On Thu, 17 Jun 1999, nom_de_plume@altavista.net wrote:

May the source be with you, oh Pen named one.  This one caught me by surprise. 
The cynic in me came close to hitting the delete key, but I abstained and read
on.

First off the following paragraphs make a great introduction, buut, maybe
something to denote it as the beginning of the story, I thought they were the
authors notes. :)

I don't remember the URL. I didn't bookmark it either, and in
Lynx all pages look more or less the same. Alta Vista, Excite and
Infoseek provide no clue whatsoever. I just downloaded the
program from one of the millions of sites out there.

"Check the source and compile" is my rule of thumb, but I was
very tired that night, and I didn't want to bother wading through
the code. I knew it was unwise to simply download and execute the
binary but, Bliss notwithstanding, there are no Linux viruses,
right? I decided to take my chances.

/*
"I knew it was unwise to simply download and execute the binary but as far
as I knew, there aren't any Linux viruses.  I decided to take my chances."

Bliss notwithstanding? Er. It doesn't make any sense in the context.
*/

// No viruses, but trojans aplenty.

Big mistake.

// Not as big a mistake as trying to upgrade your system while being lit on a
// litre of Sake.

                         Computer Girl Lan

// The introduction is a little sparse. It doesn't set the scene...

The first thing I noticed were the breasts pressed against my
face. The second thing I noticed was the weight of the body to
which they were attached. Although clearly not one to complain
about such state of affairs, I had other things on my mind (not
to mention the fact that it was getting hard to breath).

// lose the paren's, sentence makes more sense that way.

s/breath/breathe

// *chuckle*

My hands trembled as I held her waist and carefully rolled the
girl over. I guess the cliched description of how pretty she was
goes here, but it really wouldn't do justice to her delicate
beauty anyway. And, like I said, I had other worries.

// I'd scratch, "And,"

// if (beautiful_girl_on_geek == 1)
//	geek_flustered = 1;

A bundled sweater provided an impromptu pillow. I held my wrist
close to her perky little nose. A tiny spark from its tip shocked
me a bit. Damn static. The face of my watch fogged slightly as
her breath periodically moistened the crystal surface.

// Perky and little is kind of redundant.

// Once again, I feel like you're skimping on the scene here. I'm not sure how
// to describe it, but it feels very terse.

OK, one thing less to worry about. The girl was unconscious, not
dead. I knew I had to get her to a hospital or something, she
might still be injured. But first...

// Suggestion, join these two paragraphs together.  "But first, I got up to..."

I got up to check my computer. A brand new AlphaStation, my pride
and joy! Did the monitor just flicker? I held my breath as I
faced the screen:

// Whoo hoo! Alpha!

error: core dumped
_

I typed "ls -alt" and pressed "Enter". Much to my relief, a
directory listing appeared. I let out a loud sigh. So far so
good. Hmmmm, no core file. Strange.

// What? No pipe to more? Big console, eh? <g>

No time to look into it now, better get the girl some help.
Where had she come from, anyway? I must have fallen asleep on
the keyboard or something. For a moment I could have sworn she
had come out of the screen....

// Nit pick, ellipsis is only three periods.

Better turn the computer off, just in case that program was still
active somehow. I quickly su'd to become super-user:

su -l

Password:
#> shutdown -h now

I was about to execute the command when the unexpected happened.

    "BAKA!!!"

// Ok, I'll bite,  what's with the Japanese at this point?  I think some more
// reasoning on this would be justified other than, "She watched my anime
// collection.

If the insult wasn't enough, a blow which almost ruptured my left
kidney gave the girl my undivided attention. So much for delicate
beauty.

s/which/that

// Whoever said women were delicate?

    "BAKABAKABAKABAKA!"

    "You said that already..." I managed to say, staggering a
bit, trying to ignore the pain (and failing miserably).

    "BAKAAAA!"

// *zot*

I realized then that I must have committed some sort of serious
faux pas. The girl was fuming, but man, did she look cute!

// Hmm.  That last sentence is what I mean in note (2) at the end

// What does a fake pass have to do with anything? Ol' boy screwed up. :D

    "Do you know what would happen if you shut down?" she
growled, indignant.

// Nit pick, I think you mean shutdown.  If *you* shut down, then well.  You're
// either very asleep or dead.

    "Well, I... um... I could turn my computer off?"

// "And umm, I could use this Alpha Station as a really keen bookend!"

She glared at me. Wrong answer.

// Women, can't live with, can't kill -9 'em.

    "I'd disappear, you baka! What kind of a person are you,
anyways? More worried about a computer than a poor girl dangling
between life and death? BAKA!"

She had a pretty good right hook for someone about to die.

// Law of anime.  Can't do anything about it.

    "I'm... I'm sorry... I was just going to... disappear? What
do you mean, 'disappear'?"

    "I'm a Computer Girl, Lan's the name. I'm here to comfort and
support you, you baka!"

// Hmm.  Her introduction seems a little incongruous mebbe.

Oooookay...

// /me agrees

---

Winter nights are pretty bloody cold in these parts. I had a good

// Ah hah! Canadian!

chance to experience this first-hand as I walked through the
snow, wearing only my sweater. Lan, on the other hand, seemed
quite content with my winter jacket. It was way too large for
her, but this only made her look more huggable, and therefore
cuter. She was happily humming, walking just behind me, while I
blew warm air into my cupped hands, trying to fend off cryopathy.

// Whoever heard of a Canadian dying from exposure? <j/k>

    "Aaaah! How I _love_ snow!" she cooed.

    "Yeah, it's great," I answer distractedly, pondering my next
move. I was still trying to grasp the full implications of our
earlier conversation:

// So am I. ^_^

    "A... a Computer Girl...?"

    "Aha, and I would appreciate you deleting that 'shutdown'
command, it's making me nervous!"

// "Uh huh," or "Yeah,"

    "OK, sure, but exactly what do you mean 'disappear'?"

    "Ah, you _really_ are a bakahead! Disappear, gone, puf! If

s/puf/poof

for any reason you shut down, there's a crash, or the power goes,

// Well, technically... *ahem* I'd suggest, "If for any reason you shut down,
// poof! I shut down. If there's a crash or the power goes, ..."

so does Lan-chan, forever. That's the way Computer Girls
work...."

// ellipsis nitpick again.

    "That must be really inconvenient."

    "Tell that to the Windows and Mac CGs! Poor girls never
lasted more than a couple of hours. We had to discontinue support
for those platforms...."

// *chortle*

I simply nodded. While normally not a problem, I had just
downloaded a new beta kernel a couple of weeks ago. It still had
a few bugs, though, and had a tendency to crash after three or
four days. I had had to reboot that same morning, but I didn't
want to tell this to Lan, who clearly had a a screw or two just
slightly loose. I glanced at my watch: 1:05 am. I was very tired,
and hadn't eaten in over twelve hours. I decided to take it
slowly for the time being.

// Bad! Bad! No use development series on production machine! Bad!
// ^_^ Oh well, it makes for good drama though.

    "Um, would you like some dinner?"

Which is how I wound up walking through the snow in the middle of
the night, freezing my ass off, with a lovely "Computer Girl"
trailing close behind.

s/Which is how/That is how

// Could be worse.  It could be, "freezing your ass off, trying to code in
// VBSCRIPT or somesuch.

[snip]

and neck.

    "Hmph! That's what you get for ignoring Lan-chan!" she
answered, indignantly tilting her head in that way of hers.

// Cut "in that way of hers"

The possibility of retaliation quickly entered my mind as she
walked right pass me, facing away.

She suddenly stopped and turned around, glaring back at me. The
possibility of retaliation quickly exited my mind. Luckily we
had almost arrived to our destination.

// Jarring change of scene.

    "Two, non-smoking please."

The waiter raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. I was pretty
much a regular of the 24-hour restaurant, usually coming in at
the wee hours of the night to eat something after work, always
alone. Lan gave him a coquettish smile, and for a moment the man
stood there, stupidly smiling back.

// See, geeks aren't the only ones.

I loudly cleared my throat.

He regained his composure, and led the way. I gave Lan a quick,
piercing stare. She just winked back. Why should I care about her
flirting? I suddenly thought.

We sat down and she began to look over the menu. For my part I
would order the breakfast, as usual. The rest of the food was

// cut "the"

[snip Lan on a Lina-esque food pillaging]

    "Coke. Diet."

// Uh huh. ^_^

    "Of course. And you sir...?"

    "I'll, ah... have the breakfast... eggs scrambled, white
toast...."

    "I'll be back in a, um, few minutes with your order."

I sat back, closing my eyes, sighing. After a few moments I
opened them again, and noticed Lan curiously studying her
surroundings.

For what must have been the first time that night I had a chance
to calmly analyze her features. My descriptions have so far been
accurate, but perhaps a bit vague. Light brown hair framed her
face, consisting mostly of two large greyish eyes over a tiny
nose and a small mouth encircled by her thin, pale lips. She was
a bit on the short side, no more than 155, and rather thin, at

// 155 what?

least until the food arrived. She had taken off my jacket, and I
noticed for the first time the strange garment she wore,
something like a 70's concept of "futuristic" clothes, boots and
all.

// So desu! She's a go-go dancer! *clang* *thump*

    "What?" It was now she who was looking at me, head slightly
tilted to her left.

    "Eh? I, um, I was wondering..."

    "Sure you were," she replied, a knowing smile on her lips.

    "No, no, I mean... Who are you, really? Where do you come
from? _Why_ are you here?"

    "Not again!" she exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "I told you
_twice_ already, I'm Computer Girl Lan, Digital Alpha Linux
version 1.0.0a, build 215, first public release. I was compiled
by the Master Programmer three hours, six minutes, and nine
seconds ago, and posted on the trans-dimensional webpage one
minute later. As luck would have it, you downloaded me and here I
am!"

// "Luck? I'm my experience, there's no such thing as luck."

    "But why? Why me? Or are there thousands of Computer Girls
being downloaded as we speak?"

    "Ahhhh, your bakaness is truly amazing! Of course not! There

// Nitpick... The "baka"-this and "baka"-that is a little, umm. Irritating
// after a bit.  As the saying goes, "The once in a blue moon, Mein Gott, goes
// a long way in establishing the Germanic tongue in prose.  Just don't start
// loading the dialogue with every german word you can think of."
// Ok, it's not a saying, but I just made it one.

have only been six Computer Girls so far. Two were never released
to the public, the other two were the Mac and Windows versions I
mentioned, poor things, and lastly the HURD girl, although her
release seems doubtful now...."

// ellipsis nag... ^_^ The HURD in-joke might be hard to get though.

    "So... you are the only one...?"

// lose the ellipsis at the end of the sentence

She nodded ever so slightly, giving me a small smile. This time,
however, there something else behind her smile, something a
little different, a little... sad.

    "At last! I'm starving!"

[snip]

impetuousness, Lan turned out to be a remarkably good listener, a
quality, I should have guessed, carefully coded into a Computer
Girl.

// ... guessed, that was carefully ...

An hour later we finally stood up to leave. Upon opening the door
for Lan I heard "Forever Young" playing softly in the background.

Damn.

 
// Damn?

[snip rest of fic]

---


01001001 01101100 01101111 01110110
01100101 01111001 01101111 01110101

There are over one hundred million web pages and ftp sites on the
Internet, more than ten billion files in all, increasing every
day in number, but only one matters to me. Only one.

To this day, I search for her.

/*
Take these comments with a grain of salt. ^_^ It's late.

Ok, random thoughts so far:  First off, the story is great, the characters are
good.  1) Lan-chan seems OOC sometimes with the way you have set her up.  2)
This is a good story as I said before, but at points it smells of an SI or "Wish
Fulfillment". I'm guilty of both, but there are points were some polish would
do well.  3)  What the heck is this guy's name?  4) Tense problems here and
there as well as falling into the stream of conciousness trap.  5) There seem
to be gaps in the story.  I feel like this should be 20 or 30 pages longer, to
really develop your characters, the scene and what not.  While you may not like
the idea of rescuing Lan-chan in the nick of time, having that swedish patch
pop through might be what it needs to develop things.  That patch could easily
hold for at least X amount of time, until the mem leak starts to reoccur. Or
not. ^_^ Maybe I just liked the story. 6)  While I understand what the top and
ps output means, I doubt that there are more than a dozen people who are avid
fanfic readers do.  You may want to consider condensing and clarifying.

*/
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Tagline for Thursday, June 17, 1999

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail

LinuxTaRT version 2.27 
Bavaria has been up for 240 hours. Hail Eris.
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