I stared at the blue screen at the center of it all, knowing what came before, what came after. The Game.
The Creator.
“Are you he?” I again confront Zebra also at the center, forwards facing white still in front here and backwards facing black still in back yacking on his phone. I had a right to know, not be left behind.
Lips still zipped? Maybe he told me what was going on without speaking. To be continued?
Filed under **VIRTUAL OT, 0052, 0213, C2077, Heyworth, Indigo Parallel, Jeogeot, Nawt Vaya+, Newtonia, NVFS
“Huh. 1st you’re at Dandelion’s over in Vista Del Rey and then downstairs here at the Port Cafe just a minute ago (35:45) and now here (41:15). What gives?”
“Get away from me. *Right*…*now*.”
Center between his two Port Cafe manifestations (38:30), highlighting Key Woman.
Actual center of 1:16:36 video (38:18) featuring the same gal. “Get away from me you creep,” she says similarly to, um, White Dude just a little later on. White Zebra?
And we’ve seen that other guy before too directly staring at the camera, associated with a center from yet another video. Huh indeed.
We called him Madison then. Madison Perez. Is this correct? Potential future mayor of Night City?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0052, 0210, C2077, City Center, Heyworth
The BD was over as Terrance Sr. took off her red dress at 12 and turned back into a man, ball over. I pulled the rig off my head, sat up. STB man, I recognized early on, basically at the start of it all. I must put this down in my blog!
—–
Ahh, *exactly* what I need,” thinks Philip in one of his more recent dreams as he spots it coming toward him. He then positions himself directly in front of the approaching red El Camino, freshly entering his hometown of GTAV’s Sandy Shores from the east, daring it to hit him. It screeched to a halt — big mistake, should have just plowed right through the him like a speeding bullet or something.
Philip goes to the door, opens it, drags the passenger out on the road, debates whether to smash his head in but decides not to as he has more important matters to deal with today, takes control of the wheel…
… leaving Albertville M. Spaghettiboro by way of Stockholm and Lima coughing and wheezing in the smoke of his spinning tires and belching exhaust pipe. “Little Hell here we come!” he cries about the destination on the opposite side of the Alamo Sea from Sandy Shores as the landscape wizzes by him — directly across from SS, actually. Some people call it Heaven but Philip knows the truth because you have to raise a Little Hell first, like a child to an adult. All children are spawns of Satan, he knew. Like 7th Devil up in the castle perpetually holding the bowl of patriot soup that stands in for a cement pond. Or something — Frank explained the whole 4 string alignment resulting from Mouse’s diabetic fit the other day to him but his brain didn’t retain all that much. All he thinks of is pleasure, what’s good for *moi*. Which is why he had to, in the end, be killed. By Frank or Mikie, didn’t matter that much. Death to Philip Strevor was all that both could think of. The Id to their Ego and Superego respectively must *go*. TBC
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0515, Blaine County, GTA
He was shouting at me as soon as I went out on the balcony. I was just thinking recently that I rarely see anyone in Nightsity above street level. And then here he was, just standing over there, a sticky outy thumb situation.
“Hey mo- f-cker! Do me a big big favor and bring over my clothes to me! Right over there!” I can make out the distant man pointing somewhere to my right. I pause, wondering if I should even reply to this obviously somewhat insane person across the way. Like I’m going to deliver anything, let’s see, 5 stories up to a strange apartment in a building on one of the most dangerous streets in Kabusie; *knew* I shouldn’t have come here and do some exploring today. But then I spot them hanging off a balcony about 3 stories down on my side of the street, barely visible from around a corner. At least he wasn’t lying about the garments. But, heck, they’re probably not his anyway.
“My clothes my clothes!” he pressed before I could exit the balcony and withdraw back into the depths of my own building. “I *know* you can see them from there — I guess! There’s a shirt, then another shirt and then 2 pairs of pants hanging behind the shirts, and, most important, my *dress* in the middle! My red mo- f-cking dress I *just* bought at the pawn shop… I mean, er, J.C. Ponney’s! That’s what I need to wear *tonight*!”
“I-I can’t help you!” I decided to give him. “Sorry!” I tacked on.
“Aw maan!” I see him flip his arms at me in disgust. “I can’t go back in there, maan!” There was true grief in his voice now; maybe he was even weeping a bit too? “The old lady… she…!” He paused. So I guessed what he was going to say.
“Kicked you out?!” I imagine him slapping her in the face. Or worse.
“No no, maan! You got it all wrong! *All* wrong!” But he still wouldn’t tell me what happened. He started pacing back and forth back and forth on his narrow perch, hands to his face. Yeah, he definitely appeared to be weeping now.
“Alright!” I decided to say for some God awful reason, perhaps coming from the same warped curiosity that brought me to this area in the first place today. “I’ll go down there and knock on the door and see if anyone is home — ask about the clothes!”
“Oh, man! Would you do that for me?! That would be awesome, mo- f-cker! Just don’t mention *Terrance*!”
I assumed Terrance was his own name but it turned out to be his son’s. And it wasn’t him that hit her but the opposite way around. We all kind of became friends after that, me and the father and his son from another mother. And he sure did look mighty pretty in that red dress he wore to the mayor’s ball that very night, smiles all around. TBC?
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0514, C2077, Kabusie
Just as I enter Little China from Kabuki (1), this formerly expressionless kid breaks out into a big smile when I approach him while crossing the street. I can’t recall seeing that happen — at least to that degree — in all my now many months walking around this Night City of Cyberpunk 2077 game fame. About all NPCs there maintain an expressionless look on their face. Seemed to *mean something*.
Then a couple of minutes later in the same walk I pass Happy Juniors. Can’t recall that store before either. Get it? That junior back there unexpectedly turned happy and then this.
And we’ve met the guy posing next to the store before too in that above screen capture. I call him Sunamai T-Shirt Boy or STB for short, featured in no less that 8 posts now from 2 different photo-novels.
I have a suspicion this is connected to the idea of transitions, specifically here, the transition between two sub-districts of an imaginary city. It’s happened before with Kabuki, except here we’re going out instead of coming in.
https://bakerbloch.com/2024/07/10/00430413/
We’ll most likely revisit this whole “happy” subject soon.
(1) Elsewhere in the blog and attached photo-novels I call Little China *Small* China and turn Kabuki into Kabusie. Overarching Night City is also transformed into Nightsity. I have my reasons. 🙂
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0511, C2077, Kabusie, Small China
ALBERTVILLE: Yes, it comes from the movie “Tampopo,” which literally means Dandelion (in Japanese). It’s a film about a woman, a cook like me, trying to create the perfect ramen; believe it came out in 1986 (sic: 1985). Her restaurant in the movie has the same name as ours. *We* are seeking the perfect ramen.
ME: Hold on. I think we’re having some technical difficulties. Yes, my power cord was loose, sorry (PRESS). Yes, now it’s on. Continue… (TBC)
He told me to back up a bit more and I finally saw it, the double vision he spoke about before locking into place like a renegade magic eye. 2 halves of the restaurant directly overlapping each other through a crossing, slots in one seeming to be perfectly filled by the other.
The ears of the mirrored central woman with the flaxen hair is whispered into by the dark hard woman on either side, perhaps the most obvious communication between the now combined spaces. I could even make out the hushed words they shared: “I am instant.” With this, the two instantly became untangled, the special vision was over and the restaurant returned to mundane, like a master magician snapping one out of hypnosis. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro was back at his noodle cooking station inside the customer encircled kitchen, unable to be spoken to any longer. He was never here in the first place. But what was said before the transfer knocked me on the floor, kicked me in the shins, insert whatever idiom for shock and awe you wish here. Fortunately I made sure I recorded at least the meaty part of our imaginary conversation. 🙂
Looking around to doublecheck everything remained stable, I went into the men’s bathroom to play, making sure noone else was in it; just couldn’t wait. I killed two birds with one stone (another idiom!) while sitting on the commode. PRESS
ME: Yes, now it’s on. Continue… (pause) You were talking about the origin of the restaurant’s name (I prompted). (longer pause) Albertville?
I cut off the machine along with the pee. Something went wrong! (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0406, Europe, Greece
Well it was absolutely the worse place Lexi and I could have gone. The slurping the slurping! We could only stand it for a second then had to mute the whole location. We’d have to read lips from now on. Luckily lips are like one pink and we had no problem with it. Carrcass+1.
“About the dandelion!” I said if only to others, the words understood as mere vibrations to myself physically and in my head mentally. Lexi couldn’t take any more and exited the scene stage left, not even being able to stand just visual. Those mouths those mouths!
“Yeah, what about the dandelion!?” responded the waitperson closest to me, 2 plates in his hands and one spinning on his nose, just kidding about the nose. But as deftly as he was handling those plates with 3 bowls apiece full of steaming hot noodles he might be able to pull it off. I could tell he could pause only for a second, which was reinforced when he said, “Hurry up, man!”
I hesitated again and he was gone. Waitress I’d had my eye on next. “Miss, oh miss!?” She presently had 3 drinks in her two hands and one arm, that 3rd tucked behind one of the ones in the hands, reader’s choice. Not a nose once more but pretty impressive still. “Hurry it up, bud!” she said, kind of mimicking the man. “The dandelion… what is the signif—!” But she was gone with the “…”. I had to learn from past mistakes! We’ll… 2 of them. Dammit!
Next: the ramen cooker. Albertville Mercury Spaghettiboro I learned, an Italian by way of Stockholm and Lima. I had to lean in real hard from my stool at the crowded counter to get his attention back in back. “About the dandelion!” I pointed almost straight up now to the most significant card picture (to me) attached to the metal partition encircling the kitchen at the center of it all instead of forward like before. “Significance?!” I uttered as simply as possible but still with perhaps too many syllables. Caught him right at the start of his break. And, big break, he was a big fan of restaurant lore. *My* big break.
15 minutes and 15 seconds later, we got to the mention of “tartar mosquito” in that badly translated Tripadvisor review which led me here in the first place. Success! (TBC)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0048, 0405, Europe, Greece
We had the silliest argument when we returned her apartment, with Lexi insisting that the Allgoods robot factory I had worked at for, let’s see, *2* weeks now was in the Darksity sub-district of Kabusie, like her apartment here, like Crooked. I countered with the sub-district of North Side to its north, because that was the address of the factory on all the letterhead they sent out. We fought and fought and then I just pulled up a map on her computer to demonstrate my point, because I was sure I was right. Well… turns out we were *both* right. The factory exists 1/2 in Kabusie and 1/2 in North Side, with the line right down the middle. Which gets us also to the line that represents the end of this section.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0516, C2077, Kabusie
We finally made time in our busy schedules, ha, to visit Crooked, or what Lexi deemed as Crooked. But the only thing askew about it, really, was that telephone poll just outside the building. Nevertheless, she said, the structure is indeed Crooked, as in a name from another time, another dimension. “Now we just have to get the correct furniture to fit inside,” she said, which got me wondering. “Purple,” she said about the color. “It has to be purple.”
It still wasn’t clear to me if she intended to actually purchase or rent the building set apart from the rest in this Kabusie ghetto, so deep into Darksity that straightness and reason forgot to follow (I think is the way she put it). Or did she just intend to squat there for a time while the processes she also described worked their way through? This is the place she finishes Ralph — I did have that much. End of August. The ditches open themselves up to her like a bitch in heat. Strange way to put it I know, but that’s her phrasing again. We’ll see how it pans out. I guess I’m along for the ride too.
(to be continued)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0047, 0515, C2077, Kabusie
