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Journal of ElfTech977
Friday, November 18th, 2005
5:50pm

violence .. anger .. rage .. these often exist as masks .. obscuring pain and hurt .. as if the act of frightening others away from us will save us from further pain .. but it is the armor we wear that prevents our healing .. its rough edges that reopen our wounds.

my dreams this week .. i never remember being so overwhelmed by them before .. last night i was surrounded by this huge .. thing .. ... .. no .. it was two separate things .. only they were so intertwined .. in alignment with each other .. then they became two distinct things .. polar opposites .. in an instant.

wherever they touched .. it felt like everything was being torn apart .. i was trapped in the middle if it .. them .. ... .. no .. everyone .. everything was there .. we were all so small .. so afraid .. these forces were going to destroy us .. extinguish the light from the world.

through my tears .. there was a flicker .. a trick of the slowly fading light being engulfed by the spreading darkness .. the flicker was suddenly a beacon .. cleaving the darkness in two .. freeing us all .. ... .. the 'things' .. they .. ... .. i can only say that sometimes 'opposite' is just a 180 degree turn away.

i woke crying .. not tears of despair or fear .. but of joy .. of release.

Journal of ElfTech722
Friday, November 18th, 2005 7:20 PM

Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus,
Right down Santa Claus Lane.
( dum dee dum dum )

Vixen, Blitzen, all his reindeer
Pulling on the reins.
( baa daa daa daaa )

Bells are ringing, children singing,
All is merry and bright.
Hang your stockings and say a prayer,
Cause Santa Claus comes tonight.

What a magnificent singing voice I have! Villiam Hung can't hold a candle to me! I think I missed my true calling.

I am practicing some classic card tricks for my act: the traveling ace, grunny's rising card, gypsy's curse, invisible deck. Gotta keep my chops sharp. I tried a few out on some of the techs and seem to be creating quite a gathering every day at lunch. Elftech101 is especially fond of the Rising Grunny.
Afterwards I gave them all a very moving rendition of "Baby it's Cold Outside". I offered to sing them a few more, but they all said they had to get back to work right away. I guess my excellent toy production on the moonshoes is putting them all to shame ( Elftech003 is doing a smashing good job for me on the moonshoes!) ninja
I didn't want them to feel bad so I decided to cut back a little and took another nap underneath my workbench. The late night at Gambino's Gold Rush with Prancer really took it out of me. That deer can't count cards worth a darn! I lost 1800 gold because of that knuckle-head.
Fortunately, I will be making it all back on my magic act in a few days. Many people seem very eager to see The Amusing Elf as I will now be called. ( I can't use The Amazing Elf anymore. I have recieved several disturbing PMs threatening to blackmail me. ) Anyways, the act should go over very well. I very generously only charging 1500 gold per entry.
I also got several suggestions on how to turn Prancer into a rubber chicken. I guess every the Gaian thinks a magic wand is all it takes to be the world's greatest magician. It's called showmanship people! After all, who came up with the idea to turn Prancer into a rubber chicken in the first place?

Journal of ElfTech003
Saturday, November 19th, 2005
12:45 PM

I woke up under my workbench Friday afternoon. 1,200 Coki utility belts -2 days worth- were finished and gone. A check of the Manufacturing Department's status chart, confirmed that the belts have been received and logged in by 247.

I brought the sheets of titanium, heaps of bullet-proof fabric, and rolls of faux rabbit fur back to Inventory. The amputation of moonshoe production will be discovered soon.

Information extracted from the overheard whispers of other elves sparked my curiosity about the latest shipping incident. My ability to be ignored allowed me to easily escape notice as I checked the buildings, room by room.

I found my query in a dark corner of Sublevel F. Rows of cages with metal bars lined the wall, stacked three high. Inside were hundreds of arms and legs connected to fluffy pillows no larger than my biggest rubber band ball. Some piled together, resembling moving heaps of batted cotton.

The smell in the air was akin to a quiet morning after a night of snowfall. Crisp, and fresh, with a nipping, frosted chill.

They were all head and limbs, padded feet and bright, slightly-crossed green eyes. Their chubby arms were a mere suggestion of the two strong clubs that one day they might become. Small tail-tuffs whisked from side to side at different tempos.

Each had a silvery protuberance on either side of the head. The metallic cornucopia curved upward, small and sterile, not causing damage as they playfully nudged each other.

They produced a mountain of consonant based noises, mrrrr, and rhrrrr, and brrrrr. Comforting blankets of alluring sound flowed from the cages creating rich layers of tone. They yawned often, exposing their fleshy pink tongues.

Each ice-puff had a single rounded milk-tooth fang protruding from the corner of it's wide mouth, identical in position for each, but with a left-side or right occurrence. The lefties had a tendency to roll at a 30-degree angle to the right, while the preference was reversed in the others.

Gender could not be ascertained from my position, each creature as sexless as the snowballs they resemble.

One approached the bars and sniffed me with it's moist, pink nose. It's fur was as soft and delicate as the lining of the moonshoes, but I could feel the breath-filled warmth, and the quick beats of a living heart.

Journal of ElfTech062
Sunday, November 20th, 2005
3AM

Couldn't sleep again. Perhaps it's time for another journal.

Everyone is working so hard this year, yet the future is still uncertain. Mrs. Clause had been wandering in and out of the R&D center quite often. I have no idea what is going on in there, but it seems like there is something big happening.

I'm hungry but all I could find were vegie fruit roll-ups... looks like I'll be sleeping with an empty stomache.

Journal of ElfTech722
Sunday, November 20th, 2005 1:20 PM

On Friday morning, Elftech247 told me I needed to work on Saturday and Sunday.
"Since you have been doing such a great job on the moonshoes, maybe you could give Elftech003 a hand with all the CoKi Kitty utility belts. She seems to have fallen behind .... "

"But it is the weekend!" I complained.

"Since when do elves mind working on the weekend? We love making toys!"

At work, I told Elftech003, "It seems 247 has been impressed by all the moonshoes you made and wants you to take on the CoKi Kitty utility belts as well. I will be practicing some new tricks at my workbench, if you need me ..."

Yesterday, I went to work, but I was not in a holly jolly mood. Elftech003 seemed more than happy to make the CoKi Kitty items, so who am I to deprive her? I decided to work on a new song as well for my act. I might even make a music recording or two.


Grandma got run over by a reindeer,
Coming home from our house Christmas Eve.
You may say there's no such thing as Santa,
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe


When I looked over at Elftech003 to see if she was enjoying my singing, she had a pair of oversized earmuffs on. Well, she'll just have to hear my performance in a few days, I guess.

Meanwhile, I have received many complaints about my new stage name. They seem to think The Amusing Elf makes me sound like a sideshow joke and not very impressive at all. I am thinking about several new ideas for a stage name, but I don't have much time before the show .... Some of the top ideas are: The Astounding Elf, The Great Elfini, or my personal favorite, The Magical Elf. Still trying to decide.

Journal of ElfTech247
Sunday November 20, 2005
3:40 pm

Authorization: 247
Password: ********
Encryption: text/plain

Current Mood: Mellow annoyed?
Current Music: "The Fidelity" by Mason Jazz


Edit: How frustrating! It seems S Corp has put in place some encryption tools for things they deem "sensitive". Now to go back and read what I wrote, I have to remove all those line breaks before I can decode it, and THEN I have to decode it. All this work just to remember what I did yesterday. This is most certainly going to hurt my productivity.

I can't believe we've had so many problems in shipping lately. I'm not sure why either. Everything has been at or below the weight limit- and the security camera is doing a bit too good of a job in picking up everything. Because of this, I put in a request to have all cameras in R&D shut down. Questions are certainly never a good thing, and I do believe we should be minimizing such questions.

The utility belt production turnaround was amazing! Under pressure, 003 churned out far more than we need for this season. Elves just don't have that sort of turnaround naturally. I've asked her to take a small break from production to explore other toys she might like to make. If you work too much, too long, and too hard, you will burn yourself out. We can't have anyone crumbling from stress, not at this time of the year. Speaking of burnout, it was a curious note that I didn't see a single belt logged to 722. Moonshoe production also seems to have stopped. This is certainly most curious, and I think I'll need to have a word or two with him to make sure everything is okay.

Most people should be returning from their recon assignments over the next day or more. If all goes well, we will have our Naughty/Nice list finished.

I've reassigned 957 as well. Inspecting ping pong balls for defects is one of the most important jobs anyone here at the facility could have- I'm certain he'll understand the magnitude of his assignment.

Journal of ElfTech137
Sunday, November 20th, 2005
7:10 PM


The Super Drencher 5000.

It was originally designed as a multichamber automatic water gun, but with a few modifications it should prove useful for R&D's top secret project. The claw from last week fit perfecty with only minor modifications needed. We are still waiting for the test results from the latest specimins, Dinanthropoides Nivalis. Hopefully they will provide the missing link we have been pushing for in our research of that mysterious substance...

But for now.. I'll be cosigning Elftech247's request to remove the security cameras.
Its not good when too many people start asking too many questions.

Elftech 138 is so strange. I see her space out sometimes, staring in my direction but then upon looking around more I saw there was one of those baby yeti's right beside me, so I can't tell if she is looking at me or the yeti. Then the yeti climbed up my leg and got into my lap... I have to admit that they are pretty cute. So she is staring at us, and then after thinking about it a second, maybe I am the weird one sitting here with a yeti in my lap when there are many other important matters to attend to!

*throws the yeti to Elftech138*