Min just Hit 48. ARGH! I'm SOOOOO close.
Can I interest anyone in a get Minuet to 49 party for the next few nights?
:-) Cheers! -Cindy

I have characters with the Negotiator badge mission lined up on both Virtue and Infinity. I know people frequently miss this one on the way up, and I like to share my badge missions. So who's up for 'em?
Global: @Jimmy Amp
"Broad-minded is just another way of saying a fellow's too lazy to form an opinion." -- Will Rogers

The first letter didn't worry Tsunade too much. It should have, as it was from a lawyer, but Tsunade had not had enough experience yet with the administrative side of running a Hidden Village to realise the terrible peril that she was in. The lawyer in question was from the Wave Country and acting on behalf of a corporation called 'Great Hero Ramen', which had apparently bought up some of Tsunade's debts. The gist of the letter was a polite request for Tsunade to contact them to arrange a shedule of payments.
Tsunade crumpled the letter into a ball and threw it at the wastebin, missing (she might be one of the Legendary Three Ninja, but it takes more than than to get one ball of paper into a bin already full of of other wastepaper).
Poor Tsunade. Making such an amateur's mistake...
A week later there was another letter, this one with an additional paragraph apologising that the previous letter to this effect had apparently gone unaccountably astray. The pile of crumpled paper at the bin was getting quite large by now.
Another week passed and then the Ninja Postman told the Hokage that he had registered mail for her and could she just sign here, please. Even at her drunkest, Tsunade wasn't that foolish however. She declined and snitched the letter from his bag as he left. Another request for payments. Some people just didn't get a clue.
Sometime over the night, all the papers in and around Tsunade's bin vanished. She didn't bother to check that the clean up had been done by someone who was supposed to have access to her office.
The day after that, another letter arrived. Tsunade didn't have to sign for it so all was well. And it gave her a bit of a laugh. This 'Great Hero Ramen' company thought that they could _threaten_ the Hokage? Hilarious!
Still, there was no point being totally dismissive. They might be a nuisance - deny Naruto his staple foodstuff and sent him whining to her or something - so she had Shizune pull the file on the company. Unfortunately, that was the day that she gave Shizune the slip long enough to get well and truly hammered, and forgot all about it. The file got lost under a heap of paperwork.
The next letter was directly from the owner of 'Great Hero Ramen' advising that they had bought up even more of her debts and that either she could make a good faith move towards repaying them or action would be pursued. The signature on the letter was an illegible scribble.
By this time, of course, the file on 'Great Hero Ramen' was totally lost, so Tsunade grudgingly authorised a C-class mission to investigate it and assigned it to Kurenai's team. Not being a total idiot, Kurenai took Kiba and Shino to check with the local merchants for information while sending Hinata to interrogate Konoha's Number-One expert on all things Ramen.
Hinata took lengthy notes, fulfilling her part of the mission and flattering Naruto, who was therefore a little less disruptive than usual for the next few days, as well as indulging her a little, since they had had their conversation over a Ramen at Ichiraku's and so could, almost, from the correct angle, if you stretched a point, possibly be mistaken for what looked like it might resemble a date (although Hinata discreetly played it down a little when her father absently asked her what she'd done that day).
'Great Hero Ramen', Tsunade discovered, on reading the reports, was much more than a Ramen stall franchise (although it was that as well). It also made cup ramen and a range of fancier family-size ramen dishes that were all the rage amongst those who had little time to cook for themselves. Like Ninja, for example. Their other, less important, subsidiaries dealt with about half the food industry in the southern half of Leaf Country, the company having risen to prominence on the wave of prosperity fuelled by greater access to Wave Country now that they had built a bridge to the mainland.
In other words, they could probably afford ninja debt collectors. It was fortunate that Tsunade need have no fear of such a threat, as otherwise she could really have been in a bind.
A week later, Shizune vanished. No one could find her, or even trace her movements after she left the Hokage tower the previous night. Given her access to classified documents, this was naturally a major security issue. Tsunade was about to panic when another letter arrived from 'Great Hero Ramen'.
It wasn't so much a letter, either, more of a... receipt?
The value of Shizune's services, noted as the per day rate for a jounin-rank ninja assigned to a B-class mission less maintenance, was being deducted from Tsunade's debts. At this rate, the recipt noted, the debts would be cleared in just under ten thousand years. Would Tsunade now like to come to terms?
The Hokage groaned. If this came out - and sending out ninja against 'Great Hero Ramen' would undoubtfully reveal all - she'd be ruined. Konohagakure, her teacher's legacy and a responsibility she was holding in trust for Naruto, would be a laughing stock. She's going to have to face up to her responsibilities, now where did she put the 'Great Hero Ramen' company's address... oh, that's where the sake bottle went, well there's a little left and a day like this calls for a drink...
Without Shizune to keep her under control Tsunade goes on a colossal bender, and wakes up hungover, when Gai is bashing on her door and wailing at the top of his voice about his Team being missing!
Once Tsunade's shut him up and managed to get herself a hangover remedy, she finds another receipt on her desk. The value of three genin working on C-class missions, less the value of their maintenance, is now being deducted from her debts. The debts will now be cleared in a little more than eight thousand years. Could she at least let them know how far they need to push before she deals honestly with them, so that they can skip the intervening escalation?
Now Tsunade would like to have Shizune back, really she would. And Gai being quieter would be nice. But... this is reducing her debts, isn't it? And really, she's the goddamned Hokage, she can assign her ninja any missions she wants, can't she?
.oOo.

Naruto scratched his head as he read the letter from Tsunade. If he was reading this correctly, and a correspondence course in corporate law that was whiling away the spare hours when Jiraiya wasn't in a fit state to train him suggested that he was, then Tsunade was basically offering to rent him he VIllage's ninja en masse to pay off her debts.
She really needed that law course more than he did.
He slurped up another 'Great Hero Ramen' cup ramen (just the way he liked it) and reached for his pen. Now then, time to hone those negotiation skills.
It would go down in history that Konohagakure was the first Hidden Village ever to face a takeover bid, but Naruto was pretty sure that if he managed to get the Hyuga on Tsunade's back (and Hinata would probably be only too glad to 'vanish' and cause exactly that) then she'd agree to just about anything.
"De facto Hokage now," he noted. "De jure when I get back..."
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

Shizuru finally hits lvl 40. Now if I can just get her to 50 by this time next year, I'll be really happy.When engaging, nothing beats a full frontal.
*********************
In the epic rage of furious thunder
legends create their tales
when the twilight calls and the dark lord falls
our glory will prevail

Just had an amusing thought, and had to share.
We have a Mars Project.
We have a Venus Project.
You know that there's going to be a group of people out there somewhere running the Pluto Project.
Not terraforming. That would be silly. No, this is a bunch of old-school astronomy fanatics, who are trying to win one of the more virulent astronomy debates of the century in the most decisive way possible. Whether or not Pluto qualifies as a planet right now, it sure will when they're done with it.
Basically, the answer is simple. by hook or by crook, they're dragging random celestial bodies out of their corners of the sky, slapping appropriately-sized drives on them, and riding them in at nonfatal speeds. Comets are favorite, but asteroids will do. They'd *like* to grab a moon or two, but acknowledge that the things are too valuable where they are. They managed to drag a consensus definition of how much mass a planet requires, and they're intending to go for that plus about 10% - Just To Be Sure. They'll even normalize the orbit a bit, if they have to.
Mind you, this isn't particularly lucrative, and it is a lot of work. The job is a labor of love - between folks who have money but no time and are willing to donate to the cause, and folks who have time and are willing and able to work for a pittance. the work goes slow - but Pluto is patient.

Remember the Kelo decision on eminent domain in New London? Check out the sequel.
My anger level is rising again.
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

Zwilniks Off the Starboard Bow!
Timewise....this probably took place a month or two before the Convention.
--------------------------------------------------
I was peering through a microscope at a sample of extremophilic bacteria that I hoped to use in my latest chimera for Mars, when Clotho's bright voice came through the lab speakers. "Hey, Kev? We've got company outside. Guy in an RV, says he needs to talk to the Jason." That got an arched eyebrow. While I did biomod work for those that wanted it, normally I picked up commissions at Convention, or through email. Having someone actually willing to travel out to my neck of the Asteroid Belt to look me up was unusual. "OK. Have Fate tell them I'll be right there." I turned off the scope and headed out through my living room, then down the small metal corridor that lead to the right-hand door of my cockpit. Flopping down in the copilot seat, I offered a greeting to Fate. "Record this, please." Fate's 'Greek chorus' voice filled the cockpit, a blend of the Sisters' voices. "Yes, Kevin." I flipped the mike on. "This is the Fateful Lightning. You've got the Jason here. What can I do for you?"
"We heard you did mod work....that you could make any kind of plants people wanted. That right?" The voice was a bit nasal, no horribly-noticeable accents or anything. "If so, me and some friends want something made."
I hmmmed softly, then shrugged and answered, "I'll need more information in order to tell whether or not it's possible. What exactly are you wanting?"
There was a moment before I got a reply, then, "My...company's found some promising new chemicals in some of the life on Venus. But the production's far too low, and we want something that'll grow in less harsh conditions. Think you could do it?"
This got a frown. The guy was being remarkably close-mouthed and that was setting off all sorts of alarm bells in my head. Most of my clients were only too happy to talk to me about what they wanted...in detail. I typed into the keyboard mounted onto the dash in front of me: 'Fate, cross-reference anything we've got on Venus and the lifeforms there. Any possible hints as to what this joker wants?' As I did so, I answered said joker, "Of course I can DO it....but I'll need to know more about the substances you want expressed. Do they need any special requirements, and what exactly do they do? If I don't have that info, I could well lose them when I make the mod." I waited for a reply to that....as well as to the question I'd given Fate.
The potential client hemmed and hawed on the other end of the link. Frankly, I doubted he'd be a client of mine; I really didn't like the feel of this. But I was willing to withhold judgement until he told me more. "Well? I'll need to know in order to do the job." Words scrolled by on the screen in front of me: 'No hints at present, Kevin. But given the man's reactions and a study of his voice inflections and choices, the greatest probability is that it's illegal or close to it, and probably big trouble.' Well, crap....not what I wanted to hear from Fate. She filled the role of Oracle all too well, at times - to the point that even I wasn't sure if she could see the future or not.
The voice on the radio spat out a curse. "You wanna know? Fine. We found some prime pharmaceuticals that'll set us up big. And if you tell anybody, it'll be the LAST thing you ever do." Well....if I DID take the job, the price just doubled.
"And....?" I kept my own voice quiet, waiting to see where this would go. "A drug, then. Something actually useful, or just recreational?"
That got a evil-sounding snigger from the radio. Apparently, not giving a reaction of immediate revulsion made the guy think I was in. Stupid bastard. "Recreational. And if a buyer tries it once, he's hooked good and proper. We'll make a killing. We can get you all the specs you need."
THAT did it. I really had no problems with drugs as such. I'm pretty much a libertarian. A person can do what he wants to with his body; as long as he doesn't hurt others, that's fine. But this sounded far too much like a permanent fate. And one which could be forced on someone at that. In fact....I growled softly, "Thionite. You want me to create a version of fucking BROADLEAF for you! Not only no, but HELL no!" That woke up the guy in the RV, and he started to offer some pretty nasty-sounding threats. Not just against me, but my friends and clients as well. He shouldn't have done that. I switched the mike off. "Fate, switch control to Atropos. Atropos...." Her voice came over the speakers, quite tart, with her Sisters' voices a faint chorus in the background. "Don't teach Grandma how to suck eggs, sonny. Scout-class drone 'Spare' has been redesignated Sword-class, and is ready to launch on your word." I nodded grimly. "Right. The word is 'Republic.' Does Spare have any favorite music?" The rough old woman's voice filled the cockpit again. "Yes - Beach Boys." That got an arched eyebrow. "All right. Pipe him 'Little Old Lady from Pasadena.' Seems appropriate." That got a snort from Atropos, and I flipped the mike back on. The would-be zwilnik was still making threats about what would happen unless I started working for them. "All right, that's enough. Tell me...did you lot give ANY thought to my ship's name before you decided to try and bring me into this scheme of yours?" That got some more cursing on the other end, and I cut him off. "Apparently not, or you'd not have tried to get me to make something that would enslave people. Get this, zwilnik. My ship's name comes from a rather famous song from the 1860s. Maybe you've heard of it. It's called 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic.'" As I finished speaking, a hatch opened in the side of the workshop trailer, and what appeared to be a small go-cart popped out. As it hit open space, every light on the cart flashed on - normal lights, brights, halogen spotlights...even the two ranks of grow lights that I'd installed to help get some mining plants established a while back. It was extremely visible for a split-second, and I heard the man on the other end of the radio link mutter the start of an exclamation as he caught sight of it. Then it flashed into a streak of light that pierced the front of the RV, which promptly exploded in molten metal and glass. Even reinforced by handwavium, things tend to break when hit by a hundred fifty pounds of material moving something on the order of a hundred miles a second. The rest of the RV began to come apart, a trail of debris and air shooting out the rear as the remains of the drone continued on their way. I swallowed hard, turning a little green. "Terrible swift Sword, indeed...."
I sighed. "Atropos? You and the others, send out all the cam-drones we have on hand, and check the wreckage? If there's anything left over there that'll identify these bastards, I want it. You might send out Spool, Spotter, and Succor as well. We can take the largest pieces of that back with us, maybe visit SSX Base and see if anything can be found out from the debris." I got an affirmative from Atropos, and my hand scrubbed down my face. "I'm going to go throw up, I think, then hide in the Garden for a bit. If anything comes up, let me know, and be prepared to take defensive measures as necessary." I considered the image of Spare flashing into a beam of light. "Fate....in the ship's log, mark that Scout-class 'Spare' was designated Sword-class today, renamed 'Saber.' Destroyed in defense of the ship." I sighed, and started for the walkway to my living quarters. "Keep your eyes peeled, ladies. This has a bad feel, and I'm not sure it's over yet." Fate had to chime in. "It will be over when it's over." I sighed again, and headed back. Throwing up, rinsing out my mouth, and a large glass of Johnnie Walker Black in the Garden sounded good right now. I also pondered what I should do about my newfound popularity. Would it help matters if I started some rumors that I had weapons-grade handwavium like the Professor was supposed to, or would that just make me more of a target? Of course, we ALL had weapons-grade handwavium; most people just didn't seem to realize it...at least, not unless they were VERY desperate. I'd have to run the idea past Fate, see what she thought. With that, I entered my living quarters and headed for the kitchen. Right. Alcohol.

Quote:

---

Come up screaming
Come up screaming
I've never seen you look like this without a reason
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you
I never took the smile away from anybody's face
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered
I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded
Pull up your head off the floor
Come up screaming
Cry out for everything you ever might've wanted
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered
I'm not expecting to grow flowers in a desert
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
In a big country dreams stay with you
Like a lover's voice fires the mountainside
Stay alive
- Big Country
"In a Big Country"
The Crossing (1983)

---

Apparantly the RIAA is suing a Russian filesharing company - for 1.65 trillion dollars.
www.redherring.com/Articl...+for+%241B
tech.cybernetnews.com/200...-trillion/
I don't think they are likely to get that much money. 1.65 trillion dollars is larger than Russia's GDP. It's well over half the US federal budget. (Actually that's a scary comparison in itself.) I don't know how the RIAA figured they lost that much money. The only explanation I can think of is that they've heard that parody is considered "fair use" - so decided to do something beyond parody.

I was reading the TV Tropes wiki the other day, and got inspired. This is pretty much all there's going to be of this one. Enjoy.
----------
I can feel it coming in the air as I walk - a wash of power building behind me - my theme music finally cueing up. The wave crests, and crashes into me. It's the opening strains of O Fortuna. Not just generic Latin music. Not even just something *inspired* by O Fortuna. The real thing. I *am* the local definition of badass. The doors to the Council Hall explode inward at my approach, and I stride through.
The council goes dead silent at my entrance. I address them
"Greetings, Councillors. Fear me. The largest and most powerful army in the history of this place has assembled beneath my banner, and stands outside your gates, and they don't even matter. If I wanted to, I could crush you all myself. I will be leaving in an hour. Understand that every single one of you still alive at the end of that hour wil be alive because I *let* you live. I'm not talking about your lands, your people, your soldiers, your assistants, or your families. I'm talking about *you*. You have no allies left to sacrifice. You have no power left to defend yourself with. You have no place left to run. I *own* you - and you will *obey*. Do I make myself clear?"
...and then a kid with an oversized sword and spiky hair leaps down from the upper balconies and lands in a dramatic crouch.
"You say you can crush us all, Darklord? Fine. I'll call you on that. Leave the council out of it. Face me, instead."
My background music swells to meet him, and I realize what's happening. I drop my head into my hands and groan. I should have seen it coming. I *really* should have seen it coming.
The kid gets annoyed at my reaction. "What? Don't you take me seriously enough to defend youself? Should I run you through right now?"
The kid is close to losing it. I look up at him, dead calm. "Kid, stop. You fighting me, right now, like this, would be bad for both of us, no matter who wins. Seriously bad. Can you hold off on the rage long enough to hear why?"
The kid is a little shaken by my utter failure to follow the script. He nods. That's good. Worst case scenario, even if he *does* decide to attack me, the further we are from the script, the more chance I have to live.
"Okay. say we get into a fight. I'm a nearly omnipotent lord of darkness. You're a heroic kid who's done enough fighting to pretty much know which end of his weapon has the hurty bits on it. At this point, it's about even odds on which one of us will win. With me so far?"
The kid nods, looking cocky.
"Now, if you win, chances are you kill me. After all, by now I'm steeped enough in dark magic that you're going to have to defeat me more than once. Each time you win, I'll be transformed into an ever more powerful and grotesque form, with my final form remaining totally combat-capable right up until I explode. Not much room for a nonlethal disable. Anyway, I die. I lose control of the horde outside the gates, and they start rampaging. New leaders of the Dark rise up from the chaos in short order. Worst case scenario, they overwhelm this last Bastion, killing every living thing within the walls, and the light goes out of the world. That's bad. We can agree that that's bad, right?"
The kid nods, looking a bit concerned.
"Okay. Best case scenario, you, with or without allies, head out the gates to take on pretty much the entire world. It has to be you, because by this point the Powers of the Light are so badly behind that the only way to make up for it is to ride the drama - and by killing me you pretty much ensure that you're the one with the drama behind him. Your life becomes a hell of misery and constant battle. Eventually, after a sereis of ever more gruesome and depressing adventures, in which your allies, if you have any, sacrifice themselves one by one so that you can continue on, you manage to destroy pretty much every focus of Dark power in the world, and return here - only to find that everyone's starved to death, because there's no way they can grow enough food in this place to feed everyone, and there's no way that anyone can kill off the hordes outside fast enough to make farming outside the walls feasible. If you are ridiculously lucky, there might still a handful of humanity left somewhere, with whom you can rebuild the race. Otherwise, you die unloved, friendless, and alone. We can agree that that's *also* bad, right?
The kid nods, looking a bit disturbed.
"Right. Now, on the other side, if I beat you and let you live, you're going to keep coming back after me, growing stronger every time until you finally, inevitably, manage to defeat me, and kill me. I personally don't like those odds. I promise you, if we fight, and I win, you will die. The problem, though, is that that makes you an *origin* *story* - and I don't know for *who*. Fortunately for me, these things take time, but that just means that I've got a few extra years before my, remember this word, *inevitable* demise. Even more fortunately for me, however, I have a way to stall it a bit. I can *KILL EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER LOVED YOU*. And then I can kill everyone who has ever loved *them*, and everyone who has ever loved *them*, and knock off anyone who manages to retroactively develop feelings for any of my victims in the meantime, until finally, some day, I slip up, and fail to kill someone, and they bring about the previously mentioned inevitable demise. That's *BAD*, right? We can agree that that's *BAD*, can't we?"
The kid nods, looking traumatized.
"Or, we can go with Option B. I have a plan on how everything can work out reasonably well for everyone. I explain my plan. If you agree, and you let me threaten the council until they agree, then we smile, and shake hands, and walk out, if not friends, at least acquaintances on good terms. Nobody has to turn into a horrible monster and explode. Nobody has to doom their friends and extended family to being hunted down and slaughtered. Nobody has to die. Personally, I'm pretty fond of option B in this case. How about you?"