Joe Harris crooned bitterly to his beer,

Joe Harris crooned bitterly to his beer, "All the old dudes carry the news," while around him robots upgraded themselves and transhuman youngsters dated transdimensional beings fr

om strange and different places, as strange and alien as the beings themselves. Joe emptied the contents of the pint glass before him. "Same again, pal" he said to the mechanised

bartender, whose last duty had been a bouncer assignment. He socked Joe a terrific one in the jaw. Joe shot a shocked look at the automaton: "What was that for?" "I am #3, sir" rep

owering his assault armor, Joe boffed the bartender into the vodka shelf. Vodka dripped into his exposed circuitry and ignited. Then the real bouncer bots charged in. The regulars

were upset that it appeared likely the bar would close before closing time & drunkedly cheered on the bouncer bots. Joe swung around. His hair was on fire & he didn't know it!

"Get Lucky" so loud the neighbours threw earplugs at the bouncer bots. The stench of complacency is greater than that of useful idiots. I fled and boarded the bus westbound home.

When we got to the Columbia River Gorge and still no sight of a Huddle House I started to suspect I should have been headed in the other direction, whatever that was. I couldn't go

any further forward without falling into the gorge, so we turned around and headed back to the intersection where I had seen the sign for the Huddle House. But a tornado

picked us up and dropped us off in front of a Waffle House. "But i wanted Huddle House," yowled my companion. "THEY'RE THE SAME THING," I growled back. We had pancakes that day.