The Watchtower

I went to the bar with David tonight. He cries if I won't go out at lest once a week, and tonight was a good night for it because work gave him a migraine but left me pretty much alone. That means I can keep up with him - well at least for the first four or five drinks.

We drove separately from work and when I got to the watchtower David was already hunched over his drink in a coroner booth looking miserable. I snagged a beer, a local lager I enjoy, and joined him with "Tough day?"

David groaned then rallied enough to look at me with red eyes, "Every time I cast the spell it was like lifting a mountain, and it seemed like I had to recast it every five seconds."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. Those bastards have sold more licenses for the spell. That's the roomer."

David scowled at me, "It's the truth. Are you saying you couldn't feel it?"

"No, the spell took more energy."

"And didn't last as long.'

For a mage David is remarkably superstitious about magical things. We've had this debate before, "How long our spell lasts isn't effected by its energy requirements."

David just grunted, then circled around to his original thesis, "Well more people were doing the spell." A waitress sashayed by and he flagged her down, "'Nother beer, and a shot of jack." Perhaps I wasn't going to keep up with him. When David's shot arrived he pounded it back and then looked at me as though inspired by the alcohol. "What I need to do is come up with my own spell."

I raised my eyebrows. "Yes, that would be nice."

"Something everyone will want. Or better yet a few very rich people will want it."

"You could also win the lotto."

"No, I'm serious. I need to come up with something good, make my mark, make some money!"

I shrugged. I should explain. Not many people come up with new spells. Try it for five minutes and you'll see why. Flying, fireballs, magical shields, immortality, and the like have all been done. Most of what's invented now is a little dongle of a spell that makes some piece of some industrial process easier.

Don't get me wrong, that sort of thing makes someone a lot of money. But you have to be on the inside, you have to know just what goes into - um, well into making a refrigerator for example, which parts are cheap and easy and which are expensive and cumbersome. Then you get a team of engineers the problem for a few weeks (or moths, or years, or decades) and they tell you the best way to improve a process is make part 52A experience 10% less friction at some point. This you give to the mages who will normally say a spell like that exists but it's too hard, or expensive, to include in the process. So you cycle and research until you come up with a total new effect you can develop a spell for, or - less optimally but more frequently - you can license and implement existing spell cheaply enough to make the improvement economically.

In response to my shrug, David gave me a squinty version of the evil eye. "You're a downer."

"Oh I guess. Alright, um, if you could figure out how to teleport things you'd make a ton of money."

"That's never been done."

"Well of course. I was thinking negative energy to make wormholes."

David grinned seemingly more interested in this conversation. I think his headache was going away. "No one knows how to make negative energy. I think gravity is clearly the way to go."

"Sure, but it's impossible to make enough..." and then we spent much of the night debating the impossible.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog! Welcome, but don’t get your hopes up. I probably won’t post a whole lot and I’m only starting this thing because I want to complain about my job.

I’m a geek, I mean Wizard. I’ve already announced my intent to complain, but I probably shouldn’t. The pay is OK, not great or even really good (I graduated in the economic slump) but I get by and even save a bit. The hours are good, I guess. There’ normally anyway, 8 to 5.

What I actually do is the part that sucks. I’m an “operator” which means I cast the same spell over and over again. In my particular case it’s a spell called, to use the name it was invented with: Strange Movement. To use the new name “Quantum Alignment.” Basically it changes a room temperature fluid into a Bose-Einstein condensate which causes the molecules to love through a piece of equipment more regularly. This, in turn, allows for a regular self assembly of elements on a nano-scale. I cast the spell on the new raw materials going into a spinning wheel which makes carbon nano-tubes.

So why did I decide to get into _this_ line of work? I didn’t exactly. I was always good in my magic classes but I decided to go into Advertising. I thought I’d get into a field called “direct presentation”. Basically, street sales people, marketing conventions, special events, and store displays. All of the stuff uses a lot of magic to get attention and impress. Because of that I decided to minor in magic. Kind of give me a leg up on getting into the filed.

Only I get to college and realize all of my add Profs were basically recovering drunks. Not that they were bad professors that’s just what the field does to you. They warned us about long hours, job stress, and the inevitability of being fired. I didn’t look forward to that, so I switched around my majors and fell into magic.

Beyond the job I guess I am a nice, and normal, enough guy. I’m not posting a picture of myself (because I’m not a good enough prize to show off on the Internet) but physically I’m about 6 feet tall, skinny, red hair (that goes everywhere), pale skin, and freckles. I’d say people like me after they get to know me, but I’m never going to win high office based on the first impression I give.

I come from New Mexico. You might be surprised to learn this, but a place with a giant beaming sun on its flag isn’t really the greatest for pale skinned people. Perhaps that’s why I decided to go to college in Indiana and eventually ended up working in Seattle. When I’m not working (which is as often as I can manage) I enjoy running, video games, books , mystic school martial arts, and generally loafing about.

I’m looking forward to getting to know all of you, and all of you getting to know me. In fact, I’d like to give you all a GREAT BIG HUG right now! Just kidding, just kidding, I kid because I love. Because I love and because I’m not exactly sure how to end this post. OK, going now, talk to you all later.