I had such a cool idea for the climactic battle between Utena and Akio while driving in to work this morning. I wish I could share it with you all, but it'd be such a spoiler if I did. I'll have to write it up for the prereaders soon, though.
Sorry if that's annoying, but I had to say something to somebody, and Peggy doesn't like getting phone calls at work just so I can say, "I had such a great idea!".

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I went home. I did a post-mortem on the fight, and then I crashed. By the end of my analysis -- which, by the way, I flunked myself on -- I was running solely on fumes and caffeine from a cup of mint tea I'd made myself, and the latter was about to run dry. I had almost no energy reserves to speak of, so I could barely heal myself before crashing; I managed to knit my broken ribs and scab over the worst of the wounds and that was it. I did manage to undress myself before falling into the chirping metallic hammock that pretended to be my bed.Of course, I had to get up a mere five and a half hours later. Most other days, five hours' sleep would've let me pop right up, fresh and energetic, but that morning I felt like an extra in a George Romero movie. My energy reserves were there -- I finished healing myself before getting into the shower -- but I simply hadn't gotten enough sleep to shake a general feeling of headachy exhaustion. "Gods help me if I have to fight anyone or anything today," I muttered to myself as I got dressed. I made it to work without crashing my bike, and stumbled into the lobby, carrying my helmet in via the bowling ball bag again. I managed to be polite and friendly to Kendra as I tottered through to the cube farm beyond -- she was still a little twitchy, poor thing -- but I only grunted when Chizue threw me my morning bagel.I had already taken a couple bites from it when I pounded on Ohara's door."Come," was the muffled reply."Good morning, and aren't we the picture of health," he said as Istaggered in and put down the bag.I didn't feel like clever repartee that morning. "I thought youwere going to quit it with the fucking boomers."Ohara put down his pencil and looked up at me with honest surprise in his eyes. "We did.""The bunch that I fought last night all locked on to me just like the little army you deployed against me at Bunko's. You're telling me they weren't yours?""They certainly weren't," Ohara declared. "Why the hell would we do that? We *have* you already. The only reason we sent boomers after you was to capture or test you, and to study what you could do. We can do that a lot more safely -- and *cheaply* -- here in the Tower."If I hadn't been so fried from the aftereffects of the battle, Iprobably would have thought of that myself. I hadn't, though, soI made the universal gesture of "oh what a schmuck I am" by wipingmy hand down my face and groaning as the obvious implication finally made itself known to me. "Oh, great. Just great," Igrowled. "A third player's joined the game."Ohara thought about that for a moment, then nodded soberly. "Ithink you may be right.""I *know* I'm right." I rubbed my eyes and wished for some aspirin."Gods, I hate this world."Ohara smiled his little not-smile smile. "I don't blame you. I'mnot too fond of it myself sometimes."
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Being just close to you won't make love happen
Even if I make it a puzzle you couldn't figure it out
Because you're slow
We came to the beach wearing summer clothes
Please cover me gently with your shirt
My Heart won't let me say
Please kiss me
Day dream, my dreams get bigger and disappears
High in the sky
Any girl can be happy
If she's full of love she can be invincible
Even if tears start flow or my heart aches,
It's because of you, and it won't be sad
I want to have a secret,want to feel guilty
Even if I know what's happening with you
I pretend that I don't
Even if my heart pounds in fall or I feel blue in winter,
It will be ok, if my precious love bears fruit
I want to be certain about your heart,
I believe in your fingers touching me.
It's my first true love,
Which is why my cheeks are burning up
When a girl falls in love she can be beautiful
And she doesn't even need red lipstick
Even if she can't sleep at night all she does is dream
She's overflowing with feelings of love
Any girl can be happy.
They all start shining once they fall in love.
Even if tears start to flow and my heart aches,
It's because of you and she'll become gentler.
-- My Heart, Your Heart (Theme from Oh My Goddess! OVAs),
Goddess Family Club (Kikuko Inoue, Yumi Fuyama, Aya Hisakawa)
(Rough English translation)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Classical Gas,
Mason Williams
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

... located here.
But they say it's not available yet.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

As I expected, I got no writing done this past week while we were on our vacation. I'll probably start again tonight or tomorrow. Since I didn't stop where I did because I was stuck or clueless, I shouldn't have a problem picking the thread back up; I know my muse is still around, because she's been whispering in my ear all this time...

-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Hope this is the right place to put this...
When I logged in, I found the "New Messages" marker on "General Chatter" and "Future Steps".
The first was discussions of the blackout, but there were no (visible) new messages in the second.
The latest message date stamp on the top page was:
8/14/03 8:16 pm
but, when I looked at who had posted what lately, nothing seemed to match (all recent posts looked to be blackout related).
Not sure how significant this is, maybe just a deleted message or something (?), but thought I should mention it.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

In M0 2, the UNS eggheads find this huge biomechanical skeleton with eerie matches to the islanders' traditionall religion, yeah? And the preistess chick exhibits supernatural powers through singing. That, and the fact that it's never particularly explained how humans are identical to Zentran/Meltran save for minor little things like skin color, and (well probably - has anyone ever tried?) the ability to be made mecha-sized. The islanders' creatyion myths have the first man coming out of the sea (and some kind of wreckage was shown with Protoculture style markings, distict from zent stuff mainly by being more complex) and the first woman from a 'bird human's blood. What if the skeleton is the corpse of a Protodeviln, or a borged one, whose genetics were mixed with normal, micronized Zentran to try to create a more controllable advancement of the Supervision Army's cloned warriors. This would also help explain the human affinity for anima spiritia powers and a possible explanation for why the Inspection Army gunship that became the Macross originally came this way, if they'd somehow learned of an old experiment of their enmies' and decided to check it out. For that matter, the fall of the Protoculture civilization is dated about the same time as the emergence of Homo Sapienns in the fossil record - the only hanging end then would be why everything else on the planet is related to us too... but then, Eden in Macross Plus has native chickens with horns and coloration similar to a holstien cow, but are described in (translations I've read online of) official literature as 'effectively just like earth chickens' and that bitter fuit tree thingy was compatible too, so maybe that's just how life works in the Macross universe. It wouldn't be any wierder than giant space whales or the whole spiritia thing, and as much as many people dislike them they are official and staying... For my part, I don't see what the problem is, but then even when I was a kid, my favorite cartoon character was Bluegrass from Silverhawks, who used music blasts as his attack and got to fly the team spaceship.
... I have to wonder what Doug would make of the Silverhawks, actually. Since I haven't seen it in years and years its probably not as cool as I remmeber, but I recall one episode that (thoguh I only later realised it) had a blatant reference to doc smith's Lensmen books - a Chickladorian alien who's immune to the badguys' latest plot device raygun that makes ships fall apart or dissappear or something like that. It seems to be another universe of the sort that shows up in US cartoons from time to time, where anyone can survive indefinitely in space, without that whole combination suffocating/freezing/exploding thing.
Back to Macross - (Gah, the AntiElvis in a Valkyrie! Out, foul demon!) back to Macross, I'll just have to wait for the remaining three (as scheduled) episodes of Macross Zero to see if I'm anywhere close to on track with the hypothesis, but it would neatly tie up at least a few things, and the preistess' spiritia powers might be the last vestiges of actual Protoculture era Anima SPiritia training, as used to control and eventually off the protodeviln used in the project.
I think probably I'm rambling a bit (it's still Monday for me...) but I think I managed to cover the points I had in mind.
- CD
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

Once again, the cast list for this sidestory is subject to change; for instance, it's not certain that Slayers will actually be one of the Steps.
(Edit, 3/13/04. Some of this material has been updated and reposted over in the other GGG thread; I've deleted it here to avoid confusion.)
-- Bob
"You're nuts, b'wana, if you think I'm going to do a HerveVillachez impression," his companion muttered just loud enough tocarry across the floor.Skuld backed up a step, her bug-squashing mallet appearing in herhand. "What are you?"The man frowned. "That's an interesting question. And an evenlonger story. For now, you seem to be aboard my ship, anddespite being stowaways of a sort, hospitality's indicated."Skuld's hands tightened in their grip. "That's not what Imeant," she shrilled. "You're not human! What are you?"The others in the group came closer together hearing that,tension evident in their attitude.The black-haired woman grabbed his arm. "Remember, she's aPower, boss. Be careful." The capitalization of the word wasevident in her voice."Questions. All right then. You're aboard the private starshipCalypso. I'm the owner." He waved at the woman by his side."This is Minerva, my personal assistant and general factotum. Myname is Ed. I bear you no ill will at present, but I *would*like to know why you're on my ship, and if you have any hostileintentions towards it, myself, or my assistant." He directed hisattention at Skuld. "As for what I am, given that this is *my*ship, shouldn't I be asking *you* that question, lass?"
-------
"But I digress.Someone's seen fit to choose my -- no, _our_ next destination forme, and given your arrival, I'd have to have the strength of asaint to avoid jumping to the obvious conclusion.""Someone's trying to make us go where _they_ want us to?" askedLisa. "Is it an invitation? Or a trap?"Delandra pursed her lips. "Or is it both?""Doesn't matter, you know."Everyone turned to look Lina Inverse. "It doesn't," sherepeated. "Unless we go, we won't find out." She pointed at Ed."And if he's right, that's just what someone wants."Minerva's quiet voice now took their attention. "Make your choice, adventurous Stranger; Strike the bell and bide the danger, Or wonder, til it drives you mad, What would have followed if you had.""C.S. Lewis," replied Skuld softly. "One of Father's favorites.""Somehow I'm not surprised," Ed said softly. A faraway look grewin his eyes for a moment; then he jerked himself back to thecurrent moment. "Now, ladies, I've introduced myself. It's onlyfair you do the same.""Why should we bother?" Skuld growled. "You already seem to knowwho we are."Ed shrugged. "Yes and no. I know who some of you are, but notthe rest of you.""And *snerk* how d'you *crunch* know that *chomp* much?" Linaasked without looking up from her plate."Because we've read or watched your adventures," Minerva replied.The table froze."What?"Ed smiled. "It's called 'transfictionality'. Some of you arethe subject of fiction -- books, movies or TV shows -- in otheruniverses."An unreadable expression passed over Willow's face, then shenodded. "I've heard of it," she said softly.
-------
Lisa and Skuld wandered around the cluttered cargo bay,occasionally opening boxes at random and peeking inside."Hey, look at this!""What is it?""A Teletubby/English English/Teletubby dictionary.""Ewww! Hey, there's something over here... 'Dr. Englebert'sMutation Creme'?""Uhh... Skuld?""What?""There's a tiny little pyramid over here.""So?""The eye in its capstone is watching us.""It's just an optical illusion.""But it just winked at me.""Ignore it.""A Succubus Barbie and an Incubus Ken?""You've GOT to be kidding...""Nope... Hey, this is interesting! Look at this, Skuld. It's apolice report, with conclusive and damning evidence that Mr.Boddy was in fact murdered by the Sicilian Mafia, and ColonelMustard was set up to take the fall." Lisa flipped through thepages thoughtfully. "I always thought it was Ms. Scarlet,myself.""There's a case of military-grade squelch oil over here. Squelchoil?""Hey, Skuld, what's a 'Nerf Nuke'?""I don't know. But this looks interesting." She held up a smallbook. "Pocket Universes for Dummies. It says a coupon for afree kit is included." The young goddess looked at it with anexpression of temptation written all over her face, thenreluctantly replaced it in the worn cardboard box she'd found itin.Lisa held up what appeared to be a Moebius strip made of gold,with ebony lettering down the center of the strip. "It says 'SeeOther Side'.""Oh, now THIS is crass.""What?""A Winnie-the-Pooh fusion bomb. Doesn't appear to be armed,though.""Wonder if there's a Tigger trigger for it?""Nope, but there's a crate of Frog grenades next to it.""Frog grenades?""That's what the label says. But what's really scary is this boxon top of the crate.""Oh?""It's labeled 'anti-personnel mimes'.""Weird.""Not as weird as this.""What is it?""Well, from the looks of them, and the marble they're made of,I'd say they were the arms broken from the Venus De Milo, exceptthat each hand has six fingers." The young goddess blinked."And one hand's making an obscene gesture!" she added inoffended tones.Lisa laughed. "You'll like this one, Skuld." She lifted up a small sack of powder. "Dehydrated gasoline -- just add water.""Forget that and help me close this crate full of cavorite. It'strying to float away."Lisa moved to aid her. Together they managed to close the boxbefore they lost any of the small greenish-grey chunks of metal.Then Lisa smiled as she spotted the contents of a small shippingcrate labled Rieder Optik, Schweiggerstr. 9, Lichenhof-Apotheke,Nurnberg, Bavaria. "I thought rose-colored glasses were only ametaphor.""I wouldn't wear any of them, if I were you," said Skuldsuspiciously, as she sat down on a small olive-drab 55-gallonplastic barrel with an orange and black sticker down one sidereading "DANGER: Mil-Spec Prop Wash. Do NOT Open." Behind herwas a crate which showed signs of frequent opening and re-nailing. Stencilled on its side was the faded legend, "Devices,Plot, Improbable, 1 Gross. Steffler-McGuffin Industries. DO NOTOPEN WITHOUT PROPER PROTECTIVE GEAR."There was a small cough behind them, from the direction of thecompanionway. "Actually, you should both be in your cabins,ladies. While I'm quite agreeable about offering transportationto folks in need, it's rather impolite to be picking through myluggage.""EEEP!"Edward looked at them mildly from his position near the mainhatch. "Nothing personal, ladies. It's just a matter ofprinciple. You wouldn't want ME snooping through YOUR property,would you?"The two young women blushed violently.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.