Secret Laboratory
Music, News, & Global Affairs
UPDATE: Mental Illness Redux – Behaviorist Mike Samsa Responds. I was having a heated discussion today about the somewhat contrived nature of modern psychology – at least fringe psychology. You see, as I understand things (with said understandings relatively biased and, I’ll admit, somewhat limited in an overall general way, so definitely...
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Thousands of baby rats streamed out of the corners and cracks, their tiny pink bodies soon covering the dirty walls and floor. He bolted awake onto an elbow, breathing heavily and blinking away the huddles of baby rats he saw lying on the carpet. He lied back down onto the couch and wondered why...
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Hello? Yes? See honey, nobody is here, just like we said. Oh, I’m here alright. But I saw him. He was right in the corner. Honey, it must have been a shadow. Or a dream. No, it was me. But I did see him! She’s such a sweet girl, would a pretty face like...
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(I do not endorse any political ads) Intro to “Totally Gone West” Mark experienced culture shock in his high school years when (after his parents divorce) he moved from the inner city to a small town suburb and there encountered many lily white- blue eyed -blonde haired hockey jocks and their cheerleaders. He eventually...
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Stanley stood quietly drinking a lemonade and staring at the dead Hutterite man lying on his front step. He was sprawled out on his back with an arrow sticking out of his chest. Stanley wondered if he could tell time off of it. He also wondered where the body had come from. He figured...
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Hi old friend, I’m currently writing you from the Black Hills of South Dakota; I’ve traveled a long way from Conway. How did I end up here? I’m sure you are wondering, and I’ve asked myself that question many times. How did I get here? The answer is simple, yet complex. Cliche? I know....
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On a nightstand on the edge of its master’s bed, an old orange cup sat and waited. It was a simple cup – short and squat, with a handle just big enough for a child’s hand to grasp. In its heyday apple juice flowed out like mother’s milk. It was requested constantly by its master,...
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Nobody could understand why she was still with him. She, once so beautiful and full of energy, now worn out from life, the children, and his borderline abusive neglect. It was the fairy tale allowed to play out. He regarded her now, the few times he did, with a sort of disconnected contempt. He...
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Sarah shivered as she looked at the photograph of her precious baby girl. The picture was just like one of hundreds that she had taken of her newborn daughter since she came home from the hospital. It showed Bethany sleeping peacefully in her crib with the lights dimmed just a little. Yet this one...
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He got an envelope with his sign up sheet and money returned to him. “Lack of interest in the Summer League” It explained. His heart dropped, and quickly felt foolish. The anxiety over deciding to join, the imaginary future conversations, even the jogging to get in shape; they all seemed very stupid. He was...
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The main title of this piece is not a typo. According to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, as far back as April 10th of 2010, representatives from Apple Computers met with reps from Hatchett, Simon and Schuster, and HarperCollins, three of the largest traditional publishing houses in the industry. The purpose of this meeting? ...
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The Man’s lights tempted epilepsy as they bounced off the buildings and our eyes on the once quietly-profitable night. As Brown Beverly thundered through the burnout street we knew the crackdown had begun. Treev kept a keen eye on the road as he threw his paper hat out the window and tore the magnetic...
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Our meals were placed on the homemade wooden table by the wife as our host, right arm under the table and left hand slowly turning a beer bottle, continued to talk about his hogs. We’ve learned that if you travel freely and want to eat, you have to listen to stories. “Yes sir, hogging...
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I must get something off of my chest and in print before I spiral into another six month non-productive, contemplative state. It wasn’t until I recently finished the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins that I allowed myself time again to examine the state of affairs in fantasy fiction. What I found is entirely solipsistic,...
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The Uncanny Valley: Tales From A Lost Town by Gregory Miller Illustrated by Randall York StoneGarden.Net Publishers 2011 Reviewed by Mike Nardine (“Gregory Miller is a fresh new talent with a great future.” –Ray Bradbury) As all of us know, a valley is a low point on the topography usually bisected by a river...
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Brown Beverly screeched to a halt next to me amidst a billow of blue smoke and blaring noise. Treev leaned his body out the window and shot me with his wide wild grin. “I said boy, get in.” I lit a cigarette and eyed the light-colored trail Brown Beverly left in her erratic wake...
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I just got an invitation for our 15-year class reunion from that PC-worshiping, holier-than-thou witch, Jessie Spano. “Dear Peoples of Bayside class of ’94!” Blech. Surprised she didn’t require us to bring canned goods for the homeless or cleaning supplies for oil-stained penguins. I’m not even sure how she got the job of putting...
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Shawna is toweling off her shower-pink skin with my one-and-only extra towel. There is nothing sexy about the mechanical and functional way she is drying herself. With head bowed, she’s examining some skin irritation on the shin of her still-drip-speckled leg. She looks at me. Looks at me, somehow, with her nose parallel to...
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It all happened on a Thursday night I had off work. I was eating bacon grease off the bottom of my frying pan when my friend Treev Wilson let himself into my apartment unannounced and began menacing me with a large black stun gun, demanding to see my fingers. I hadn’t seen Treev in...
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Their lips met in a titillating kiss, hearts throbbing, hands exploring. “Darling,” she whispered—the tender embrace ushering the eternity, her sweet breath on his, their lips locked, “My darling …” Just a minute. Apart from the obvious gawkiness of the piece, she just couldn’t talk while kissing, could she? No, that won’t do. Too...
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“Gran’pa Baltazar, tell us a story! Gran’pa Baltazar, tell us a story-y-y!” the little ones nagged shrilly, tugging on the old man’s tunic. “Well, alright, my little pigeons, gather ’round.” Old Baltazar eyed the small fry affectionately. His four little grandchildren, all daughter’s stock, nestled excitedly at his feet by the fire in the...
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“Actually, I was hoping to check out the Limplifter,” Brian said. I was sitting with my friend at his house. We were planning our night, and I had suggested that we call up a girl that I know who has notoriously loose morals. At least our minds were both on the same general track....
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It was early evening and I was trying to eat my dinner and watch the prime time movie on TV. I was totally enthralled with the drama that was unfolding before my eyes, poised in anticipation of when Robocop would burst into the cocaine lab and start pumping lead into every person in the...
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I met a fascinating man at the bar the other night. His drunkenness was so crude and extreme, and his behavior so grotesque, that he was really the only person in the entire establishment who was worth paying any attention to. He was dressed in a trench coat … and apparently nothing else, since...
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The little green Dodge Neon was working overtime, barreling up U.S. Interstate 35 at about a hundred miles per hour. That’s a crude estimate on my part, because the speedometer’s needle was buried at eighty-five, and it had been since we left the rental agency. The car was shaking and making terrible rattling noises,...
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For those of us here in Minnesota, winter is not quite over. May is half gone and a few hours ago, it was 40 degrees outside. I had the fireplace on and the space heater going. Then the sun came out, the temperature jumped about 30 degrees, and I had to open the windows.
These days we hear a lot of talk about Global Warming. Whether or not there is any truth to it remains to be seen—and frankly, it doesn't make a damned bit of difference either way. Climate change is real—warmer, colder, whatever—but it has nothing to do with us and we're never going to prevent it. And since we got a foot of snow last week and it's going to be 90 on Tuesday ... well ... I'm not sold on Global Warming. The weatherman can't even predict rain, let alone tell us whether or not we're facing an inferno and/or an ice age.
This weekend is the fishing opener. This means very little to me, as I never bother with a license anyway. It's also Mother's Day. Recently I've been bombarded by emails from an online florist, suggesting that I send Ex-wife #2 a beautiful bouquet.
Never in hell. Maybe if they had an option to have the arrangement stuffed with angry bees; but barring that ... no.
To hell with holidays and bees and everything else. For the last 24 hours, Terencio and I have been plotting the future of this magazine. He even wrote his column and published a couple of articles. The next order of business is for me to write something.
And I might. I have plenty to say—none of it important, of course—but a meandering essay with no direction whatsoever is probably the best way to ease back into my routine. Politics? Not to start. Not today.
And ... meh.
—John T. Schmitz
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Founder, Maple Hills Press
editor@secretlaboratory.org
"I wanted my own column in the sidebar ... but now I don't know what to do with it."
"But sure you do! You write in it! That is what most people who claim the moniker of writer would likely do."
"But what do I write?"
"The resolution to that parable, my friend, lies upon the path that you must seek."
"Who are you?! And where did you come from?!"
"I am...the part of you that is, and will be, in all that we are..."
Hello Lab!
The voices are becoming louder and the cries ever more commanding. I hear them and I am working the best I can to whip myself into some kind of respectable shape and take back my claim to authorship.
So, I have been signaled to action from the Lab's headquarters. There has been much waking from many deep slumbers and now the drowsiness is fading and the challenges of the day are dutifully materializing before my conscience in their daily summons to contest.
No fear, Secret Laboratory! Power down the Bat Beacon, John.
John. John? Wherefore art thou? Come quickly and hear ye: The Lab is scheduled to receive a bright and refreshing burst of content! I have plans for at least one new category: Network Security
In the recent weeks I have become familiar with penetration testing software such as Backtrack and Kali Linux. These are Linux based Operating Systems that are used by network security professionals for white hat constructive hacking; and network exploiting operators for black hat destructive hacking. Writers of Secret Laboratory are free to show interest in this new category if you so choose. I will be producing content regarding how to crack WEP/WPA/WPA2 wireless encryption and how to protect yourself from such attacks, for starters. It only gets interesting from there.
For those of you interested in preparing yourself for this new world of fun and adventure, I recommend you go ahead and get the tools: Kali Linux
It can be downloaded at - http://www.kali.org/downloads/
The Secret Laboratory is in the grueling process of churning old gears and installing new ones to bring life into our world of journalistic comedy and tragedy. Sink or swim, this boat is headed out to sea.
I'm headed off to write a column now that the voices in my head have stopped...
But I can't seem to find John.
John?
Oh shit. Really? He's in the bathroom? Again? Geez, I'm glad I didn't have whatever he did. Must have been the pills. I'm glad I only had the purple ones...
"Hey John! Can you reach the mini fridge from in there? I think I need another beer!"
—Terencio Safford
Editor, Secret Laboratory
terencio@secretlaboratory.org
