Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute!

This is the storage compartment of Spaceship OL dedicated to all the various bits of entertainment we’ll be using to get through the workweek. Think of it as an anti-boredom armory. After I show you the wares I’ll be using to fend off the ennui-goblins, hit up the comments section and do the same.

Let’s rock!

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Transcender knew he was in for a world of shit.

He’d woken up from his Post-Lunar nap a bit early. Which wasn’t unusual. But rather than waiting for Larissa – the lab assistant with the big smile and bigger bust – to help him out of his pod, he crawled out on his own. Everyone on the Station knew that rule number one is that Transcender was never to be left to his own devices.

Especially after a nap.

Running a hand through his beard, Transcender gazed out the bay window and laughed to himself. “Sweet Man-Jesus, where’ve they sent me now? Is that Saturn? Oh, if Rodrigo could see this, he’d prolapse for sure!”

Had he studied the mission plans as thoroughly as he told Doc he would, Transcender would’ve known that they were far, far past Saturn.

Transcender Yonder’s attention was fully directed out the window, on the satellites and comets he’d soon be smashing to pieces, when a breeze of bitter wonder wafted into his nose. He immediately spun around, balancing best he could while his muscles readjusted to the artificial gravity, and began searching for the source of the smell. Other than his pod, all that was in the room was sterility – medical instruments, monitors, a vacuum.

And, much to Transcender’s delight, a coffee pot.

Fast as he could, the Meta-Man approached the coffee pot, threw back its lid, and poured the contents into unhinged gullet. Having never tasted coffee before, Transcender basked in the wonder of simply experiencing something new. Coffee! Aha! So this is what they drink when they wake up! A fine concoction! Chemically stimulating and socially facilitating!

But then Transcender’s hyper-sensitive neurons kicked into gear.

Larissa walked into the room just in time to see the six-foot-six ubermensch fall to his knees. He clutched at his left eye and screamed, “I have the pressure of a dying star within my skull! Sweet-mammaried  Larissa, save me! I beg of you!”

Without hesitation, Larissa picked up the phone on the wall and dialed zero. “Doc? Yeah, it’s me. Looks like he got into the coffee. Yeah, Transcender’s having his first headache.”

Already knowing the answer, Transcender Yonder looked up and asked sheepishly, “Am I in trouble?”

—-

This is the Monday Morning Commute. I’m going to run through the things I’ll be doing to entertain myself during the week. Then, you hit up the comments section and do the same. Hell, ain’t this the whole damn point of the Internet?

Let’s rock.

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Old hands to the back, newcomers to the front. This here’s an introduction and I want to make sure there ain’t no damn confusion! My name is Rendar Frankenstein and I’m a hack-writer, born-again optimist, and caffeine junkie.

It ain’t a perfect life, but I like it just fine.

The quaint piece of scrap metal I’m currently tryin’ to lodge into your brain is the Monday Morning Commute! I’m goin’ to show you the various bits of entertainment I’ll be pouring milk over and chompin’ on in the hopes of warding off ennui-illness. Then, you hit up the comments section and tell us what you’ll be doin’ for esses and gees.

It’s a big, sweaty, nerd-based version of show’n’tell.

Let’s dance.

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It was a real, mean-as-hell, man-eating tiger.

He tried to assuage my anxieties. “A pot of coffee wouldn’t affect a cat of thissere size. Neither would those there beers I fed it. Thawwaz just some fun for the tourists, get `em to toss me a coupla extra bucks. Tough `conomy means we all gotta scrappup bucks in ways we wouldn’t otherwise.”

But there was no way that I was going to feel comfortable. No matter what this guy told me. No matter how carefully the bus driver navigated through the streets. The fact of the matter was that on this particular commute home, I found my normal spot on Metro-Transit Bus 142 occupied by a seven hundred-pound feline that’d spent the day being force fed coffee and alcohol in the hopes of entertaining sunburnt yahoos. I was still six blocks away from my apartment, but I tipped my cap to the trainer and got off at the next stop.

Bus had barely vomited its fumes into my face when I heard jungle growls and smashing glass.

It was a real, mean-as-hell, man-eating tiger.

—-

Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! I’m going to show you some of the various ways I’ll be entertaining myself in the following days. Then you take your turn to hit up the comments section so as to display your own ennui-destroyers. What’re we all doin’ for fun these days?

Let’s find out!

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Man, I’m eating my feelings lately. Straight-up gorging. My bikini body is suffering, yo. I think it’s safe to say that I slather on another pound or three every time I’m tasked with writing a paper. Got this weird as fuck schedule riffing right now too, where I’m on campus until 9 pm. No gym. Mucho food. Gotta cut back. Not this week though! Why? It’s America Fuck Yeah! week. An abridged existence for those of us slaving it out in the United. I am eagerly anticipating stuffing gullet with many a chlorine-soaked beef patty and unethically snuffed chicken. There will be a momentary pause as I mourn the animals, before respecting their sacrifice by ingesting them with a fervor.

This is Monday Morning Commute, the column where we all share the various arts and artifices we’re employing to get us through the week. Won’t you be my date on this fairest of occasions?

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What’s up, fools? Would you know that Rendar Frankandbeans is straight up out of the country? Yeah, player. He’s on some magical mystery journey pretending he’s Ernest Hemingway or some shit. I have a nagging suspicion that he’s going to come back with the Great Grumpy White Guy Novel of the next century. Drop it on my desk and slap me across the face. It’s just brotherly love. With him meandering about, and the other of the OL Founding Fathers out of the country as well, I’m all alone.

I have no pants on. I’m eating laffy taffy by the bucketful. My children are quickly drying on my stomach. This is how life should be lived. Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? I have someone greater to answer to, one who inspires more fear and reverence than the two of them. Mrs. Caffeine Powered. Every day she’s with me is a fucking gift, one that I respect by only occasionally ripping ass and drooling on myself.

This column right here is MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE. Within the confines of this most Monday of columns, us capitalist grind monkeys share the various artistic afflictions that give us lives meaning amid the grind. For within these arts we cajole ourselves into enjoying ourselves, despite the banality of the everyday.

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Jambo!

After being dead for ten months, it feels amazing to walk the Earth again. To feel the carpet beneath my toes, to bear hug loved ones, to booze in the fellowship of my ka-tet. These are the moments that the universe is pushing us towards, the acknowledgment of those simple pleasures that can only be appreciated when our spirits and minds are where they’re supposed to be.

`Cause let me tell ya, there’s nothing worse than being a poltergeist. I’ve been there. Roaming about, looking for a place to say, nothing more than a broken spirit relegated to brief appearances and disruptive dispositions. I’ve been that figure that people’re surprised to see, and not always pleasantly so.

It might be a perfect way to be dead, but it’s no way to live.

—-

Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! I’m going to show you some of the various ways I’ll be entertainin’ myself during the week. After scoping out my wares, it’s your task to make your presence known in the rumble pit known as the comments section. What movies, comics, beverages, albums, and activities are you lookin’ forward to rockin’?

Let’s do this!

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Look to the stars and tell me what you see.

Hope? Possibility? Wonder? All there, of course. But sometimes when we crank our necks and gaze starward we can’t help but see the lifeless shells of our gods drifting about. The carcasses of once-beloved titans, now mere space debris. Inanimate. No longer fighting for us.

What’s worse is that upon being vacated, the cadavers of our deities fall prey to the very demons they’d hoped to battle into eternity. What these obsidian antagonists lack in strength they make up for with immortality. And tenacity. As such, they wait until their enemies have been felled by by the uncaring sword of Providence and then ravage the remains.

Apathy. Complacency. Pessimism. But three members of the nefarious tribe known as Cosmic Demons.

So what’re we to do? How can we help preserve the splendor of the night sky as dusk descends and the stars come out? Well, I’ll let you in on a secret. The truth is that those giant forms vulnerably swimming across our telescopic paths only look like god-corpses. But in actuality, they are vehicles just waiting to be piloted again. Hell, we can even set up shop and inhabit them for the rest of our days! We don’t have to mistake the idol for the idea!

Become the gods you praise. Take a stand against galactic gluttony. Slay demons with creativity.

—-

Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE!

I’m going to take you through all the ways I’ll be slaying ennui-demons on my quest for the weekend! After checking out my conquests, hit up the comments sections and detail your own!

Grab your battle-axe and get in the rocketship!

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All hands on deck!

It appears that Spaceship Omega has inadvertently veered off course. Somehow, perhaps because Navigator Burton fell asleep after drinking too many Pepsi-and-gasoline cocktails, we have slipped into a pocket of spacetime usually avoided at all costs. That’s right, folks, batten down the hatches and brace yourselves! We’re headed right for it!

The beginning of the workweek!

As wave after wave of ennui, minutiae, and stress wash over us, we can rest assured. For every passenger of Spaceship Omega has a spot in the refuge known as the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE! What is this sanctuary, you ask? Well, this is where I take the time to show you the various bits of entertainment and mind-drivel I’ll be using to survive the onslaught of real-world responsibilities. Then, you hit up the comments section and tell us which floatation device you’ll be clinging to when your ass is tossed into the Ocean of Obligation.

Yes, beneath the half-baked metaphors and bleeding-heart-on-my-sleeve hyperbole, it’s folks tryin’ to point one another in the direction of cool shit.

Oh no! Another wave! Let’s do this!

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Let me tell you a story that my superiors at the Time Guild wouldn’t want you to know.

A couple of days ago, I decided that I wanted to travel to the year 195,000 BCE. Since it was the weekend, I had to use my personal time-machine, which I actually prefer to the stodgy contraption they allot me at the office. However, without the Guild’s temporal disinhibitor-ray, it was up to me to craft a suitable concoction. So after filling my gut with three liters of Pepsi Max, taking a shot of bourbon, and huffing paint thinner for the better part of an hour, I stumbled into my broom closet and passed out.

There you have it – my secret recipe for spacetime fabric softener.

Anyways, when I came to I was in the dense jungles of prehistory. Looking skyward, I saw a pterodactyl soaring majestically. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I looked to the ocean just in time to catch a glance of a megalodon snapping a leviathan in half before submerging once again. And on the path before me, two cavemen bros riding their steeds, a saber-toothed tiger and a mastodon, respectively.

The caveman on the saber-toothed tiger was the first to see me, and he quickly pointed me out to his buddy. “Daniel, check it out! It’s another one of those dudes from Beyond the Wheel.” He waved to me invitingly, “C’mon over, man!”

I was nervous, but I obliged.

The other caveman hopped off his mastodon and shook my hand. “Hey there! My name’s Daniel and this is my friend Hollis. Who might you be, Beyonder?”

“Pleasure to meet you, Daniel and Hollis. My name is Rendar Frankenstein and I’m from the year 2012. Well, actually, I’m originally from 1986 but I’ve caught up to 2012, and I guess that’s when I’m not shifting all over. I’ve been to a lot of points in the 20th century, and hell, I’ve even gone back Plato’s cave and the Garden of Eden and beyond that. You guys ever see 2001?”

Blank stares.

I laughed. “My bad! Anyways, what’re ya’ll up to?”

With a pat on my back, Hollis clued me in. “We’re actually about to meet back up with the tribe and raid a T-Rex nest. With those things on your feet,” he pointed to my hi-tops, “you could really help us out. You want in?”

Long story short – dinosaurs were murdered, the caveman tribe was victorious, and I got to start off today by having a prehistoric omelet.

Just don’t tell my superiors at the Time Guild. I need this job, and they’re lookin’ for a reason to can me.

–-

Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! I’m going to list off the various ways I’ll be salvaging my (dwindling) sanity during the workweek. It’s then your duty to hit up the comments section and share your own recipe for mental-refuge. C’mon, ain’t this the whole point of an Internet community?

Let’s stab this dino in the heart with a fuckin’ bone-shard dagger!

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