly.

At least he had enough sense to stop the spread of the virus at his borderlines. No one embedded in his address book got slammed. He stopped it on the spot. Can you imagine the consequences had he distributed a destructive virus to his correspondents? They would have abandoned his fledgling ship in droves. More fu**ing rejection! It wudda been too much to bear.

Why hadn't the certified systems engineer been careful enough to stop the spread of the virus? Why hadn't she sent a warning to the poor souls listed in her address book? Why hadn't she walked the extra mile to protect her reputation? From this day hence he would think of her as Typhoid A____.

Where is the time for elegance when you're fighting all these monsters?

Where is balance when you're tottering between despair and perseverance, betwen further rejection and a slippery sense of belonging?

Yes, Never give up. Never ever ever give up. But he wanted to give up, lie on the ground, and expire. When would he ever find a place in the order of things?

He just didn't know. He would just have to work on it.

WATCH FOR MISSIVE THE TWENTY-FOURTH
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