The Back Alley Archives

I try to post an article on UF's baseball game last night and I keep getting an "Internal Server Error" Message...doc?

Was it a particularly long post? That's been happening for a while if the post is too long, but I can't find what the exact problem is in the error logs.

I have no idea why this happens, but it's been a problem since about 2-3 forum upgrades ago. I'm thinking of just deleting everything and starting over (I will back up all posts, however).

it happened to me once....tried posting it 2 or 3 times and then is said wtf...so i quit.

An essay is usually a short piece of writing. It is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can be literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author.

The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article and a short story. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population provide counterexamples.

It is very difficult to define the genre into which essays fall. Aldous Huxley, a leading essayist, gives guidance on the subject:

Like the novel, the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything, usually on a certain topic. By tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece, and it is therefore impossible to give all things full play within the limits of a single essay. But a collection of essays can cover almost as much ground, and cover it almost as thoroughly, as can a long novel. Montaigne's Third Book is the equivalent, very nearly, of a good slice of the Comédie Humaine. Essays belong to a literary species whose extreme variability can be studied most effectively within a three-poled frame of reference. There is the pole of the personal and the autobiographical; there is the pole of the objective, the factual, the concrete-particular; and there is the pole of the abstract-universal. Most essayists are at home and at their best in the neighborhood of only one of the essay's three poles, or at the most only in the neighborhood of two of them. There are the predominantly personal essayists, who write fragments of reflective autobiography and who look at the world through the keyhole of anecdote and description. There are the predominantly objective essayists who do not speak directly of themselves, but turn their attention outward to some literary or scientific or political theme. … And how splendid, how truly oracular are the utterances of the great generalizers! … The most richly satisfying essays are those which make the best not of one, not of two, but of all the three worlds in which it is possible for the essay to exist.[1]

Contents
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* 1 Etymology
* 2 The essay as a pedagogical tool
o 2.1 The five-paragraph essay
o 2.2 Academic essays
+ 2.2.1 Descriptive
+ 2.2.2 Narrative
+ 2.2.3 Exemplification
+ 2.2.4 Comparison and contrast
+ 2.2.5 Cause and effect
+ 2.2.6 Classification and division
+ 2.2.7 Definition
+ 2.2.8 Dialectic
+ 2.2.9 Other logical structures
* 3 Non-literary essays
o 3.1 Visual Arts
o 3.2 Music
o 3.3 Film
o 3.4 Photography
o 3.5 Employment
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 Bibliography
* 7 External links

[edit] Etymology

The word essay derives from the French infinitive essayer, "to try" or "to attempt". In English essay first meant "a trial" or "an attempt", and this is still an alternative meaning. The Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was the first author to describe his work as essays; he used the term to characterise these as "attempts" to put his thoughts adequately into writing. Inspired in particular by the works of Plutarch, a translation of whose Oeuvres morales (Moral works) into French had just been published by Jacques Amyot, Montaigne began to compose his essays in 1572; the first edition, entitled Essais, was published in two volumes in 1580. For the rest of his life he continued revising previously published essays and composing new ones.

Francis Bacon's essays, published in book form in 1597, 1612, and 1625, were the first works in English that described themselves as essays. Ben Jonson first used the word essayist in English in 1609, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

[edit] The essay as a pedagogical tool

In recent times, essays have become a major part of a formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants (see admissions essay). In both secondary and tertiary education, essays are used to judge the mastery and comprehension of material. Students are asked to explain, comment on, or assess a topic of study in the form of an essay.

Academic essays are usually more formal than literary ones. They may still allow the presentation of the writer's own views, but this is done in a logical and factual manner, with the use of the first person often discouraged.

[edit] The five-paragraph essay
Main article: Five paragraph essay

Some students' first exposure to the genre is the five paragraph essay, a highly structured form requiring an introduction presenting the thesis statement; three body paragraphs, each of which presents an idea to support the thesis together with supporting evidence and quotations; and a conclusion, which restates the thesis and summarizes the supporting points. The use of this format is controversial. Proponents argue that it teaches students how to organize their thoughts clearly in writing; opponents characterize its structure as rigid and repetitive. A five paragraph essay usually consists of:[citation needed]

* The first paragraph contains the summary of topic, three supporting ideas, and the thesis.
* The second paragraph contains the first supporting idea with evidence. The last sentence of it leads into the next idea.
* The third paragraph contains the second supporting idea with the same structure as the second.
* The fourth paragraph contains the third supporting idea and the same structure as the second and third with the last sentence leading to the conclusion.
* The last paragraph restates the thesis, three supporting ideas, and gives the reader something to think about.

[edit] Academic essays

Longer academic essays (often with a word limit of between 2,000 and 5,000 words) are often more discursive. They sometimes begin with a short summary analysis of what has previously been written on a topic, which is often called a literature review. Longer essays may also contain an introductory page in which words and phrases from the title are tightly defined. Most academic institutions will require that all substantial facts, quotations, and other supporting material used in an essay be referenced in a bibliography or works cited page at the end of the text. This scholarly convention allows others (whether teachers or fellow scholars) to understand the basis of the facts and quotations used to support the essay's argument, and thereby help to evaluate to what extent the argument is supported by evidence, and to evaluate the quality of that evidence. The academic essay tests the student's ability to present their thoughts in an organized way and tests their intellectual capabilities. Some forms of essays are:

[edit] Descriptive

Descriptive writing is characterized by sensory details, which appeal to the physical senses, and details that appeal to a reader’s emotional, physical, or intellectual sensibilities. Determining the purpose, considering the audience, creating a dominant impression, using descriptive language, and organizing the description are the rhetorical choices to be considered when using a description. A description is usually arranged spatially but can also be chronological or emphatic. The focus of a description is the scene. Description uses tools such as denotative language, connotative language, figurative language, metaphor, and simile to arrive at a dominant impression.[2]

[edit] Narrative

A narrative uses tools such as flashbacks, flash-forwards, and transitions that often build to a climax. The focus of a narrative is the plot. When creating a narrative, authors must determine their purpose, consider their audience, establish their point of view, use dialogue, and organize the narrative. A narrative is usually arranged chronologically.[3]

[edit] Exemplification

An exemplification essay is characterized by a generalization and relevant, representative, and believable examples including anecdotes. Writers needs to consider their subject, determine their purpose, consider their audience, decide on specific examples, and arrange all the parts together when writing an exemplification essay.[4]

[edit] Comparison and contrast

Compare and contrast is characterized by a basis for comparison, points of comparison, analogies, and either comparison by object (chunking) or by point (sequential). Comparison highlights the differences between two or more similar objects while contrasting highlights the differences between two or more objects. When writing a compare\contrast essay, writers need to determine their purpose, consider their audience, consider the basis and points of comparison, consider their thesis statement, arrange and develop the comparison, and reach a conclusion. Compare and contrast is arranged emphatically.[5]

[edit] Cause and effect

The defining features of a cause and effect essay are causal chains, careful language, and chronological or emphatic order. A writer using this rhetorical method must consider the subject, determine the purpose, consider the audience, think critically about different causes or consequences, consider a thesis statement, arrange the parts, consider the language, and decide on a conclusion.[6]

[edit] Classification and division

Classification is the categorization of objects into a larger whole while division is the breaking of a larger whole into smaller parts.[7]

[edit] Definition

Definition essays explain a term's meaning. Some are written about concrete terms, such as trees, oceans, and dogs, while others talk about more abstract terms, such as liberty, happiness, and virtue.[8]

[edit] Dialectic

In this form of essay used commonly in Philosophy, one makes a thesis and argument, then objects to their own argument (with a counterargument), but then counters the counterargument with a final and novel argument. This form benefits from being more open-minded while countering a possible flaw that some may present.[9]

[edit] Other logical structures

The logical progression and organisational structure of an essay can take many forms. Understanding how the movement of thought is managed through an essay has a profound impact on its overall cogency and ability to impress. A number of alternative logical structures for essays have been visualized as diagrams, making them easy to implement or adapt in the construction of an argument.[10]

[edit] Non-literary essays

[edit] Visual Arts

In the visual arts, an essay is a preliminary drawing or sketch upon which a final painting or sculpture is based, made as a test of the work's composition (this meaning of the term, like several of those following, comes from the word essay's meaning of "attempt" or "trial").

[edit] Music

In the realm of music, composer Samuel Barber wrote a set of "Essays for Orchestra," relying on the form and content of the music to guide the listener's ear, rather than any extra-musical plot or story.

[edit] Film

Film essays are cinematic forms of the essay, with the film consisting of the evolution of a theme or an idea rather than a plot per se; or the film literally being a cinematic accompaniment to a narrator reading an essay. From another perspective, an essay film could be defined as a documentary film visual basis combined with a form of commentary that contains elements of self-portrait (rather than autobiography), where the signature (rather than the life-story) of the filmmaker is apparent. The genre is not well-defined but might include works of early Soviet documentarians like Dziga Vertov, or present-day filmmakers like Michael Moore or Errol Morris. Jean-Luc Godard describes his recent work as "film-essays".[11]

[edit] Photography

A photographic essay is an attempt to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs.

[edit] Employment

Employment essays detailing your experience in a certain occupational field are required when applying for some jobs, especially government jobs. Essays known as KSAs and ECQs are required when applying to many US federal government positions.

[edit] See also

* Abstract (summary)
* Admissions essay
* Body (writing)
* Book report
* Introduction
* List of essayists
* Plagiarism
* SAT Essay
* Writing

[edit] References

1. ^ Collected Essays, "Preface"
2. ^ Chapter 2: Description in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
3. ^ Chapter 3 Narration in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
4. ^ Chapter 4: Exemplification in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
5. ^ Chapter 6: Comparison and Contrast in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
6. ^ Chapter 7: Cause and Effect in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
7. ^ Chapter 5: Classification and Division in Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
8. ^ Chapter 9: Definition Glenn, Cheryl. Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader. Ed. Denise B. Wydra, et al. Second ed. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005.
9. ^ PHIL 101: Dialectic Essay Assignment
10. ^ 'Mission Possible' by Dr. Mario Petrucci
11. ^ Discussion of film essays

FUCK YEAH PROBLEM SOLVED

Doc = "All that" and a bag o' chips!

Just testing:

[aeva][quote]
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Gopherwood Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Like so many posts before, I believe I will start this one off with a sentence. How 'bout that?

I last posted in January, which you may or may not be aware of depending on how long, or rather short, this post is. It also depends on how large your monitor is and whether you have it landscape or portrait, as well as whether you've zoomed in or out within the browser. Therefore, I may or may not have had a reason to tell you that I last posted in January. Still, for some reason it seems like I posted in February. I think something is fishy going on here. Yes, the goings on are smelling of fish.

Look at that. Two paragraphs in and no content. I'm a self-proclaimed genius. And now three.

I think I'll have to renew my subscription for walloftext.net soon. I was thinking I made this site in March, but I think I did it after I got back from Jamaica, and that would have been April. I think that because it's you all, my readers, that are reaping the benefits of this subscription, and not I, the writer and self-proclaimed genius, you guys should foot the bill, but being generous in nature, I guess I can fork over the $8.

I suppose I should cover the usual suspects, that is, the things you suspect I'll write about: work, girls, faith, tofu, et cetera.

Work is going well, just like it was the last several posts. In sprint 7 I was tasked with making a watchdog process, which is a program that makes sure another program is running, and running as expected (that is, when asked for pi, not returning Euler's number, as most programs in a bad state would do). This work also involved becoming intimately familiar with the cluster deployment process. After you get used to doing it, and have done it a good 20 times (successfully about three and a half times), it's not too hard. It's like installing BSD. I also wrote up a quick doc that contains a step-by-step for common deployments. If this sounds boring to you, imagine doing it for two months. Ok, so it wasn't that bad, but it's not something you wake up and go "yay for work!" about. (Two years ago, that sentence would have had to have been, "Ok, so it wasn't that bad, but it's not something about which you wake up and go "yay for work!" You gain a word, lose a period, and increase awkward sentence structure by 36%.)

My cats are as sporadically energetic as ever. I have my desktop in my living room, originally so I could see how WoW looked on 1080p, but now so I can finish The West Wing on a big screen. I'm in season 6 again, and that's all I have to say about season 6. Because I need the keyboard and mouse to reach the couch, and the VGA cable to reach the TV, it's a bit of a stretch, and the cats have taken to running from one corner of the apartment to the other, sometimes jumping over the VGA cable, sometimes jumping through the VGA cable, and now, without something holding it down a couple millimeters, I only get the blue and green parts of the image. Cats are why I can't have nice things.

Am I just material? I was so angry at Danza as a kitten when she started chewing on my new Bible's cloth bookmark. I get angry when the cats scratch up the walls, or snag a shirt or the couch cushions, or my computer chair (which by now has seen much better days and I don't care so much anymore). It's one thing if a child breaks a plate. Sure, the plate is broken -- sad times -- but the kid probably felt bad about it and learned to be a little more careful, and besides it was a mistake. But if the child was breaking things on purpose, wouldn't it be right to be angry at them? Then we introduce instincts, such as cats. By nature they like to run around and are curious and all, but some things they know they're not supposed to do, like get on the table or counters, or chew on wires. The way I know they know they're not supposed to is because they get skittish when they're doing something wrong, and I get up to go to the bathroom, while they don't when they're doing something fine and I get up. Anyway, I get upset when something ruins the purity or integrity of one of my possessions, such as the cooler on iPod action that took place on July third, 2005. The thing is, I hardly use my iPod anymore -- in fact it's been at least a year.

Another thing that annoys me is when someone gets on your WoW character and gains six levels, even if I didn't really plan to play it again. I like to earn my status in games, especially if I can't get back to the point where I left off. If someone had taken my character and copied it to a test server to play on, I wouldn't care at all. Also, I think my Staff of Jordan was sold. I only spent two and a half times what it was worth to get it, and vendoring it is about 11 gold. Bah.

It's been a weird couple of months, though. I saw a psychiatrist about my depression or whatever it is. She put me on some meds about five weeks ago, and they seem to be working, sort of. When I try to describe my mood, I usually say something like, normal people's moods are like sin(x), oscillating between -1 and 1, where 0 is neither good or bad, though more realistically, it's not as smooth -- it jumps up and down according to circumstance, and most of the time it's a flat 0, rather than steep at 0. I'm like .8sin(x) - 1, oscillating between -1.8 and -.2, and circumstance has little, if anything, to do with it. On the meds, it's more like a normal person, only my high is still .2, and my low is -1 -- but it's more flat than sinusoidal, and circumstance-dictated. I hope that makes sense. Actually, I really don't care. I still wouldn't say I have hope or expectation of happiness though.

It's kind of a weird feeling. Things look clearer, in my mind's eye, but bleaker. On the bright side, I feel a little better about myself. I don't really understand it.

My sister's off to Europe today for three months. Ladies, now is your chance to hook up with her boyfriend. Dear John letters don't just have to be for troops, nor for Johns. The three of us went out to The Cheesecake Factory on Sunday for her birthday and for a last visit before she forgets our national anthem, and her sense of what freedom is. She's basically committing three months of treason. I, the responsible one, with no guidance from a mother who's never left the continent, experimented and scarcely recovered from two weeks in Australia. She could have -- no, should have! -- learned vicariously, but some people just have to learn the hard way. May God be with her.

My mom is nearing the end of her Master's class. Finally, people will stop saying to me, "Your mom's in college!" and I'll get to stop hospitalizing them. It's a lot of stress for her, so I'll be really happy when she's done with it. I think it ends in August, but the regular school year ends in June so the last two months should be more cake-like than the three months from now until June.

Denna and I are still talking, still as good of friends as ever, though we miss talking to each other quite as much as we did before. She's visiting in May, and I'm looking forward to that. It's on her parents' dollar, so she'll spend most of the time with them, but she should be able to spend a night or two on my couch I'm hoping. She called tonight. It was good to hear her voice again. We really should just call each other more often, rather than texting.

I met a girl, Emma, at work who makes me laugh. She's the first one, girl or person, that's been within two years of my age. I've got her going to Chuck and Heroes on Monday nights either at my apartment (which I finally mostly cleaned) or Swood's. I'd be interested in her romantically except that she's not looking for someone and she's not a Christian. Emma is, however, a big enough player in the game that is my life right now that I've renamed her.

Several weeks ago, now, on a Friday or Saturday I talked with an old friend from CCF I never know all too well, though I always thought she was cute. (Cute happens to be one of those words with ambiguous magnitude -- it might be an understatement, it might not; in this case it's an understatement.) We had a good conversation on facebook while she was at work, typing between customers. It was a good talk, and so, for a brief stint, I thought things might, might, might go further. A few days later, we had another talk that wasn't as good. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good, and so for now, I don't really care.

This past Wednesday (it's hard to believe that was a week ago), I drove up to Bellingham per Hime's beck, for filming of her pirate-zombie-ninja movie. The first one can be found here. I'm not in this first one because I was doing the camera work (and now we know why I didn't go into show business of any kind). Swood gave me a bad time for accepting for the two weeks leading up and the following Monday (two days ago). I took a personal holiday at work to do it. It had to be on a Wednesday for spring break reasons I think. Swood is secretly, or not so secretly, happy it was scheduled for a Wednesday so he couldn't go. Anyway, I got there an hour late (I didn't know when it officially started, nor did I quite care) around 11. We were still two hours away from actually turning on a camera. I got to know a couple of the people I'd not yet met, such as Hime's boyfriend, and caught up with a few of my friends I'd not seen or talked to in a while. We did about an hour of filming outside. One of the girls was sick, like really sick, so I don't know why we spent so much time in the 50 degree weather, especially when the ninjas, of which she was a member, were wearing summer clothing.

I'm inserting a breaking paragraph here mostly for the sake of a new paragraph, but since it is a new paragraph, I had better change the topic. I'm posting here on a public website in hopes that someone with the ear of the sky can inform them that snow in the middle of March is not cool.

About ten minutes into the filming, one of Hime's friends, Mallory, showed up. I never quite gathered whether she was supposed to be in the movie or was just spectating, as I managed to have the privilege to do. After an hour, hour-and-a-half of indoor filming, in which my hand was in two scenes in a laboratory lavatory, Hime called it a day. I don't want to give any plot spoilers of this summer's probably-never-will-be-completed blockbuster, but I'm the evil mastermind. With a baseball bat. Hime asked if I was going home right then. I wanted some time with friends that didn't involve directing, and suggested we should all go out for dinner to Applebee's at 9, when they have half price nachos. Then, all but five of us left, leaving Hime, her boyfriend, another male friend of hers, Mallory, and me. Hime, and the two guys not associated with the pronoun 'me' (saying "other guys" left it ambiguous as to whether I was saying Hime was a guy as well [oh man, what was the amazingly ambiguous sentence I heard or thought up this morning? There was no way to disambiguate it, and still use the expression. This is going to bug me. It was awesome!]), left to do something, so Mallory and I played a mind-riveting, tear-jerking, heart palpating, sitting on the edge of your seat, game of Sorry. I won after an unexpected comeback (ie, "your mom!"). I know there's nothing there between us, but every now and then this past week I've thought about her. She laughed at some math jokes, so that's a plus. She's ridiculously cute (no disambiguation need there). Her facebook says she's a Christian, and we didn't get into any faith-related conversations during my visit so I don't have reason to suspect differently. I just can't tell whether we'd be good together (in the very hypothetical hypothetical in which we're together at all), or if she'd drive me crazy. A couple of times she shot me down after I'd said something that I thought was fairly harmless. I've done that many times on accident, shooting someone down and making it awkward, and I feel bad afterwards but don't usually say something to the person, so maybe she did the same thing? If that's the case, I don't think I'd be driven crazy.

This is the point where you all think I'm girl-crazed because I've talked about three girls in effectively three paragraphs (the one that was split up by the weather rant doesn't count). Honestly, I don't think I am. First, for the first time in a long while, I'm actually content in that part of my life. I don't need a girlfriend; I'm fine alone, or at least, I don't crave the enhancement a girlfriend would bestow on my life. That is, other parts of my life certainly aren't fine right now, but the fact I don't have a girlfriend is no such part. Second, these are just my thoughts, and any guy that can say he doesn't notice three cute girls in two months is lying, blind, or alone (but if he's alone, how did he tell you? A mighty fine question, my friend).

It's past midnight now, so I should probably wrap this up soon. I wrote the first few paragraphs yesterday before heading south for Chuck, actually, but the same holds true today, so I didn't mess with them. However, tomorrow things change, as it's April, and much of this post's validity relies on it being March.

I bought a PS3 this past month. I got something like $3400 back from the government borrowing too much money from me. I think $600 of that was a stimulus package, which, as The West Wing has taught me, is an advance, not a rebate, so I haven't spent that money. I bought the console as both a console and a BluRay player. There aren't many games I'm interested in playing yet, though I bet FFXIII will look nicer on the PS3 than the 360 by a little. Either way, BluRay'd Batman is pretty amazing looking.

About three weeks ago, Solomon and Rufus both emailed me within a couple days of each other. I responded to both of them on the same day, with effectively a blog post. To Solomon, I noted that I'd be in Bellingham on this past Wednesday, and that I'd love to visit, but he never responded. Neither did Rufus for that matter. I'm guessing they were both on mission trips that week, but it was still a week to respond. Maybe it took a week to read it, and then they still had to pack?

I'm meeting with my pastor tomorrow over lunch. I think I've said this before, but we do that about once a month or so. Sometimes I go with something to talk to him about, but this time and last time I haven't. Mostly just catching up and bouncing ideas of each other. And of course eating.

There's more to write about -- there's always more to write about -- but I think I'll leave that for another day. Maybe tomorrow. We'll see. *dog with shifty eyes*

Future topics of importance include Rune Factory Frontier and what's been going on with my faith.
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Lassy and Underdog Thursday, January 29, 2009

I've got 45 minutes to write a blog post, but it's only been two and a half months, so I should be good. The four hour posts are when it's been a long time, like three days.

What to say.... Well, first, Giggles and I did end up dating shortly after my last post. I had a great time in Texas, despite the lack of trees, hills, or general natural beauty. I had other things of which to take notice. We spent a good deal of time cuddling on the couch, watching movies and talking. We went to her favorite restaurant, Shoguns, which tasted good, but I wasn't all too impressed with the management, mostly because this guy Joe, married, keeps trying to get with Giggles. She won't have him though. That whole situation frustrates me. We went to church the next morning. I liked it a lot, especially the pastor. If I lived in the area, that's probably where I would go, though it's about as big as Harper is, and I'm kind of liking the smallerness--smallerosity?--of LatR. Giggles didn't feel like she fit in there, because it felt to her like a Christians-only club. I don't really know how to avoid that and still grow a mature church. That'd kind of be like walking into Microsoft straight out of junior high and saying you didn't like the work environment because it felt like a professional programmers-only club. The analogy breaks down twelve moments later, so don't go too far with it.

Thanksgiving was hard. My sister and I got stuck sitting next to my uncle's girlfriend, I, to her right at the foot of the table, and my sister across from her. She's well meaning, but tactless. Between my sister and me was my aunt, whose husband, my uncle, died a year ago January 18th. She decided, as we were sitting around the table eating our thanksgiving dinner, to bring up my uncle's passing to both my sister and my aunt, trying to soothe semi-healed scars, and instead, ripping them open anew. My sister and I did the only thing we could think to do: txt message each other under the table, expressing our displeasure with her lack of tact. In hindsight, that probably appeared rude to the rest of the guests.

The original plan was for Giggles to come visit me sometime in December, but her mom ruined those plans, by attempting to control her life and throwing Giggles into a state of hysteria. Instead, the week she'd planned to visit me, she went to Virginia to visit her mom who was at some sort of conference or training out there. That situation frustrated me too, but as with Joe, I don't really feel right about discussing it here.

See? Eighteen minutes in, and I'm already almost to Christmas. We're golden. Like silence. And things touched by King Midas. And old friends?

Seeing as how we're doing so well, I think it's about time to take a rabbit trail and really dig deep, you know? No, we're not discussing mixed metaphors, but good guess. I'd like to say I can completely relate to this. I'm pretty sure I'd have done the same thing. On the other hand, such tendencies lead to finding good ways to do things, such as clean walls with a bathroom cleaning wipe and a flathead screwdriver. That's probably a story you'd have to ask me about. It's a little embarrassing and you can only dive so deep in a rabbit trail.

I did get to level 55 in WoW, started a DK, and got him to 57 or 58, whatever you are when you finish the DK tutorial. The character's name (a Tauren) was Hoedownrodeo, which, as all of you know, is the song that plays on beef commercials. It's what's for dinner. Tonight. After closer inspection, most people probably think the "rodeo" part refers to the things country folk do with bulls and clowns. Also, this didn't happen because I never got to group for PvE, but I'd probably be called Hoe for short. My greatest disappointment with the DK is I couldn't Runeforge my mining pick because it "wasn't a high enough leveled item." To that I say "psh." Loudly. Getting that high was fun, but WoW was starting to become a higher priority in my life than other things, say, talking to Giggles, and that was unacceptable. So I quit playing. It's probably good, considering my current financial situation. DKs are really fun in PvP. It'd be interesting to see what would happen if they were played correctly though, in a group with at most two other DKs. They really are like the Heroes in WC3; they're powerful, but largely meant as support for your other units.

One month after Giggles and I started dating, we stopped dating. So now it feels weird to call her Giggles, and I am changing her name to Denna. I always knew dating a non-Christian would end, but dating her sort of drove home why. More, that was really the only thing I didn't like about the relationship, so even when I feel like everything else is going swimmingly, if Christ isn't there, it's just not going to work. I just think about God too much to be with someone who doesn't. She and I are still very good friends. The amount of time we spend txting each other throughout the day has diminished only slightly, if at all. We're a bit less flirty, but that's to be expected. In all, we're almost as close as we were dating, and I couldn't have asked for a better end to a relationship other than to not have it end in the first place. But I really think this one needed to.

December 20th as I remember it (and because that's what it says on my Discover Card bill), I drove in the snow over to Seattle to take a picture of my sister and me for my mom for Christmas. Her boyfriend took it for us. We also then went to get hot chocolate at a place that reminded me of the Baglery but for hot chocolate, down near University Village. I don't know why it's "down;" I just said down because it sounded right. From there we went to pick out her Christmas present, an iPhone, and buy a frame for the picture we'd just taken.

Christmas was different this year. It snowed. I left on Monday for Port Orchard, so I was there. My sister had to work though, and it snowed harder on Monday night, Tuesday, and Wednesday. She ended up being with my aunt and uncle and cousins for Christmas. Sadly, she didn't get to use her phone for a couple weeks to come, despite having picked it out. It was just my mom, Jack, and me there. The power was on and off throughout the week too. We played Scrabble by candlelight, and it looked like a seance. We had hamburgers for Christmas dinner. We never have, and it appears we won't this year, had an extended family get together, despite my sister's pleading. Don't get me wrong, I would love to, but I haven't done any of the pleading.

It's 6:46. Time to go. To be continued!

...Immediately. I think out of all the extended family I have, I probably had the best Christmas, I and my mom and Jack I mean. I guess there was a great deal of stress and drama at my aunt's. My uncle is pretty protective of their cat, Marshmallow. My grandma has a dog named Peaches. You see where this is going. But not quite. See, my grandma decided to show up like three days before Christmas. I guess by the time Ashley and her boyfriend got there, patience was drawing its close. My grandma decided she'd leave fairly early in the morning, for whatever reason, but it was really icy out there, else my sister would have gone to my mom's. So my uncle said he didn't want her to leave. My grandma went out to the car anyway. The car wouldn't move because of the snow and ice. So after a while, my sister and her boyfriend decided to go out there and help her. We're still not sure what would have happened if Ashley hadn't been there, or hadn't decided to go help her move the car. I wasn't there, but Ashley said my grandma was being pretty irrational. To make matters worse, my other uncle got wind of the gathering, and felt like he was being left out. Really, my aunt just wanted to make sure everyone had someone to spend Christmas with, and my sister might have been alone. My uncle had his girlfriend. I played Scrabble and ate hamburgers.

I spent a few days at my mom's. They have a 46" LCD TV that they bought with wedding gift money. I brought my xbox with me so I could test out Mass Effect in 1080p. I got The Force Unleashed for Christmas, so I instead beat that game. It was a decent game, but too short. If a game is going to be that short, it really needs to be as good, or better than, Portal, but really I would have been happier if the game had just been longer, and had more storyline. I'm sure I've said this before on this blog, and if not, my LiveJournal, but I think I've just been spoiled by Knights of the Old Republic, especially when it comes to Starwars games.

New Year's Eve I spent at Alexander's house. I brought over a six pack of Thomas Kempers, and he and I played cards, watched the first episode of Firefly. (That link isn't what you think. Well, maybe it is for Alexander, but to the rest of you...!) I'd never seen Battlestar Galatica, so after that episode of Firefly, we watched the miniseries until the countdown and fireworks. Every year I think the Space Needle camera crew gets less professional. I guess last year was hard to beat, but this year they got water on the lens.

I decided about a month ago, that to celebrate paying off my car loan to my grandpa, I'd buy a TV. I was looking for a 42" LCD. I owed my grandpa $2000, and over the past three months, I had saved $2000 to be put into Microsoft stock at a 10% discount, so when the stock was purchased, it valued about $2400 (it took a couple days to process, and stock value went up). I probably should have sold it then. The next day it went a little higher, if memory serves, but long, boring story short, I didn't sell until yesterday. Meanwhile, I told my grandpa that I would sell the stock and give him the money whenever he wanted, and that I was hoping that the stock prices would go up a little more, so as long as he didn't want the money right then, I might as well make what money I can, right? I then told him that I was in the market for a TV, and since we never found a desk or sofa table for my graduation gift, I asked if he would give me the money he would have spent toward my purchase. "I can get behind a TV." So, the $500 check came in the mail, and a couple days later, I went with my sister (who was dropping off her kitty, Tomtom, henceforth known as Jingles) and her boyfriend to Sears to get a TV. The Sears associate was fairly helpful. He knew at least which brands were best, Samsung and Sony, and knew a little about specs, but barely more than I knew already. Those two companies don't make a 42", at least within my price range (I think Sony makes one but they didn't carry it). So after about 45 minutes of staring at two 46" Samsungs, I decided on the Series 5 550 over the 530. I couldn't tell the difference in the contrast ratio, which was supposed to be the only difference, but, call me crazy, the picture on the left looked less fuzzy to me, worth the extra $200. So, the guy went into the back and returned to tell me they were out of stock. Ordinarily, I'd have waited for the stock to arrive, but the box wouldn't fit in my car. When I did get one, it barely fit in Ashley's boyfriend's sportswagon. So, we started talking about where we might go instead, feeling bad that the sales guy wouldn't get his commission. The electronics department is a floor under the main floor in Sears, so none of us had cell reception. The sales guy said we could use his phone to call BestBuy, so I did, and they had four of the TVs left. Further, when we got there, they were $200 cheaper than at Sears. If they hadn't been, the sales guy there wouldn't have been able to convince me to purchase the warranty for $169. I do think it was the right choice though, in this case. On the way back to my place, my sister had to scrunch next to the TV box in the back without a seatbelt.

They were going to California the next day to visit his grandparents or something, so I was taking care of Jingles. I call him Jingles because she gave him a collar with a bell on it that lasted about 30 minutes after they left. He was then Jingles, the bellless cat. Yes, three 'l's. Read 'em and weep!

(You won't, but some day when I'm rereading this post, I'm going to laugh about that last sentence there.)

Jingles wasn't particularly well behaved, nor was he fixed and I think he had a certain attraction to Calloh (who is fixed). Calloh was fairly shy, whereas Kotenok just wanted to wrestle with the new cat. They got along pretty well when they weren't trying to avoid each other. There was minimal possessive hissing going on, and I think all of it was from Calloh. Anyway, after a weekend with me, I think Jingles will claw, kick, and bite less than he did three days prior.

A couple days later, I decided to clean the second bedroom which I had almost entirely neglected, using it as storage and a place to leave the cats' litter box. What spurred my decision was that the water heater started leaking, and I didn't want to the repair person to be disgusted. So, I decided I needed a far more powerful vacuum than the small, free one I had. I also figured that I didn't want to buy another vacuum for a very long time and decided to get a Dyson. I probably wouldn't have gotten as good a model as I did except that it was 20% off. My credit card bill is currently larger than the sum of my checking and savings, though that will change in about 6 hours (pay day, w00t -- sadly it will almost entirely go toward rent, tithing, and supporting Rufus [which is only sad because rent is so high and because I want to pay off that bill, even if it isn't due until March 12th]).

Church has been going well. I missed a couple weeks during the holidays, as did everyone it seems, plus the week it was canceled due to snow and hills and potential car crashes. This month, the pastor started a new series called Possibilities, that's about dreams, ambitions. You can tell it's really something he's passionate about, and it's been an amazing sermon series so far.

At life group two or three weeks ago, we were discussing one of the sermons. Our fearless leader said something like "I think dreams are 100% centered around God, and 100% centered around us. It seems impossible..." Just to be snide, I threw out, "Unless it's an ellipse." A little later, the conversation turned toward personal dreams, or things we want without yet seeing God in them. I asked, "Did Jesus have personal dreams?" A few seconds later I smiled. Jesus was God, so his axis in the ellipse would be right on top of God's, one and the same, which makes it a circle, which is the largest ellipse with a fixed length "string" around the "pin." The closer you are to God, the larger the dream's reach will be.

On this month's 23rd day, as with all years since 1987, it was Hime's birthday. She decided to have an anime themed costume party. Mostly she wanted to see her friends dress up like Ichigo. It took a couple weeks, but I eventually decided I'd dress up as Metaknight because the costume would be easy enough to make, and it would still make Hime happy. In theory, anyway. I think all told, I spent about $100 on her birthday, not counting gas. There was the UW blanket I had Alexander buy for me for the cape, the spray paint for the mask and sword, a dowel to act as a hilt for the cut pizza-box blade, two LEDs for the yellow eyes of the mask, the wire, battery holder, and electrical tape required to light them, the fabric to cover the eye slot and the ribbon to hold the mask to my head, the wooden doll's head I used for the pommel and the drill and bit I had to buy to put a hole in it for the dowel to fit, and the gaudy looking red gems on the sides of the guard. Plus, a couple weeks ago, I was at the company store to get my sister Office, and noticed a Microsoft stuffed armadillo. I txted her, asking if she needed anything while I was at the store, specifically wondering who could live without such an armadillo. I didn't buy it then, but right before I left for Bellingham, I decided I should get it for her to be funny. What I didn't know was that it was $12. By the time I had gotten to the building, found parking (they reserved almost all the spots for visitors, leaving very few for actual visiting employees), and got into the store, I decided I should just bite the bullet and do it. So that was the gag gift, but I also got her Wall-E, though it turned out her parents already owned it.

The party was pretty fun. I met a few people, and talked a bit. We played a bunch of games Hime forced upon us. I'm pretty sure for those four hours, we were her pets. I guess that's what I get for torturing Kotenok so. Most of the games were fun. I had asked Bill if I could stay at his place for the night after the party, and during the party, I got a txt saying it was Broom Hockey night for the INN's trip fund raisers. For some reason it didn't occur to me then, but that was the best coincidence that could have happened, that I would be up there the night all of my friends were in one place. As I was walking out the door at the end of the party, Hime noticed she'd forgotten to have the costume contest, right after she said she liked mine best. So it was worth the money, time, effort, and creeped out looks I got while looking for the apartment. I hope it made her happy, anyway.

Broom hockey was a lot of fun, and I think I only played two of the games. I got caught up with Donna, Ella, Jan, Minnie, a little with Lulu and Jeff and David, and what seemed like a hundred other people. It was wonderful.

The next morning, among other things, I met up with Bob who was trying to set up a LAN for Red Alert 2, only the two XP machines wouldn't connect to each other, and Vista completely lost all support for the IPX protocol, so even after finding some homebrew version and installing it, none of it worked. So instead, we played some Halo 3 and Left4Dead, so if you see some Left4Dead achievements on my Live account, you know why. The girl who was there (the one with the Vista laptop) apparently was the girl with a boyfriend that Bob had a crush on. I can certainly see why. She's very quick-witted, enjoys nerdy things like video games and computer science, even if she's considering a communications major, and certainly not hard on the eyes either. You could tell that the two of them just clicked together (though I hate that phrase), so it's really too bad she has a boyfriend.

Work has been going pretty well. My manager became an architect for a different project, so one of my fellow devs took his spot as dev lead, and our team is now down to five people (from the seven it's supposed to be). They're very different leaders, but I think I like working under each of them about the same. I still have a job, so that's always a plus. Even though I didn't personally know anyone who's job was cut last Thursday, that day was still hard, quiet.

I started reading the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Like Alexander said, the first three are awesome. Then around the fourth book they start to get weird. I'm halfway through the fifth book now, and I feel he wasted at least half of what I've read so far "setting [the plot] up," as Bob said. Just because you're setting it up for goodness later doesn't mean good writing can afford to be boring, especially for that long. Now I know how an ADA compiler feels -- all the variable declarations at the beginning, with all the meat not until halfway into the program.

A year and a half ago, in our CS344 class, we came up with a game engine that would have been pretty great, had it been implemented. I got a metaphoric bee in my proverbial bonnet, and decided in my spare time, I would attempt to build such an engine. I got a few friends to help me with it, including Bob, for programming, and Alexander, for storyline ideas. I feel bad because so far, I haven't really liked almost any of their ideas, not that they're bad ideas, just that it's not what I was picturing, and I can't really articulate what I was picturing without building it. Also, I may have been spoiled with Knights of the Old Republic.

This is a continual problem: throughout the period where I don't post I come across at least a dozen good titles for entries, and when I finally sit down to write one, they've all slipped my mind. Here we go: what I should have named my cats.

I see you. No, not you; you're not supposed to read this paragraph. I'm talking to the group of girls all huddled together reading this post, the one in control of the keyboard on the edge of her seat, the other nine chewing on their hair or biting their nails, all wondering if I'm looking for a girlfriend. Sorry to disappoint you gals (again, not you, quit reading this already), but currently I am not, or at least I'm trying not to. Oh. No. Please don't cry. Please? For me? Ok. My mom has expressed that she thinks I define myself too much by what kind of girl I'd be good with, and that I don't know myself very well. She's said that before, in not so many words, but I kind of shrugged it off. Now I'm starting to agree with her. There are periods, say, right after spring break last year up until around August, where I'm fairly confident in who I am, but at the moment, my identity seems clouded to me.

That all said, and it does hold true, seeing a couple of the girls at Broom Hockey rekindled some old feelings, ones I'd rather not have right now, especially as they're still in school, a good 98 minutes away. Plus, I'm relatively sure they're not interested in me anyway. Earlier today, I decided I'd go back and figure out what originally convinced me to not to like Ella, and that's what got me to write this post -- reading old posts.

And so the cycle continues.
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Rootbeer Monday, November 17, 2008

I have two classes defined in my <style> tag, 'good' and 'bad.' Usually I choose the one based on how I'm feeling at the time of writing, and usually that mood dictates what I'll write about, and usually bad goes with bad, and good with good. Makes sense, right? However, it's been almost two months since I last posted. For shame, I know. But who really likes October anyway?

I don't usually like October, to be honest. I don't usually like any of the autumnal months, but this October was different.

On the first, I started talking with Giggles again. Odds are, anyone still reading this, besides Frank and Alexander (which is about two thirds of my reading base, I think) doesn't know Giggles personally, and I've never mentioned her before. Alexander has called her a calendar before, but that's more for me to laugh at later, than for you to understand now.

The first was Alexander's birthday, and he and a bunch of his friends, myself included, went to a restaurant in the U-District that makes really good sausage, and good beer from what I hear. I remember it pretty vividly for some reason. That was back when I didn't have an appetite.

On a side note, as most of my posts are largely composed of (and taking a nested aside, that was a terribly formed clause), my appetite has been really weird lately. For several months starting in about June, I hardly ate at all. I would hardly be hungry, and even when I was, nothing sounded particularly good. Now, all of a sudden, I am always hungry. Alas, I'm on an airplane, and planes no longer see it fit to feed you dinner during the dinner hours. Airline companies are having trouble staying afloat anymore, and can't afford what previously were common services. Curse you, Cisco and your "Network Effect!"

I got home pretty late, if memory serves. It was a Wednesday night. Giggles and I had sent a few Facebook messages in the past couple days, just briefly catching up. I learned she was going to school in Texas and working at a bank, and she learned I was working at Microsoft. But that night was the first night we both were on Facebook at the same time, and the first time we started chatting on it.

Work is going well. I'm getting more and more attuned to programming everyday. In school, I've always been the procrastinator who waits two and a half weeks to begin a three week project. At that point, most of the code is written in my head, and I just write it out, fix my errors, and get an A. The same philosophy is harder to do in the software engineering setting. My first tasks had been a very small amount of code -- something any one of the other devs on my team would probably do as a bug, or maybe a two day mini-feature -- but fairly intensive as far as working with other people. This second task was the opposite -- a much larger project basically on my own as far as development goes (still worked with a PM of course). Since I was on my own, my procrastination policy worked fine, but had I been blocking someone, and spent a week with writer's block before my two days of intense coding, that would not have worked. So now I'm working on pacing myself.

Giggles and I started out with small talk, of course, more thoroughly catching up. There was an intimacy there, though, something between friends. It was really easy to talk to her and sort of hide nothing, and she felt the same way. She gave me a rundown of her past, in more detail than she's ever told anyone. My heart swelled for her. I couldn't think clearly the next day, feeling overwhelming compassion for her, and wishing there was something beyond being her friend I could do for her. I prayed and prayed. That night I felt like the Holy Spirit was guiding me to do something I've never done before: fast. And the next day I fasted for 24 hours, mourning for Giggles, and in anticipation for the dramatic (positive) life change I sensed coming for her.

That night when I got home from work, Giggles was waiting for me online. Over those three days, we'd sort of developed that habit, working out the day and looking forward to getting home so we could talk to each other. Until that night, that pining hadn't been voiced. For the long hours until midnight, we talked about all sorts of stuff. I think that night she got the story of each of my girlfriends, how the relationships started, how they went, and how they ended. She seemed intent on, and content with listening. I think that began when she asked me what I look for in a girl. It occurred to me after the story that I never really answered the question, so then I did, listing my non-negotiables, and then going into preferences. I asked her the same question, and she kind of avoided it. She said she wasn't really sure she'd ever get married, and honestly I feel the same. I want to get married someday, but if I don't, then I trust that God has better plans for me.

The next morning, I participated in a 5k run. I came in 64th place of 89, I believe. Basically, I beat everyone who walked the whole thing. I'd not run since March, maybe April. I think I was able to run or jog the first half, and of course the sprint for the last 200 yards, but between those two spans, I basically only walked.

The next day, after church, Giggles and I jabbered for 14 hours online.

Our talking had always been a bit shamelessly flirty. At first it was harmless, just attempting to be charming, or make the other person smile, and it often succeeded. Toward the end of Sunday night, we both knew there was something else there. Though it wouldn't be for a few more days that we gave voice to it.

It turns out they do still give us dinner, only, we have to pay for it, and if I weren't ravenous, that burger would not have been worth $5. Also, Jones Soda Root Beer: not a fan.

One of the things I find interesting about Giggles is that while she wouldn't call herself a Christian, she enjoys listening to me talk about my faith, eager in a way. She wants to believe, but given her past, everything she's been through, and her stubbornness (which I adore), it'll be a journey for her.

It is now occurring to me that I'm not on track to meet my parenthesis count quota. (I'm truly sorry. [No really I am. {These sentences didn't need to be in parentheses. (Well, maybe this one and its predecessor did, but not the first two.)}])

As with Fey, I went down kicking and screaming, refusing to date someone, when it's almost assuredly a mistake, or at least wouldn't end well, and yet cultivating feelings for her. Technically, while I write this, I'm still single. In two hours and 11 minutes, that will probably change.

The weeks have passed. Virtually every night we've spent talking at least a little to each other, on the phone, via IM, or with a webcam. We txt and email frequently throughout the day, so long as it doesn't get in the way of our work. Her sister claims we're joined at the hip, but that would make us siamese twins, and I don't date someone related to me by blood -- especially my own blood.

We still maintain our own lives though, what little we had. On Mondays, I still go watch Heroes with the guys, and Tuesdays are Bible Study. Thursdays she goes out on the town with her family (her sister and her sister's husband). I don't mind frequent contact like that unless it distracts me from the other things I enjoy in life. I don't want either of us to become obsessed, and so far, so good.

Every now and then I consume a little too much root beer, and wake up having passed out somewhere. And I guess I make ridiculous txts. That drunken state has even given itself a name, Baron Rootbeer. (You can tell I must be drunk as 'Baron' is a position, not a title -- it's always Lord or Lady. Thank you Oxford Dictionary.) He sends Giggles a txt most nights for her to wake up to -- a way to express my undying weirdness without seeming too weird, and also giving her a giggle.

Apparently, she was neither a giggler nor a hugger before she met me. I guess I just inspire radical changes like that. The first or second time we talked on the phone, I offhandedly mentioned her giggling, not knowing this was a new phenomenon, and she protested, "I don't giggle!" I immediately equated this to the time Eowyn claimed she wasn't blond, and how girls always fight a simple truth, and then eventually say I was right in the first place. "Mmhmm." Sure enough, some 20 minutes later, she was talking about how she giggles now.

In these past six weeks, she's started a second job (this on top of her Bank position and going to college) at a cigarette shop. It was only supposed to be a weekend thing, but she puts in a couple nights a week as well. I call it her night job.

So now, about a month ago, I bought these plane tickets from SEA to DFW. I wish Paolini's ancient language were real so I could prove to you all I'm not lying when I say I'd be going whether or not there was a romance between us. On October first, had she asked me to fly down there and support her, I would have taken my two personal days and hopped on the next flight to Dallas, so strong is my compassion for her.

I'm only staying for the weekend, which is a little sad, but still entirely worth it. I can't stay away from work too long; we're nearing the end of a sprint. She's going to visit me for about a week in December, so we're looking forward to that as well. First things first though; I'm not even in Dallas yet. We're going to have a wonderful weekend.

For her birthday I got her something. The day I decided to get it, she had just previously thought of something for us to do while I'm there, and gave me a couple hints about it until I eventually figured it out. Alas, my flesh is too weak, and I googled "the 6th floor" clue to get the answer. Anyway, after I decided to get her it, I gave her a clue: "Forever." It was the only thing I could think of at the time, but it made it too obvious in my mind. On the way home from work, I thought of two more: Sean Connery, and pencil. Later that night, I gave her Snow White, and necktie. As you might imagine, it's a laminated, pencil-shaded cardboard cutout of Sean Connery as a dwarf wearing a necktie. That or a diamond necklace, though not an expensive one. (Forever, as in diamonds are forever; Sean Connery as in Diamonds are Forever; pencil, as in graphite, as in carbon, as in diamond; Snow White's dwarves mined gems; and of course, necktie draws attention to the neck which holds the necklace. QED.) So, now we refer to her surprise as Sean Connery. What she doesn't yet know, is I got her both. I didn't have time to makeshift laminate him, but an hour or two with a Photoshop trial, a knife, some scissors, and a pizza box later....

I finally finished Brisingr last night. It was good. Not great, like Eldest, but good. I have a feeling Giggles is going to make me read Twilight here soon. I still need to finish at least the sixth book of Wheel of Time before I begin another entertainment thread. I still have Phoenix Wright 2, Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker, Spore (if I ever get around to playing the space stage), Mass Effect, and Halos 1-3 to play. Also, I should get The Force Unleashed soon, and I'm playing WoW currently, though for how much longer I don't know. I'll quit when I'm bored. I have over 1000g at level 36, and yet no Staff of Jordan. Sad.

Well, I did bring Lord of Chaos with me, so I think I'll pick that up a chapter before I left off. That is to say, I'm done typing for a while. Seriously, take a hint and leave already.
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God Cheats at Cards Friday, September 19, 2008

It's been nearly two weeks. I guess I can splurge for your guys' sakes and post a little early this time. What good is a wall if it's not regularly built, right?

I'm thinking of doing this one in no particular order again. If you have a problem with that, feel free to shove it up your leave a comment.

The first thing that comes to mind, is Fringe, a new show on Fox that conveniently conflicts with Eureka. Eureka is ending next week, though, so that won't be an issue. It's basically a newer version of the X Files only with more "science" and less aliens. I don't have any issue suspending my disbelief, but I cannot abide plot holes. Way back when, these scientists set out to make genetic alterations to the pituitary gland in the brain so that they could generate babies that would grow up to be biologically 21 years of age in three years. They succeeded, but they couldn't find a way to slow the growth down afterward, and the subjects would die of "natural causes" very quickly. The show starts out with a guy and a hooker, and the hooker starts screaming when she sees a lump moving around her belly and getting larger by the second. The guy drops her off at the hospital, and by then she looks 10 months pregnant. She dies. They make an incision to do a c-section, and out pops something and cut for commercials. When they come back to the scene, an old man, naked and covered in blood with the umbilical cord still attached is lying on the floor, dead from old age. It turns out that the guy who dropped her off at the hospital was one of the babies born in the science experiments, whose "father" had figured out a way to use the chemicals generated from other people's pituitary glands to slow the aging, and he had lured the hooker in order to get her gland from her. But first, why not sleep with her, you know? The condom failed, she was impregnated and the rest makes sense. Except the part where the baby was supposed to be 21 in 3 years, not three minutes. And shouldn't he have died of starvation much quicker than old age, having never eaten but still trying to grow an adult's body (this one I find more excusable in that for this to work, they'd have to get around this in the science experiment in the first place)? Oh, and that a single cell doesn't have a pituitary gland, and so until the brain was formed, the genetics shouldn't have any growth effect on the baby. It's just bad writing. But other than that, it's a decent show. I mean, hookers, crazy old scientists, and cynical remarks -- who could ask for more?

I can't say I'm surprised, but I am annoyed, at the number of people making a stink about the Facebook layout. I'll admit I was disappointed when they opened it up to people outside of college, and when they got rid of their algorithm for finding the shortest chain of friends between you and someone else. I was also disappointed a bit after they introduced applications, mostly because as t approaches infinity, facebook(t) approaches myspace. The layout, however, I like a little bit more. As far as I can tell there's very little information in the old layout that isn't in the new layout. The only thing, really, is that apps are on a separate tab called "Boxes" rather than on your main page, forcing your scroll bar to two pixels' height. The ads are better placed and less obtrusive. The pictures tab is mostly nice -- I've noticed a couple bugs with pressing the back button, after clicking on a picture a few "pages" in. In general, it just feels cleaner to me. I think people just dislike change, for the better or the worse, unless they're getting something significant out of it, like health care or tax cuts.

I was watching an Authors@Google video on youtube the other day, at the recommendation of my pastor. The book is called The Reason for God by Timothy Keller, and apparently the presentation had the highest turnout that any of the people there had seen (tied with a woman who did a sex-talk). You really should watch the video, but his argument is that, logically, it takes more faith to think that God doesn't exist, than that God does. There are still personal issues to deal with after that, but that no one has an intellectual excuse on the premise of faithlessness. Of course, that very thing was pointed out in Romans 1:20, but people tend to discredit the Bible, and I'll admit that Romans 1:20 made casual mention of it, a high-level view with glossed-over details. I don't know if I'll get the book, I probably will -- I'm sure my pastor would loan it to me, but I am the worst at getting borrowed books back to people -- but the talk was certainly worth watching. The thing is, I don't really need intellectual convincing. That's my reason for maybe not getting the book.

I have the Facebook app on my iPhone, and was perusing the status updates tonight. There was one that said, "[Name] says maybe if Microsoft spent more time making their products better and less time trying to sell them they'd sell better..." I've only worked at Microsoft for two months, but I'm already sick of comments like these. Everyone knows they're the big name in software, and so it's easy to hate them. In the two months I've been working, I've read a decent amount of source code, and I have to say, the vast majority of it is written extremely well. The programmers there use best practices, use clarity, keep things as simple as possible, and yet keep the uses of the software as open-ended as can be expected. Every now and then I wish such-and-such feature in a program (OS X included) would be more extendable, would offer more options visible, and so on. Then I realize that what I want is a programming language. We want a program to do it all for us, and in my case, I want to control how it does it with plenty of options. But that's what programming languages do. They let us express exactly what we want to have happen. Unfortunately, the average user doesn't program. I don't really know where I'm going with this. I just take it personally when someone says that MS software is bad when a lot of the best minds in the world put so much work into making a program. , I started to respond to his status update on his wall to point out how common it is for developers to quit developing a feature in the middle of a project in order to shift their career into the marketing side of Microsoft. Then I thought better of it.

The Microsoft Company meeting was today. I think it had higher attendance than do Mariners games these days (which is relevant because the meeting is held in Safeco Field). It was certainly an experience. Different people got on stage and talked for a while, all excited about their products and such, giving demos. Any time a product was mentioned, the group developing it cheered. I always thought it was silly when I saw them do it on TV, then found myself doing it when SQL Server was mentioned. We really do write amazing software. They say that a lot of people join Microsoft because they realize that our software is shipped world-wide, and that they can make a difference in the world by working there. That's not why I joined Microsoft at all. I don't find my identity in work. I don't see my mark on the world through software. It's not personal enough for me. I find my identity in Jesus and my relationship to him. I see my mark on the world being the people I know on a personal level, or really, even more basic than that, the things I do because I know they're right and they're what God wants me to do. I don't even feel like I need to mark the world. So, with that in mind, I really don't care if people use my software. I very much care if they use our software, but if what I write isn't ever used, I enjoyed writing it all the same. If someone (my manager, a customer, a professor, whoever) asks me to write something and I succeed, that's where the high is. I aspire to be a computer scientist, not a programmer. I enjoy the thought and the journey, and if results result, that's awesome. Of course, that said, I care very much what the customer thinks about the end user experience, about the project as a whole, and would gladly take comments into consideration and give them to the people who can make a difference. I just don't care if the relatively small number of features I write changes the world. I get the feeling that I'm not capable of writing clearly enough to get out my feelings. I'll put it this way: Feeling.ToString() was never implemented.

Obviously, we want people to start using Live Search over Google, and Google has the majority market share for search. I was thinking about an xkcd comic today, one that's always resonated with me.

The Difference

I google'd scientist xkcd.com. Two results came up, the first being the one above. The second was this:

Beliefs

The first one was the one I was searching for. The second one I hadn't clicked until writing this, and I assumed it was a different one, which Live.com put up first:

Scientists

The point of this all, is that live came up with a comic called "Scientists" first, and the one I was looking for second. It came up with the logical, and in many ways the "right" answer first. Google came up with the one I wanted, and one that has little to do with my query, little more than the rest of the xkcd comics do, and didn't come up with the one titled "Scientists." Which search is better? Which search is right? (Ironically, neither search engine came up with google's number two comic for senator xkcd.com.) Do we want a feature that gives us what we want, or do we want a feature that gives us expected results?

Right about now I'm going to mention Alexander so that while he's doing his pre-read scan, he'll stop to see what his name is all about. I think I'll save the rest of this post to be written tomorrow, because being a young, single man in the prime of his life, I have nothing to do on Friday evenings.

It's Sunday, not Friday. Friday was unbearably long, so I lacked the energy to do anything, especially sit in front of a computer for a couple more hours. Saturday I went to Swood's birthday shindig, got back, and watched StarWars Ep 4. My weekend can definitely be reduced to those couple sentences, so allow me to add unnecessary details.

I bought Spore on Tuesday evening, and played until about midnight. I didn't know it was so simple, so I was really cautious about doing things right, and attempting to make wise decisions, which is why I only made it to the beginning of the tribal stage before going to bed. It turns out wisdom isn't a prerequisite for Spore, especially on easy mode. I didn't much like my species on Wednesday, so I started over and made some pretty fine dragons, if I do say so myself. The creature stage (second stage) is definitely my favorite. You get to fly around and eat people, or convince them to share their evolutionary secrets. I ended up getting all but four possible body parts, and had high ratings in everything but the spit combat ability. I feel bad for the poor sap who has to play against them, assuming the game doesn't nerf them. I still haven't figured out if it's possible to beat an epic monster. I'm guessing you can't before the space stage, and I haven't seen one since I began it, though I haven't played past the first tutorials. It's not a bad game, for sure, but it certainly could have been better. Right before evolving to the tribal stage, I shouldn't have been able to design a completely different creature.

On a similar note, I've been waiting for more than a year for The Force Unleashed to come out. I've not bought it yet, because I have enough entertainment for now, and not enough money in my checking account to say I'm comfortable -- that'll change in nine days. I've heard bad things, though, that it set the bar pretty high but is only a mediocre game. I guess I'm not too surprised, but I am disappointed.

The third thing I've been waiting for that came out this month was Brisingr, the third book in the Inheritance series. It was released yesterday, but Amazon doesn't do any orders on the weekend, so it'll ship on Monday, getting to my apartment on Thursday. I might take a personal day on Friday. I kid you not.

Speaking of kids, I just got back from my aunt's house. They tease me a lot about not liking kids much, and they're right for the most part. I say things, purposely, that I know they won't get, but I say them in the vicinity of their parents so that they'll laugh. For example, we were watching the Hawks game, and William was talking about how he always does Hail Mary's in his Madden '08 game, even when there's no reason to. I asked, "Does she respond?" My uncle laughed a bit; William looked confused. I just hope I don't come off as rude. Tonight Lucy was complaining about having to play another game of Sequence before playing Pictionary, and the teams were uneven with her playing, so logically -- it seemed logical -- she might consider sitting out for the ten minutes it would take Ashley's boyfriend and me to lose, if and only if she wanted not to play. The words were out of my mouth before I thought logic might not be the best thing here.

If you didn't catch that, Ashley is dating this guy now. He's not a Christian. That bothers me a lot.

I guess I don't keep track of the dates my relationships start and end anymore. I don&#039

i present to you, the Godfather screenplay...in it's entirety, and without commercial interruption

[aeva][quote]THE GODFATHER
_____________

Screenplay

by

MARIO PUZO

and

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA



















THIRD DRAFT PARAMOUNT PICTURES
1 Gulf and Western
Plaza
March 29, 1971 New York, New York 10019





INT DAY: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

The PARAMOUNT Logo is presented austerely over a black
background. There is a moment's hesitation, and then the
simple words in white lettering:

THE GODFATHER

While this remains, we hear: "I believe in America."
Suddenly we are watching in CLOSE VIEW, AMERIGO BONASERA, a
man of sixty, dressed in a black suit, on the verge of great
emotion.

BONASERA
America has made my fortune.

As he speaks, THE VIEW imperceptibly begins to loosen.

BONASERA
I raised my daughter in the American
fashion; I gave her freedom, but
taught her never to dishonor her
family. She found a boy friend,
not an Italian. She went to the
movies with him, stayed out late.
Two months ago he took her for a
drive, with another boy friend.
They made her drink whiskey and
then they tried to take advantage
of her. She resisted; she kept her
honor. So they beat her like an
animal. When I went to the hospital
her nose was broken, her jaw was
shattered and held together by
wire, and she could not even weep
because of the pain.

He can barely speak; he is weeping now.

BONASERA
I went to the Police like a good
American. These two boys were
arrested and brought to trial. The
judge sentenced them to three years
in prison, and suspended the
sentence. Suspended sentence!
They went free that very day. I
stood in the courtroom like a fool,
and those bastards, they smiled at
me. Then I said to my wife, for
Justice, we must go to The Godfather.

By now, THE VIEW is full, and we see Don Corleone's office
in his home.

The blinds are closed, and so the room is dark, and with
patterned shadows. We are watching BONASERA over the
shoulder of DON CORLEONE. TOM HAGEN sits near a small
table, examining some paperwork, and SONNY CORLEONE stands
impatiently by the window nearest his father, sipping from a
glass of wine. We can HEAR music, and the laughter and
voices of many people outside.

DON CORLEONE
Bonasera, we know each other for
years, but this is the first time
you come to me for help. I don't
remember the last time you invited
me to your house for coffee...even
though our wives are friends.

BONASERA
What do you want of me? I'll give
you anything you want, but do what
I ask!

DON CORLEONE
And what is that Bonasera?

BONASERA whispers into the DON's ear.

DON CORLEONE
No. You ask for too much.

BONASERA
I ask for Justice.

DON CORLEONE
The Court gave you justice.

BONASERA
An eye for an eye!

DON CORLEONE
But your daughter is still alive.

BONASERA
Then make them suffer as she
suffers. How much shall I pay you.

Both HAGEN and SONNY react.

DON CORLEONE
You never think to protect yourself
with real friends. You think it's
enough to be an American. All
right, the Police protects you,
there are Courts of Law, so you
don't need a friend like me.
But now you come to me and say Don
Corleone, you must give me justice.
And you don't ask in respect or
friendship. And you don't think to
call me Godfather; instead you come
to my house on the day my daughter
is to be married and you ask me to
do murder...for money.

BONASERA
America has been good to me...

DON CORLEONE
Then take the justice from the
judge, the bitter with the sweet,
Bonasera. But if you come to me
with your friendship, your loyalty,
then your enemies become my enemies,
and then, believe me, they would
fear you...

Slowly, Bonasera bows his head and murmurs.

BONASERA
Be my friend.

DON CORLEONE
Good. From me you'll get Justice.

BONASERA
Godfather.

DON CORLEONE
Some day, and that day may never
come, I would like to call upon you
to do me a service in return.

EXT DAY: MALL (SUMMER 1945)

A HIGH ANGLE of the CORLEONE MALL in bright daylight. There
are at least five hundred guests filling the main courtyard
and gardens. There is music and laughing and dancing and
countless tables covered with food and wine.

DON CORLEONE stands at the Gate, flanked on either side by a
son: FREDO and SONNY, all dressed in the formal attire of
the wedding party. He warmly shakes the hands, squeezes the
hands of the friends and guests, pinches the cheeks of the
children, and makes them all welcome. They in turn carry
with them gallons of homemade wine, cartons of freshly baked
bread and pastries, and enormous trays of Italian delicacies.

The entire family poses for a family portrait: DON CORLEONE,
MAMA, SONNY, his wife, SANDRA, and their children, TOM HAGEN
and his wife, THERESA, and their BABY; CONSTANZIA, the
bride, and her bridegroom, CARLO RIZZI. As they move into
the pose, THE DON seems preoccupied.

DON CORLEONE
Where's Michael?

SONNY
He'll be here Pop, it's still early.

DON CORLEONE
Then the picture will wait for him.

Everyone in the group feels the uneasiness as the DON moves
back to the house. SONNY gives a delicious smile in the
direction of the Maid-of-Honor, LUCY MANCINI. She returns
it. Then he moves to his wife.

SONNY
Sandra, watch the kids. They're
running wild.

SANDRA
You watch yourself.

HAGEN kisses his WIFE, and follows THE DON, passing the wine
barrels, where a group of FOUR MEN nervously wait. TOM
crooks a finger at NAZORINE, who doublechecks that he is
next, straightens, and follows HAGEN.

EXT DAY: MALL ENTRANCE (SUMMER 1945)

Outside the main gate of the Mall, SEVERAL MEN in suits,
working together with a MAN in a dark sedan, walk in and out
of the rows of parked cars, writing license plate numbers
down in their notebooks. We HEAR the music and laughter
coming from the party in the distance.

A MAN stops at a limousine and copies down the number.

BARZINI, dignified in a black homburg, is always under the
watchful eyes of TWO BODYGUARDS as he makes his way to
embrace DON CORLEONE in the courtyard.

The MEN walk down another row of parked cars. Put another
number in the notebook. A shiney new Cadillac with wooden
bumpers.

PETER CLEMENZA, dancing the Tarantella joyously, bumping
bellies with the ladies.

CLEMENZA
Paulie...wine...WINE.

He mops his sweating forehead with a big handkerchief.
PAULIE hustles, gets a glass of icy black wine, and brings
it to him.

PAULIE
You look terrif on the floor!

CLEMENZA
What are you, a dance judge? Go do
your job; take a walk around the
neighborhood... see everything is
okay.

PAULIE nods and leaves; CLEMENZA takes a breath, and leaps
back into the dance.

The MEN walk down another row of parked cars. Put another
number in the notebook.

TESSIO, a tall, gentle-looking man, dances with a NINE-YEAR-
OLD GIRL, her little black party shoes planted on his
enormous brown shoes.

The MEN move on to other parked cars, when SONNY storms out
of the gate, his face flushed with anger, followed by
CLEMENZA and PAULIE.

SONNY
Buddy, this is a private party.

The MAN doesn't answer, but points to the DRIVER of the
sedan. SONNY menacingly thrusts his reddened face at him.
The DRIVER merely flips open his wallet to a greed card,
without saying a word. SONNY steps back, spits on the
ground, turns, and walks away, followed by CLEMENZA, PAULIE,
and another TWO MEN. He doesn't say a thing for most of the
walk back into the courtyard, and then, muttered to PAULIE.

SONNY
Goddamn FBI...don't respect nothing.

INT DAY: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

DON CORLEONE sits quietly behind his massive desk in the
dark study.

NAZORINE
...a fine boy from Sicily, captured
by the American Army, and sent to
New Jersey as a prisoner of war...

DON CORLEONE
Nazorine, my friend, tell me what I
can do.

NAZORINE
Now that the war is over, Enzo,
this boy is being repatriated to
Italy. And you see, Godfather...
(he wrings his hands,
unable to express himself)
He...my daughter...they...

DON CORLEONE
You want him to stay in this country.

NAZORINE
Godfather, you understand everything.

DON CORLEONE
Tom, what we need is an Act of
Congress to allow Enzo to become a
citizen.

NAZORINE
(impressed)
An Act of Congress!

HAGEN
(nodding)
It will cost.

The DON shrugs; such are the way with those things; NAZORINE
nods.

NAZORINE
Is that all? Godfather, thank
you...
(backing out, enthusiastically)
Oh, wait till you see the cake I
made for your beautiful daughter!

NAZORINE backs out, all smiles, and nods to the GODFATHER.
DON CORLEONE rises and moves to the Venetian blinds.

HAGEN
Who do I give this job to?

The DON moves to the windows, peeking out through the blinds.

DON CORLEONE
Not to one of our paisans...give it
to a Jew Congressman in another
district. Who else is on the list
for today?

The DON is peeking out to the MEN around the barrel, waiting
to see him.

HAGEN
Francesco Nippi. His nephew has
been refused parole. A bad case.

EXT DAY: MALL (SUMMER 1945)

WHAT HE SEES:

NIPPI waits nervously by the barrel.

HAGEN (O.S.)
His father worked with you in the
freight yards when you were young.

LUCA BRASI sitting alone, grotesque and quiet.

HAGEN (O.S.)
He's not on the list, but Luca
Brasi wants to see you.

INT DAY: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

The DON turns to HAGEN.

DON CORLEONE
Is it necessary?

HAGEN
You understand him better than
anyone.

The DON nods to this. Turns back to the blinds and peeks out.

EXT DAY: MALL (SUMMER 1945)

WHAT HE SEES:

MICHAEL CORLEONE, dressed in the uniform of a Marine Captain,
leads KAY ADAMS through the wedding crowd, occasionally
stopped and greeted by FRIENDS of the family.

INT DAY: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

The DON, inside the office, peering through the blinds,
following them.

EXT DAY: MALL (SUMMER 1945)

MICHAEL moves through the crowd, embraces MAMA and introduces
her to his GIRL.

EXT DAY: OFFICE WINDOW (SUMMER 1945)

The DON's eyes peering through the blinds.

EXT DAY: MALL TABLES (SUMMER 1945)

KAY and MICHAEL settle by a table on the edge of the wedding,
burdened down with plates of food and glasses and wine. She
is exhilarated by the enormity of the affair, the music and
the vitality.

KAY
I've never seen anything like it.

MICHAEL
I told you I had a lot of relatives.

KAY looking about, a young and lively thing in a gift shop.
We see what she sees:

Her interest is caught by THREE MEN standing by the wine
barrels.

KAY
(amused)
Michael, what are those men doing?

MICHAEL
They're waiting to see my father.

KAY
They're talking to themselves.

MICHAEL
They're going to talk to my father,
which means they're going to ask
him for something, which means they
better get it right.

KAY
Why do they bother him on a day
like this?

MICHAEL
Because they know that no Sicilian
will refuse a request on his
daughter's wedding day.

EXT DAY: WEDDING PARTY (SUMMER 1945)

CONNIE CORLEONE, the Bride, is pressing the bodice of her
overly-fluffy white gown against the groom, CARLO RIZZI. He
is bronzed, with curly blondish hair and lovely dimples.
She absolutely adores him and can barely take her eyes from
him long enough to thank the various GUESTS for the white
envelopes they are putting into the large white purse she
holds. In fact, if we watch carefully, we can see that one
of her hands is slid under his jacket, and into his shirt,
where she is provocatively rubbing the hair on his chest.
CARLO, on the other hand, has his blue eyes trained on the
bulging envelopes, and is trying to guess how much cash the
things hold.

Discreetly, he moves her hand off of his skin.

CARLO
(whispered)
Cut it out, Connie.

The purse, looped by a ribbon of silk around CONNIE's arm,
is fat with money.

PAULIE (O.S.)
What do you think? Twenty grand?

A little distance away, a young man, PAULIE GATTO, catches a
prosciutto sandwich thrown by a friend, without once taking
eyes from the purse.

PAULIE
Who knows? Maybe more. Twenty,
thirty grand in small bills cash in
that silk purse. Holy Toledo, if
this was somebody else's wedding!

SONNY is sitting at the Wedding Dias, talking to LUCY
MANCINI, the Maid of Honor. Every once in a while he
glances across the courtyard, where his WIFE is talking with
some WOMEN.

He bends over and whispers something into LUCY's ear.

SANDRA and the WOMEN are in the middle of a big, ribald laugh.

WOMAN
Is it true what they say about your
husband, Sandra?

SANDRA's hands separate with expanding width further and
further apart until she bursts into a peal of laughter.
Through her separated hands she sees the Wedding Dais.
SONNY and LUCY are gone.

INT DAY: DON'S HALL & STAIRS (SUMMER 1945)

The empty hallway. The bathroom door opens and LUCY
surreptitiously steps out.

She looks up where SONNY is standing on the second landing,
motioning for her to come up.

She lifts her petticoats off the ground and hurries upstairs.

EXT DAY: MALL TABLES (SUMMER 1945)

KAY and MICHAEL.

KAY
(in a spooky low tone)
Michael, that scarey guy...Is he a
relative?

She has picked out LUCA BRASI.

MICHAEL
No. His name is Luca Brasi. You
wouldn't like him.

KAY
(Excited)
Who is he?

MICHAEL
(Sizing her up)
You really want to know?

KAY
Yes. Tell me.

MICHAEL
You like spaghetti?

KAY
You know I love spaghetti.

MICHAEL
Then eat your spaghetti and I'll
tell you a Luca Brasi story.

She starts to eat her spaghetti.

She begins eating, looking at him eagerly.

MICHAEL
Once upon a time, about fifteen
years ago some people wanted to
take over my father's olive oil
business. They had Al Capone send
some men in from Chicago to kill my
father, and they almost did.

KAY
Al Capone!

MICHAEL
My Father sent Luca Brasi after
them. He tied the two Capone men
hand and foot, and stuffed small
bath towels into their mouths.
Then he took an ax, and chopped one
man's feet off...

KAY
Michael...

MICHAEL
Then the legs at the knees...

KAY
Michael you're trying to scare me...

MICHAEL
Then the thighs where they joined
the torso.

KAY
Michael, I don't want to hear
anymore...

MICHAEL
Then Luca turned to the other man...

KAY
Michael, I love you.

MICHAEL
...who out of sheer terror had
swallowed the bath towel in his
mouth and suffocated.

The smile on his face seems to indicate that he is telling a
tall story.

KAY
I never know when you're telling me
the truth.

MICHAEL
I told you you wouldn't like him.

KAY
He's coming over here!

LUCA comes toward them to meet TOM HAGEN halfway, just near
their table.

MICHAEL
Tom...Tom, I'd like you to meet Kay
Adams.

KAY
(having survived LUCA)
How do you do.

MICHAEL
My brother, Tom Hagen.

HAGEN
Hello Kay. Your father's inside,
doing some business.
(privately)
He's been asking for you.

MICHAEL
Thanks Tom.

HAGEN smiles and moves back to the house, LUCA ominously
following.

KAY
If he's your brother, why does he
have a different name?

MICHAEL
My brother Sonny found him living
in the streets when he was a kid,
so my father took him in. He's a
good lawyer.

INT DAY: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

DON CORLEONE at the window. He has seen the intimacy of the
YOUNG COUPLE.

LUCA (O.S.)
Don Corleone...

THE DON turns to the stiffly formal LUCA, and he moves
forward to kiss his hand. He takes the envelope from his
jacket, holds it out, but does not release it until he makes
a formal speech.

LUCA
(with difficulty)
Don Corleone...I am honored, and
grateful...that you invited me to
your home...on the wedding day of
your...daughter.
May their first child...be a
masculine child. I pledge my never
ending loyalty.
(he offers the envelope)
For your daughter's bridal purse.

DON CORLEONE
Thank you, Luca, my most valued
friend.

THE DON takes it, and then LUCA's hand, which he squeezes so
tightly we might imagine it to be painful.

LUCA
Let me leave you, Don Corleone. I
know you are busy.

He turns, almost an about-face, and leaves the study with
the same formality he entered with. DON CORLEONE breathes
more easily, and gives the thick envelope to HAGEN.

DON CORLEONE
I'm sure it's the most generous
gift today.

HAGEN
The Senator called--apologized for
not coming personally, but said
you'd understand. Also, some of
the Judges...they've all sent gifts.
And another call from Virgil
Sollozzo.

DON CORLEONE is not pleased.

HAGEN
The action is narcotics. Sollozzo
has contacts in Turkey for the
poppy, in Sicily for the plants to
process down to morphine or up to
heroin. Also he has access to this
country. He's coming to us for
financial help, and some sort of
immunity from the law. For that we
get a piece of the action, I
couldn't find out how much.
Sollozzo is vouched for by the
Tattaglia family, and they may have
a piece of the action. They call
Sollozzo the Turk.
He's spent a lot of time in Turkey
and is suppose to have a Turkish
wife and kids. He's suppose to be
very quick with the knife, or was,
when he was younger. Only in
matters of business and with some
reasonable complaint. Also he has
an American wife and three children
and he is a good family man.

THE DON nods.

HAGEN
He's his own boss, and very
competent.

DON CORLEONE
And with prison record.

HAGEN
Two terms; one in Italy, one in the
United States. He's known to the
Government as a top narcotics man.
That could be a plus for us; he
could never get immunity to testify.

DON CORLEONE
When did he call?

HAGEN
This morning.

DON CORLEONE
On a day like this. Consiglero, do
you also have in your notes the the
Turk made his living from
Prostitution before the war, like
the Tattaglias do now. Write that
down before you forget it. The
Turk will wait.

We now begin to hear a song coming over the loud-speakers
from outside. In Italian, with unmistakable style.

DON CORLEONE
What that? It sounds like Johnny.

He moves to the window, pulls the blinds up, flooding the
room with light.

DON CORLEONE
It is Johnny. He came all the way
from California to be at the wedding.

HAGEN
Should I bring him in.

DON CORLEONE
No. Let the people enjoy him. You
see? He is a good godson.

HAGEN
It's been two years. He's probably
in trouble again.

EXT DAY: MALL (SUMMER 1945)

JOHNNY FONTANE on the bandstand, singing to the delight and
excitement of the wedding GUESTS.

KAY
I didn't know your family knew
Johnny Fontane.

MICHAEL
Sure.

KAY
I used to come down to New York
whenever he sang at the Capitol and
scream my head off.

MICHAEL
He's my father's godson; he owes
him his whole career.

JOHNNY finishes the song and the CROWD screams with delight.
They call out for another when DON CORLEONE appears.

DON CORLEONE
My Godson has come three thousand
miles to do us honor and no one
thinks to wet his throat.

At once a dozen wine glasses are offered to JOHNNY, who
takes a sip from each as he moves to embrace his GODFATHER.

JOHNNY
I kept trying to call you after my
divorce and Tom always said you
were busy. When I got the Wedding
invitation I knew you weren't sore
at me anymore, Godfather.

DON CORLEONE
Can I do something for you still?
You're not too rich, or too famous
that I can't help you?

JOHNNY
I'm not rich anymore, Godfather,
and...my career, I'm almost washed
up...

He's very disturbed. The GODFATHER indicates that he come
with him to the office so no one will notice. He turns to
HAGEN.

DON CORLEONE
Tell Santino to come in with us.
He should hear some things.

They go, leaving HAGEN scanning the party looking for SONNY.

INT DAY: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

HAGEN glances up the staircase.

HAGEN
Sonny?

Then he goes up.

INT DAY: DON'S UPSTAIRS ROOM (SUMMER 1945)

SONNY and LUCY are in a room upstairs; he has lifted her
gown's skirts almost over her head, and has her standing
against the door. Her face peeks out from the layers of
petticoats around it like a flower in ecstasy.

LUCY
Sonnyeeeeeeee.

Her head bouncing against the door with the rhythm of his
body. But there is a knocking as well. They stop, freeze
in that position.

HAGEN (O.S.)
Sonny? Sonny, you in there?

INT DAY: DON'S UPSTAIRS HALLWAY (SUMMER 1945)

Outside, HAGEN by the door.

HAGEN
The old man wants you; Johnny's
here...he's got a problem.

SONNY (O.S.)
Okay. One minute.

HAGEN hesitates. We HEAR LUCY's head bouncing against the
door again. TOM leaves.

INT DAY: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

DON CORLEONE
ACT LIKE A MAN! By Christ in
Heaven, is it possible you turned
out no better than a Hollywood
finocchio.

Both HAGEN and JOHNNY cannot refrain from laughing. The DON
smiles. SONNY enters as noiselessly as possible, still
adjusting his clothes.

DON CORLEONE
All right, Hollywood...Now tell me
about this Hollywood Pezzonovanta
who won't let you work.

JOHNNY
He owns the studio. Just a month
ago he bought the movie rights to
this book, a best seller. And the
main character is a guy just like
me. I wouldn't even have to act,
just be myself.

The DON is silent, stern.

DON CORLEONE
You take care of your family?

JOHNNY
Sure.

He glances at SONNY, who makes himself as inconspicuous as
he can.

DON CORLEONE
You look terrible. I want you to
eat well, to rest. And spend time
with your family. And then, at the
end of the month, this big shot
will give you the part you want.

JOHNNY
It's too late. All the contracts
have been signed, they're almost
ready to shoot.

DON CORLEONE
I'll make him an offer he can't
refuse.

He takes JOHNNY to the door, pinching his cheek hard enough
to hurt.

DON CORLEONE
Now go back to the party and leave
it to me.

He closes the door, smiling to himself. Turns to HAGEN.

DON CORLEONE
When does my daughter leave with
her bridegroom?

HAGEN
They'll cut the cake in a few
minutes...leave right after that.
Your new son-in-law, do we give him
something important?

DON CORLEONE
No, give him a living. But never
let him know the family's business.
What else, Tom?

HAGEN
I've called the hospital; they've
notified Consiglere Genco's family
to come and wait. He won't last
out the night.

This saddens the DON. He sighs.

DON CORLEONE
Genco will wait for me. Santino,
tell your brothers they will come
with me to the hospital to see
Genco. Tell Fredo to drive the big
car, and ask Johnny to come with us.

SONNY
And Michael?

DON CORLEONE
All my sons.
(to HAGEN)
Tom, I want you to go to California
tonight. Make the arrangements.
But don't leave until I come back
from the hospital and speak to you.
Understood?

HAGEN
Understood.

EXT DAY: MALL (SUMMER 1945)

Now all the wedding GUESTS excitedly clap their hands over
the entrance of the cake: NAZORINE is beaming as he wheels
in a serving table containing the biggest, gaudiest, most
extravagant wedding cake ever baked, an incredible monument
of his gratitude. The CROWD is favorably impressed: they
begin to clink their knives or forks against their glasses,
in the traditional request for the Bride to cut the cake and
kiss the Groom. Louder and louder, five hundred forks
hitting five hundred glasses.

EXT DAY: MALL (SUMMER 1945)

Silence.

HIGH ANGLE ON THE MALL, late day. The GUESTS are gone. A
single black car is in the courtyard. FREDDIE is behind the
driver's seat: the DON enters the car, looks at MICHAEL, who
sits between SONNY and JOHNNY in the rear seat.

DON CORLEONE
Will your girl friend get back to
the city all right?

MICHAEL
Tom said he'd take care of it.

The DON pulls the door shut; and the car pulls out, through
the gate of the great Corleone Mall.

INT DAY: HOSPITAL CORRIDOR (SUMMER 1945)

A long white hospital corridor, at the end of which we can
see a grouping of FIVE WOMEN, some old and some young, but
all plump and dressed in black.

DON CORLEONE and his SONS move toward the end. But then the
DON slows, putting his hand on MICHAEL's shoulder. MICHAEL
stops and turns toward his FATHER. The two looks at one
another for some time. SILENCE. DON CORLEONE then lifts
his hand, and slowly touches a particular medal on MICHAEL's
uniform.

DON CORLEONE
What was this for?

MICHAEL
For bravery.

DON CORLEONE
And this?

MICHAEL
For killing a man.

DON CORLEONE
What miracles you do for strangers.

MICHAEL
I fought for my country. It was my
choice.

DON CORLEONE
And now, what do you choose to do?

MICHAEL
I'm going to finish school.

DON CORLEONE
Good. When you are finished, come
and talk to me. I have hopes for
you.

Again they regard each other without a word. MICHAEL turns,
and continues on. DON CORLEONE watches a moment, and then
follows.

INT DAY: HOSPITAL ROOM (SUMMER 1945)

DON CORLEONE enters the hospital room, moving closest to OUR
VIEW. He is followed by his SONS, JOHNNY and the WOMEN.

DON CORLEONE
(whispered)
Genco, I've brought my sons to pay
their respects. And look, even
Johnny Fontane, all the way from
Hollywood.

GENCO is a tiny, wasted skeleton of a man. DON CORLEONE
takes his bony hand, as the others arrange themselves around
his bed, each clasping the other hand in turn.

GENCO
Godfather, Godfather, it's your
daughter's wedding day, you cannot
refuse me. Cure me, you have the
power.

DON CORLEONE
I have no such power...but Genco,
don't fear death.

GENCO
(with a sly wink)
It's been arranged, then?

DON CORLEONE
You blaspheme. Resign yourself.

GENCO
You need your old Consigliere. Who
will replace me?
(suddenly)
Stay with me Godfather. Help me
meet death. If he sees you, he
will be frightened and leave me in
peace. You can say a word, pull a
few strings, eh? We'll outwit that
bastard as we outwitted all those
others.
(clutching his hand)
Godfather, don't betray me.

The DON motions all the others to leave the room. They do.
He returns his attention to GENCO, holding his hand and
whispering things we cannot hear, as they wait for death.

INT NIGHT: AIRPLANE (SUMMER 1945)

FADE IN:

The interior of a non-stop Constellation. HAGEN is one of
the very few passengers on this late flight. He looks like
any young lawyer on a business trip. He is tired from the
difficult preparation and duties that he has just executed
during the wedding. On the seat next to him is an enormous,
bulging briefcase. He closes his eyes.

INT NIGHT: HONEYMOON HOTEL (SUMMER 1945)

The honeymoon hotel: CARLO and CONNIE. CARLO is in his
undershorts, sitting up on the bed, anxiously taking the
envelopes out of the silk bridal purse and counting the
contents. CONNIE prepares herself in the large marble
bathroom. She rubs her hands over his bronze shoulders, and
tries to get his interest.

INT NIGHT: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

DON CORLEONE in his office. LUCA BRASI sitting near to him.

DON CORLEONE
Luca, I am worried about this man
Sollozzo. Find out what you can,
through the Tattaglias. Let them
believe you could be tempted away
from the Corleone Family, if the
right offer was made. Learn what
he has under his fingernails...

INT NIGHT: MANCINI APT. HALL (SUMMER 1945)

The hallway of an apartment building. SONNY enters, climbs
two steps at a time. He knocks, and then whispers.

SONNY
It's me, Sonny.

The door opens, and two lovely arms are around him, pulling
him into the apartment.

INT NIGHT: LUCA'S ROOM (WINTER 1945)

LUCA BRASI's tiny room. He is partly dressed. He kneels
and reaches under his bed and pulls out a small, locked
trunk. He opens it, and takes out a heavy, bullet-proof
vest. He puts it on, over his wool undershirt, and then
puts on his shirt and jacket. He takes his gun, quickly
disassembles, checks, and reassembles it. And leaves.

INT NIGHT: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

A CLOSE VIEW of DON CORLEONE thinking quietly.

INT NIGHT: MOVING TRAIN (SUMMER 1945)

MICHAEL and KAY on a train, speeding on their way to New
Hampshire.

INT NIGHT: SUBWAY (WINTER 1945)

LUCA, in his bulky jacket, sitting quietly on an empty
subway train.

INT NIGHT: AIRPLANE (SUMMER 1945)

HAGEN on the Constellation. He reaches into his briefcase,
and takes out several pictures and papers.

One photograph is of a smiling man, JACK WOLTZ, linked arm
in arm with fifteen movie stars on either side, including a
lovely young child star to his immediate right.

HAGEN considers other papers.

INT NIGHT: DON'S OFFICE (SUMMER 1945)

DON CORLEONE looks, and then moves HAGEN into an embrace.
He straightens his arms and looks at TOM deeply.

DON CORLEONE
Remember my new Consigliere, a
lawyer with his briefcase can steal
more than a hundred men with guns.

EXT DAY: WOLTZ ESTATE GATE (SUMMER 1945)

JACK WOLTZ ESTATE. HAGEN stands before the impressive gate,
armed only with his briefcase. A GATEMAN opens the gate,
and TOM enters.

EXT DAY: WOLTZ GARDENS (SUMMER 1945)

HAGEN and WOLTZ comfortably stroll along beautiful formal
gardens, martinis in hand.

WOLTZ
You should have told me your boss
was Corleone, Tom, I had to check
you out. I thought you were just
some third rate hustler Johnny was
running in to bluff me.
(a piece of statuary)
Florence, thirteenth century.
Decorated the garden of a king.

They cross the garden and head toward the stables.

WOLTZ
I'm going to show you something
beautiful.

They pass the stables, and come to rest by a stall with a
huge bronze plaque attached to the outside wall: "KHARTOUM."
TWO SECURITY GUARDS are positioned in chairs nearby; they
rise as WOLTZ approaches.

WOLTZ
You like horses? I like horses, I
love 'em. Beautiful, expensive
Racehorses.

The animal inside is truly beautiful. WOLTZ whispers to him
with true love in his voice.

WOLTZ
Khartoum...Kartoum...You are
looking at six hundred thousand
dollars on four hoofs. I bet even
Russian Czars never paid that kind
of dough for a single horse. But
I'm not going to race him I'm going
to put him out to Stud.

INT NIGHT: WOLTZ DINING ROOM (SUMMER 1945)

HAGEN and WOLTZ sit at an enormous dining room table,
attended by SEVERAL SERVANTS. Great paintings hang on the
walls. The meal is elaborate and sumptuous.

HAGEN
Mr. Corleone is Johnny's Godfather.
That is very close, a very sacred
religious relationship.

WOLTZ
Okay, but just tell him this is one
favor I can't give. But he should
try me again on anything else.

HAGEN
He never asks a second favor when
he has been refused the first.
Understood?

WOLTZ
You smooth son of a bitch, let me
lay it on the line for you, and
your boss. Johnny Fontane never
gets that movie. I don't care how
many Dago, Guinea, wop Greaseball
Goombahs come out of the woodwork!

HAGEN
I'm German-Irish.

WOLTZ
Okay my Kraut-Mick friend, Johnny
will never get that part because I
hate that pinko punk and I'm going
to run him out of the Movies. And
I'll tell you why. He ruined one
of Woltz Brothers' most valuable
proteges. For five years I had
this girl under training; singing
lessons! Acting lessons! Dancing
lessons! We spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars--I was going
to make her a star. I'll be even
more frank, just to show you that
I'm not a hard-hearted man, that it
wasn't all dollars and cents. That
girl was beautiful and young and
innocent and she was the greatest
piece of ass I've ever ad and I've
had them all over the world. Then
Johnny comes along with that olive
oil voice and guinea charm and she
runs off. She threw it all away to
make me look ridiculous. A MAN IN
MY POSITION CANNOT AFFORD TO BE
MADE TO LOOK RIDICULOUS!

EXT DAY: GENCO OLIVE OIL CO. (SUMMER 1945)

An unimposing little building in New York City on Mott
Street with a large old sign: "GENCO OLIVE OIL IMPORTS,
INC." next to an open-faced fruit market.

A dark Buick pulls up, and a single small man, whom we
cannot see well because of the distance, gets out and enters
the building. This is VIRGIL SOLLOZZO.

INT DAY: OLIVE OIL OFFICES (SUMMER 1945)

Looking toward the staircase we can hear SOLLOZZO's footsteps
before he actually rises into view. He is a small man, very
dark, with curly black hair. But wiry, and tight and hard,
and obviously very dangerous. He is greeted at the head of
the stairs by SONNY, who takes his hand and shakes it,
introducing himself. For a moment, there is a complex of
handshaking quite formal, and whispered respectful
introductions. Finally, SOLLOZZO is taken into the DON's
glass paneled office; the two principals are introduced.
They are very respectful of one another. Folding chairs are
brought in by FREDDIE, and soon they are all sitting around
in a circle; the DON, SOLLOZZO, SONNY, HAGEN, FREDDIE,
CLEMENZA and TESSIO. The DON is the slightest bit foolish
with all his compatriots, whereas SOLLOZZO has brought no
one. Throughout all that transpires, however, it is clear
that this scene is between two men: SOLLOZZO and DON CORLEONE.

SOLLOZZO
My business is heroin, I have poppy
fields, laboratories in Narseilles
and Sicily, ready to go into
production. My importing methods
are as safe as these things can be,
about five per cent loss. The risk
is nothing, the profits enormous.

DON CORLEONE
Why do you come to me? Why do I
deserve your generosity?

SOLLOZZO
I need two million dollars in
cash...more important, I need a
friend who has people in high
places; a friend who can guarantee
that if one of my employees be
arrested, they would get only light
sentences. Be my friend.

DON CORLEONE
What percentages for my family?

SOLLOZZO
Thirty per cent. In the first year
your share would be four million
dollars; then it would go up.

DON CORLEONE
And what is the percentage of the
Tattaglia family?

SOLLOZZO nods toward HAGEN.

SOLLOZZO
My compliments. I'll take care of
them from my share.

DON CORLEONE
So. I receive 30 per cent just for
finance and legal protection. No
worries about operations, is that
what you tell me?

SOLLOZZO
If you think two million dollars in
cash is just finance, I congratulate
you Don Corleone.

There is a long silence; in which each person present feels
the tension. The DON is about to give his answer.

DON CORLEONE
I said I would see you because I've
heard you're a serious man, to be
treated with respect...
(pause)
But I'll say no to you.

We feel this around the room.

DON CORLEONE
I'll give you my reasons. I have
many, many friends in Politics.
But they wouldn't be so friendly if
my business was narcotics instead
of gambling. They think gambling
is something like liquor, a harmless
vice...and they think narcotics is
dirty business.

SOLLOZZO takes a breath.

DON CORLEONE
No...how a man makes his living is
none of my business. But this
proposition of yours is too risky.
All the people in my family lived
well the last ten years, I won't
risk that out of greed.

SOLLOZZO
Are you worried about security for
your million?

DON CORLEONE
No.

SOLLOZZO
The Tattaglias will guarantee your
investment also.

This startles SONNY; he blurts out.

SONNY
The Tattaglia family guarantees our
investment?

SOLLOZZO hears him first, and then very slowly turns to face
him. Everyone is the room knows that SONNY has stepped out
of line.

DON CORLEONE
Young people are greedy, and they
have no manners. They speak when
they should listen. But I have a
sentimental weakness for my
children, and I've spoiled them, as
you see. But Signor Sollozzo, my
no is final.

SOLLOZZO nods, understands that this is the dismissal. He
glances one last time at SONNY. He rises; all the others do
as well. He bows to the DON, shakes his hand, and formally
takes his leave. When the footsteps can no longer be heard:

The DON turns to SONNY.

DON CORLEONE
Santino, never let anyone outside
the family know what you are
thinking. I think your brain is
going soft from all that comedy you
play with that young girl.

TWO OFFICE WORKERS are carrying an enormous floral display
with the word "THANK YOU" spelled out in flowers.

DON CORLEONE
What is this nonsense?

HAGEN
It's from Johnny. It was announced
this morning. He's going to play
the lead in the new Woltz Brothers
film.

INT DAY: WOLTZ'S BEDROOM (SUMMER 1945)

It is large, dominated by a huge bed, in which a man,
presumably WOLTZ, is sleeping. Soft light bathes the room
from the large windows. We move closer to him until we see
his face, and recognize JACK WOLTZ. He turns uncomfortably;
mutters, feels something strange in his bedsheets. Something
wet.

He wakens, feels the sheets with displeasure; they are wet.
He looks at his hand; the wetness is blood. He is
frightened, pulls aside the covers, and sees fresh blood on
his sheets and pajamas. He grunts, pulls the puddle of
blood in his bed. He feels his own body frantically,
moving, down, following the blood, until he is face to face
with the great severed head of Khartoum lying at the foot of
his bed. Just blood from the hacked neck. White reedy
tendons show. He struggles up to his elbows in the puddle
of blood to see more clearly. Froth covers the muzzle, and
the enormous eyes of the animal are yellowed and covered
with blood.

WOLTZ tries to scream; but cannot. No sound comes out.
Then, finally and suddenly an ear-splitting scream of pure
terror escapes from WOLTZ, who is rocking on his hands and
knees in an uncontrolled fit, blood all over him.

INT DAY: OLIVE OIL OFFICES (SUMMER 1945)

CLOSE VIEW on the GODFATHER. Nodding.

DON CORLEONE
Send Johnny my congratulations.

----------------------------------------FADE OUT--------

(SCENES 12 & 12 OMITTED)

FADE IN:

EXT DAY: FIFTH AVENUE (WINTER 1945)

Fifth Avenue in the snow. Christmas week. People are
bundled up with rosy faces, rushing to buy presents.

KAY and MICHAEL exit a Fifth Avenue department store,
carrying a stack of gaily wrapped gifts, arm in arm.

KAY
We have something for your mother,
for Sonny, we have the tie for
Fredo and Tom Hagen gets the
Reynolds pen...

MICHAEL
And what do you want for Christmas?

KAY
Just you.

They kiss.

INT DAY: HOTEL ROOM (WINTER 1945)

CLOSE ON a wooden radio, playing quiet Music. THE VIEW PANS
AROUND the dark hotel room, curtained against the daylight.

MICHAEL (O.S.)
We'll have a quiet, civil ceremony
at the City Hall, no big fuss, no
family, just a couple of friends as
witnesses.

The two are in each other's arms in a mess of bedsheets on
the two single beds that they have pushed together.

KAY
What will your father say?

MICHAEL
As long as I tell him beforehand he
won't object. He'll be hurt, but
he won't object.

KAY
What time do they expect us?

MICHAEL
For dinner. Unless I call and tell
them we're still in New Hampshire.

KAY
Michael.

MICHAEL
Then we can have dinner, see a
show, and spend one more night.

He moves to the telephone.

MICHAEL (CONT'D.)
Operator. Get me
(fill in number)


KAY
Michael, what are you doing?

MICHAEL
Shhh, you be the long distance
operator. Here.

KAY
Hello...this is Long Distance. I
have a call from New Hampshire. Mr.
Michael Corleone. One moment please.

She hands the phone to MICHAEL who continues the deception.

MICHAEL
Hello, Tom? Michael. Yeah...
listen, we haven't left yet. I'm
driving down to the city with Kay
tomorrow morning. There's something
important I want to tell the old
man before Christmas. Will he be
home tomorrow night?

INT DAY: OLIVE OIL OFFICE (WINTER 1945)

HAGEN in the Olive Oil Company office. In the background,
through the glass partitions, we can see the DON, at work in
his office. TOM is tired, and steeped in paperwork.

HAGEN (O.S.)
Sure. Anything I can do for you.

MICHAEL (O.S.)
No. I guess I'll see you Christmas.
Everyone's going to be out at Long
Beach, right?

HAGEN
Right.

He smiles. MICHAEL has hung up. He looks at the piles of
work, and can't face it. He rises, puts on his coat and
hat, and continues out.

He peeks into the DON's office.

HAGEN
Michael called; he's not leaving
New Hampshire until tomorrow
morning. I've got to go, I promised
Theresa I'd pick up some toys for
the kids.

The DON smiles and nods.

TOM smiles, and leaves; OUR VIEW remaining with DON CORLEONE.
FREDDIE is sitting on a bench in the corner, reading the
afternoon paper. He puts aside the papers the office
manager has prepared for him, and then moves to FREDDIE,
raps his knuckles on his head to take his nose out of the
paper.

DON CORLEONE
Tell Paulie to get the car from the
lot; I'll be ready to go home in a
few minutes.

FREDO
I'll have to get it myself; Paulie
called in sick this morning.

DON CORLEONE
That's the third time this month.
I think maybe you'd better get a
healthier bodyguard for me. Tell
Tom.

FREDO
(going)
Paulie's a good kid. If he's sick,
he's sick. I don't mind getting
the car.

FREDDIE leaves. He slowly puts on his jacket. Looks out
his window.

EXT DUSK: OLIVE OIL CO. (WINTER 1945)

FREDDIE crosses the street.

INT DUSK: OLIVE OIL OFFICE (WINTER 1945)

OFFICE MANAGER
Buon Watale, Don Corleone.

The MANAGER helps him on with his overcoat. Once again, the
DON glances out his window.

The black car pulls up; FREDDIE driving.

DON CORLEONE
Merry Christmas.
(handing the MANAGER
an envelope)


And he starts down the stairs.

EXT DUSK: OLIVE OIL CO. (WINTER 1945)

The light outside is very cold, and beginning to fail. When
FREDDIE sees his FATHER coming, he moves back into the
driver's seat. The DON moves to the car, and is about to
get in when he hesitates, and turns back to the long, open
fruit stand near the corner.

The PROPRIETOR springs to serve him. The DON walks among
the trays and baskets, and merely points to a particular
piece of fruit. As he selects, the MAN gingerly picks the
pieces of fruit up and puts them into a paper bag. The DON
pays with a five dollar bill, waits for his change, and then
turns back to the car.

EXT DUSK: POLKS TOY STORE (WINTER 1945)

TOM HAGEN exits carrying a stack of presents, all gift
wrapped. He continues past the windows. As he walks,
someone walks right in his way. He looks up. It is SOLLOZZO.

He takes TOM by the arm and walks along with him.

SOLLOZZO
(quietly)
Don't be frightened. I just want
to talk to you.

A car parked at the curb suddenly flings its rear door open.

SOLLOZZO
(urgently)
Get in; I want to talk to you.

HAGEN pulls his arm free. He is frightened.

HAGEN
I haven't got time.

TWO MEN suddenly appear on either side of him.

SOLLOZZO
Get in the car. If I wanted to
kill you you'd be dead already.
Trust me.

HAGEN, sick to his stomach, moves with his ESCORTS, leaving
our VIEW on the Mechanical windows gaily bobbing the story
of Hansel and Gretel. We HEAR the car doors shut, and the
car drive off.

EXT NIGHT: RADIO CITY - PHONE BOOTH (WINTER 1945)

RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL during the Christmas show. KAY and
MICHAEL exit; tears are still streaming down her cheeks, and
she sniffles, and dries her tears with Kleenex. KAY
nostalgically hums "The Bells of Saint Mary's," as they walk
arm in arm.

KAY
Would you like me better if I were
a nun?

MICHAEL
No.

KAY
Would you like me better if I were
Ingrid Bergman?

They have passed a little enclosed newsstand. KAY sees
something that terrifies her. She doesn't know what to do.
MICHAEL still walks, thinking about her question.

KAY
(a little voice)
Michael?

MICHAEL
I'm thinking about it.

KAY
Michael...

MICHAEL
No, I would not like you better if
you were Ingrid Bergman.

She cannot answer him. Rather she pulls him by the arm,
back to the newsstand, and points. His face goes grave.

The headlines read: "VITO CORLEONE SHOT, CHIEFTAN GUNNED
DOWN."

MICHAEL is petrified; quickly he takes each edition, drops a
dollar in the tray, and hungrily reads through them. KAY
knows to remain silent.

MICHAEL
(desperately)
They don't say if he's dead or alive.

EXT DUSK: OLIVE OIL CO. (WINTER 1945)

DON CORLEONE by the fruit stand; he is about to move to the
car, when TWO MEN step from the corner. Suddenly, the DON
drops the bag of fruit and darts with startling quickness
toward the parked car.

DON CORLEONE
Fredo, Fredo!

The paper bag has hit the ground, and the fruit begins
rolling along the sidewalk, as we HEAR gunshots.

Five bullets catch the DON in the back; he arches in pain,
and continues toward the car.

The PROPRIETOR of the fruit stand rushes for cover, knocking
over an entire case of fruit.

The TWO GUNMEN move in quickly, anxious to finish him off.

Their feet careful to avoid the rolling fruit. There are
more GUNSHOTS.

FREDDIE is hysterical; he tries to get out of the car;
having difficulty opening the door. He rushes out, a gun
trembling in his hand; his mouth open. He actually drops
the gun.

The gun falls amid the rolling fruit.

The GUNMEN are panicked. They fire once more at the downed
DON CORLEONE. His leg and arm twitch where they are hit;
and pools of blood are beginning to form.

The GUNMEN are obviously in a state of panic and confusion;
they disappear around the corner as quickly as they came.

The PEOPLE about the avenue have all but disappeared:
rather, we catch glimpses of them, poking their heads safely
from around corners, inside doorways and arches, and from
windows. But the street itself is now empty.

FREDDIE is in shock; he looks at his FATHER; now great
puddles of blood have formed, and the DON is lifeless and
face down in them.

FREDDIE falls back on to the curb and sits there, saying
something we cannot understand. He begins to weep profusely.

INT NIGHT: SUBWAY (WINTER 1945)

LUCA BRASI riding alone on a subway car, late at night. He
gets off.

He emerges at a subway terminal, proceeds out.

EXT NITE: NIGHT CLUB STREET (WINTER 1945)

LUCA walks down the late night street. He approaches an
elegant New York Nightclub, whose gaudy neon sign is still
winking this late at night. He waits and watches. Then the
sign goes out; and he proceeds into the club.

INT NITE: NIGHTCLUB (WINTER 1945)

The main floor of the Nightclub is very large, with endless
glistening wooden floors. Now, at this late time, the
chairs have been stacked on the tables and a NEGRO JANITOR
is waxing them. A single HAT-CHECK GIRL is counting her
receipts. LUCA moves past the empty bandstand, and sits at
the bar. ANOTHER MAN, dark and very well-built, moves
behind the bar.

MAN
Luca...I'm Bruno Tattaglia.

LUCA
I know.

LUCA looks up; and out of the shadows emerges SOLLOZZO.

SOLLOZZO
Do you know who I am?

LUCA Nods.

SOLLOZZO
You've been talking to the
Tattaglias. They thought we could
do business.

LUCA listens.

SOLLOZZO
I need somebody strong to protect
my operation, physically. I've
heard you're not happy with your
family, you might make a switch.

LUCA
If the money is good enough.

SOLLOZZO
On the first shipment, I can
guarantee you fifty thousand dollars.

LUCA looks at him; he had no idea the offer would be so good.

SOLLOZZO extends his hand, but LUCA pretends not to see it,
rather, he busies himself putting a cigarette in his mouth.
BRUNO TATTAGLIA, behind the bar, makes a cigarette lighter
magically appear, and holds it to LUCA's cigarette. Then,
he does an odd thing; he drops the lighter on the bar, and
puts his hand lightly on LUCA's, almost patting it.

INT NITE: SONNY'S LIVING ROOM (WINTER 1945)

The telephone in SONNY's house is ringing. He approaches
it, obviously fresh from a nap.

SONNY
Yeah.

VOICE (O.S.)
Do you recognize my voice?

SONNY
I think so. Detective squad?

VOICE (O.S.)
Right. Don't say my name, just
listen. Somebody shot your father
outside his place fifteen minutes
ago.

SONNY
Is he alive?

VOICE (O.S.)
I think so, but I can't get close
enough. There's a lot of blood.
I'll try to find out more.

SONNY
Find out anything you can...you got
a Grand coming.
(click)


SONNY cradles the phone. An incredible rage builds up in
him, his face actually turning red. He would like to rip
the phone to pieces in his bare hands. Then he controls it.
Quickly, he dials another number.

SONNY
Theresa, let me talk to Tom. Not
yet? Have him call me as soon as
he gets home.

He hangs up.

SANDRA (O.S.)
Sonny? Sonny, who is it?
(she enters the room)
What is it?

SONNY
(calmly)
They shot the old man.

SANDRA
Oh God...

SONNY
Honey...don't worry. Nothing else
is going to happen.

There is a POUNDING on the door. A BABY starts crying.

SANDRA
(really frightened)
SONNY?

SONNY reaches into a cabinet drawer, takes out a gun, and
moves quickly. He opens the front door quickly. It is
CLEMENZA. He enters, SONNY closes the door. SANDRA goes to
look after the baby.

CLEMENZA
(excited)
You heard about your father?

SONNY
Yeah.

CLEMENZA
The word is out in the streets that
he's dead.

SONNY
Where the hell was Paulie, why
wasn't he with the Don?

CLEMENZA
Paulie's been a little sick all
winter...he was home.

SONNY
How many times did he stay home the
last couple of months?

CLEMENZA
Maybe three, four times. I always
asked Freddie if he wanted another
bodyguard, but he said no. Things
have been so smooth the last ten
years...

SONNY
Go get Paulie, I don't care how
sick he is. Pick him up yourself,
and bring him to my father's house.

CLEMENZA
That's all? Don't you want me to
send some people over here?

SONNY
No, just you and Paulie.

CLEMENZA leaves; SONNY moves to SANDRA, who sits on the
couch weeping quietly, comforting her BABY.

SONNY
A couple of our people will come to
stay here. Do whatever they say;
I'm going over to the main house.
If you want me, use Pop's special
phone.

The telephone rings again. SONNY answers it.

SONNY
Hello.<

Thank you all, I've been having some problems falling asleep at night.

well done, doc.

Sticky this MFer.