Editing Luke (section)

=== The Second Thread ===
I shall regale you once again, with the tale of my people.

Before we start, I find it interesting in the extreme that I appear to have been stricken by Father Nurgle himself for daring to elaborate on the exploits of a certain THAT GUY, Luke. However, my tale is an important one, and so I shall continue regardless - apologies for my absence in the last day.

Now... are we sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin. First, a recap.

Luke is the name of a certain housemate that my friends and I had the extreme displeasure of sharing a house with during most of our time at university. He has already been established as a foul smelling, unwashed braggart with a penchant for creating monstrously weeaboo DMPCs and turning otherwise positive experiences into foul gaffs of legend. I was... surprised to discover that you gentlemen had not heard so many tales about one THAT GUY, but I guess he was a fairly rare person after all. Despite his being a mess of a human being, with the personal hygiene habits that would disgust a troll, Luke was training to be a doctor. He had access to an undefined fortune givn to him by his thoroughly nice, if embarrassed , parents and flaunted this whenever he could.

And now, on with the story...
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'''Part the Eighth: Walrus'''

So, our first year in the house had come to an end. Nairda was going to be spending his next year of study in London, which meant he was moving out; therefore it was time to find a new housemate. Fortunately, one was at hand - TOLS from last night, who from here on shall be referred to as Sirk (again, he'll understand) was looking for a new house, preferably one with a larger room than the box he had been staying in. It seemed a natural choice. At the same time, I managed to agree with Luke that it was high time that we swapped the room assignments around; a change is as good as a rest, after all. Enter case study 3(b)

CASE STUDY 3(b): Being a case study of THAT GUY interacting with a landlord and fellow tenants

The agreement sank in, and I let it lay for the next month or so, until Nairda's time in the house was just about up. I helped him move out (enjoying the loud conversation at the top of the stairs where his parents complained about the godawful stink that was coming from a certain person's room) and then waited until Sirk came around to look over the property. Luke deigned to turn his Limp Biscuit (Sp? Eh.) off and join us. I naturally brought up the issue with the rooms. Beforehand, I had discussed with Luke about how we should draw straws to see who got each room, with the shortest straw getting the booby prize - a room with slightly lower rent than the others, but only big enough to fit a bed inside. Luke, however, had other ideas.

Once again, he showed us his grin - teeth completely green now, blackened gums with bright red swollen bits. I'm a fairly strong-stomached man, but I confess I had to lean back at the smell of his breath, like he'd been eating roadkill recently. He informed us cheerfully that he was taking the largest room in the house and that there was nothing that we could do about it.
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Being the savvy people that we are, we went to get a copy of the contract, which (oddly enough we thought at the time, but realizing our salvation at that moment) stated that the Landlord actually had final say in the running of the household - which, we reasoned, was grounds enough for moving Luke into one of the smaller rooms, or at least having a fair draw. Luke would only give us a wild, bloodshot grin when we suggested this. We decided that he was bluffing, due to his persistent superiority complex. This, of course, was a man who claimed that he had once been commissioned by the secret service to test their security systems, such was his hacking skill. They hadn't paid him for this work, interestingly enough. In any case, we thought that we'd have a good chance with the landlord, since he and Luke had been rather chilly since he found out that he'd started shifting his rubbish out of the window and into the back garden.

In short, we were wrong.

When we approached our landlord, he told us with pained expression that he could do no such thing. "I'm sorry, Walrus" he said, substituting my own name, "But I got a letter the other day from his family lawyer. I can't do a thing until we're done with this."

As it turns out, most landlords in the area write their own contracts, which are checked over briefly before being ok'd. Luke had gone so far as to have his family lawyer scour the contract for inconsistencies, and, being an actual lawyer, had found grounds to contest the contract and force a change in it's wording. When we got back, the crap-eating grin and roiling sweaty face confirmed; he had spent large amounts of his parents' money to ensure that he got to pick which room he wanted, and that he couldn't be evicted by the Landlord for his machinations.

We had been trolled.
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With our fury only matched by the viscosity of his breath as it left his lungs, we were legally forced to accept defeat. In the interests of fairness, me and Sirk drew straws for the remaining rooms - I pulled the short straw, and moved into the box room. The only consolation was months later, when we saw his parents; the drawn, apologetic look on their faces spoke volumes.

And so life went on. Mice were purged, we build a furnace in the back garden to incinerate the less toxic rubbish rather than let the bin overfill and eventually we started shifting the more toxic rubbish into the shed, or into other people's bins to avoid being infected. I didn't get away unscathed, but this is not the time or place to talk about infection. Safe to say that the next few months of my life were agonizing as well as underwhelming. Time passed. Deck Status, pretty good. I had successfully managed to keep my more prized decks hidden from Luke's greasy touch with the use of decoy decks, left in my normal hiding places for him to find. I confronted him on this issue, to which I got an angry reply:

"So what if I want to play with a different deck once every so often? It's not as if you were using them at the time. Besides, I'd let you use mine if you wanted to. The stickiness isn't even my fault; I shaved my palms just last week!"

Make of that what you will. Eventually, he agreed to a deal; we would stop ridiculing his hairy palms in public, if he would wear a pair of pink marigolds whenever he used someone else's deck. He stuck to this deal for a week, and then stopped playing magic, insisting that it was a stupid, childish game. We were not disappointed.
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'''Part the Ninth: Walrus'''

It was at about this time that we started to turn our hand to RTS games. So, we had a look around all the games that we had with us, eventually settling on Dawn of War. We only had a Dark Crusade disk going, so we elected on a couple of games of that while we waited for the rest to stream.

CASE STUDY 4: Being a case study of THAT GUY playing LAN games

A little aside; as mentioned before, Luke was (and presumably still is) a subscriber to the "one upmanship" school of socializing. Sirk had recently spent a good chunk of his dwindling money on a brand new computer; it was a glorious beast. Within a week, of course, Luke's bespoke new P.C. complete with flashing LEDs, a mouse more expensive than my laptop and more cooling systems than a Boeing 747 was delivered to our door. It has to be noted that the courier was reluctant to give Luke the electronic signing device, and then tak it back. In the space of the 10 seconds it took Luke to scrawl his name, the pad had become visibly moist and greasy. I thanked the stars that he'd given up on Magic. Of course, then we had to listen to him wandering around the house loudly talking about how great his new computer was. I took the brunt, having no real space in my room to hide. Regular showering was barely enough to fight off the lingering smell that this caused on my skin and clothes.
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After setting up his P.C, we were challenged to a game of DoW - Luke proclaiming himself to be a master of RTS games, citing his victory at a Korean Starcraft tournament as proof. Allegedly, he'd been disqualified because they didn't find out that he wasn't Korean until he'd won the final round. So, with that in mind, we started the computer up, linked them, and got playing. Sirk and I chose Tau, and Luke, Necron. We played for a good 15 minutes, me initiating a rush and then pulling back to allow the game to continue for as long as possible, and Sirk and Luke turtling. I noticed that Luke had captured no objectives at this point, and put it down to him probably not knowing how the game worked. The turtling continued for another half an hour, before Luke made a sensible suggestion! Pizza! This was ordered post haste, and we continued with the game.

Pizza arrived soon after, and so we called a temporary truce while we picked it up. Units were set on guard, and we shifted over to the door to receive our ill-gotten gains. Curiously, Luke was absent. Sirk was gaming in his room and I in the living, room, so Sirk got the honour of taking Luke his pizza (he may have sprinkled a fair amount of curry powder on it before hand, but you'd have to ask him.) I took my seat back at the table, and idly scanned the battlefield. Near my line of broadsides and fire warrior teams, about 50 or 60 necron corpses of various flavour. The door upstairs crashed open, and Luke came thundering downstairs, bearing down on me like a fabled beast of pungent legend.
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"YOU CHEATED! WE SAID THERE'D BE A CEASEFIRE!" He roared, filling the room with an angry, rotten musk. He'd obviously been concentrating; he was bright red, and the sweat patches covered the sides of his olive green T shirt. If nothing else, Luke has made me very conscious about the state of my underarms during important events. I questioned his meaning of cease fire - he'd obviously marched his necrons right up to my main defensive line. "I HAD THEM ON PASSIVE, I WAS GOING TO WALK THEM INTO YOUR BASE FOR WHEN WE STARTED AGAIN!"

Needless to say, we called it a night soon after. Sirk feigned a sudden attack of his sleep disorder, and I grew very tired due to a busy day.
At this point, I'm going to take a moment of time to answer some of the questions that have already come up in the thread. If people just want me to continue instead, just say so.
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'''Part the Tenth: Sirk'''

''In reply to an anon jokingly claiming to be Luke''

Sadly, I know that's not Luke; because Luke's typing was worse than dyslexic (one of our other good friends, the personification of Lawful Angry I mentioned in the original thread, being dyslexic and yet still managing to be infinitely more legible); and was often sprinkled with misspelled pseudo-leet.

The one that sticks with me, because I used it to name a WoW and DnD character, was his computers password - Undying Love (cringe). Or in his case, 4n!13n9!0v. The characters became Andilen, for the record; although for a long time we did use ANDILENGIOV as a warcry.
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'''Part the Eleventh: Walrus'''

''In reply to an anon asking if Luke would ever appear on the register''

And finally, no. He wont appear on a register for another few years, if he passes at all. His grades at school weren't quite good enough to get him straight onto a medical course, so he was doing a master's in chemistry first, THEN studying Medicine. We probably have another 3 or 4 years yet.

Still, watch this space for Luke Flu (or Nurgle's Rot, whichever you prefer)

I think that'll do for an intermission. Did you all remember to get your ice cream from the salesmen and visit the toilet? Excellent. Continuing in the next post.

I think, at this point, we will talk a little of revenge. You see, Luke had an almost spiritual connection with his computer, if such a thing were possible. He loved it deeply, and often. He loved the perceived prestige of having a good computer too - he did have a top of the line laptop as well, but would always use as much of his effort to transport the desktop PC with him wherever he went, if possible. This included the uni LAN gaming society, other friends' houses, Uni itself if he needed to do work that existed on his own hard drive...

And he loved to "let people have a go." He would, wherever possible, try and coax people into using his hardware, to see how good it was. I tried this myself, once. He insisted, and being even more apathetic then than I am now, I reluctantly accepted. The PC was in his room.

That was the first time I'd seen the inside of Luke's room since he'd taken over in the summer. Words can hardly describe my horror, but since I'm meant to be telling the story I will do my best. On the windowsill, a grimy vase with some dead flowers in, possibly tulips, visible from behind half opened, stained curtains. The light cast into the room is orange in colour due to the time of day and colouring of the curtains, highlighting the answer to a question that Sirk and myself had asked each other for weeks: Where has the cutlery gone? No less than 6 plates, in assorted levels of moudlyness, most of the forks and a lot of knives, too. No less than 6 almost-empty tubs of B+J Ice cream, with various amounts of culture, ranging from Manchester to Vienna in advancement on the "World cities" culture scale. The floor was almost invisible, but a large chunk of carpet was missing, obviously eaten away by some substance or creature.
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I barely had a moment to take all of this in before the smell hit me. Rancid is too mild a word to use in these circumstances. I think a cross between curdled milk, old rooms and pig manure might suffice. I was hastily welcomed into this "inner sanctum" by Luke himself, and placed on a moist swivel chair in front of the computer. He placed the headphones on my head quickly, sending a chill of abject horror down my spine as they stuck slightly to my ears. He then proceeded to tell me all about the specifications of his computer, before leaning right over me to log himself in, catching me in the face with the side of his sweat stained shirt. 

My line had finally been crossed. I made my excuses, and left. The clothes, I never wore again - indeed I took the first opportunity to lose them. I shaved my head, and showered for a good hour before I felt clean enough to take a shower. I never set foot in that room again for the rest of Luke's tenure, but, of course, what happened when I did is a story for later on. A line had been crossed, and revenge was the order of the day.

Starting with Luke's computer.
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We eventually managed to coax Luke into moving his computer downstairs for a night, under the pretense of an "executive LAN party evening," where we would all sit around our table on swivel chairs and play games where we could see each other. He gladly agreed, having an opportunity to both show off his computer again, and his swivel chair, which of course he had bought especially because it was better than we could afford. The stage was set, the pizza in, and our material prepared.

CASE STUDY 5: Being a case study of THAT GUY's reaction to a fake virus.

Luke, as aforementioned, had proclaimed himself a master hacker, employed by the secret service to aid them with security. We brought him onto this topic of discussion slowly, over the course of the night, whilst ensuring that his Cup (as mentioned previously) was topped up. His current beverage of choice being Lipton Ice Tea, infused with the strata of orange juice and coffee remaining in the cup. Eventually, of course, nature called (or possibly whispered) and Luke grumbled something, made sure all our games were paused (ensuring that he managed to touch our hands with his at least once in the process by grabbing our mouse hands) and shuffled to the toilet. We took a moment to lift ourselves from the shock of being touched by Luke, and moved to his computer. A picture will follow, posted by Sirk (Thanks!)

''It should be noted that, while Sirk does not immediately post a picture, he does, in fact, eventually delivar.''
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[[File:GinyuPwnsJoo.jpg|''Sirk:'' The original image, taken from the email with the original little codepiece, circa November 2005, still sitting in my hotmail account. Being the techie guy landed me with the job of putting everything together - although the pieces were contributed by 'Walrus' and 'Nairda' respectively.]]
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ASIDE: HOW TO CREATE YOUR FAKE VIRUS!

Step one: Get a friend who can create executables, or do it yourself if you know how (Thanks Sirk!)

Step two: Create a naff wallpaper

Step three: Using a clip drive, transfer the executable and the wallpaper to your recipient's computer. Hide them in a safe folder!

Step four: Change all desktop shortcuts so that they link to the executable. Load up the wallpaper.

Step five: Use your fuse box to fake a momentary power cut.

We worked more efficiently than we have worked before, or since. By the time Luke came back from the toilet, the Desktop PCs were rebooting and running through scandisks. Luke, of course, had such a good computer security system (designed by himself, no less) that he did not need to run a scandisk. No worries, he assured us with his grin, we would all be getting beaten again very soon. Grin check: At this point, I was sure that Luke's mouth was beginning to rot, such was the smell of decay that came from it when he opened his mouth. His teeth were approaching forest green in colour. 

Unfortunately for Luke, his computer had been infected by the dreaded Ginyu virus, that Sirk and I had read warnings about over the past week. Luke, of course, was quick to ascertain that he knew the guy who had created the virus (ironically true) and had trained him himself (not so true) - This would be no problem to a hacker of his skill!

We eventually called the night due to Luke's faulty computer ("wouldn't want to catch it off you!") and went to bed. Sirk may have erased the executable at some point, but he never said. There were a lot of raging sounds from his room though; Revenge tasted very sweet indeed.
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'''Part the Twelfth: Sirk'''

Actually, that was all Nairda. All it was was a simple '00 Print THE GINYU TEAM PWNS YOU, 01 Goto 00' that was set to run fullscreen and couldn't be closed unless you rebooted; and was set as a replacement for every shortcut he had.

There was also the other time I pulled the old 'take a screenshot of the desktop and set it as the wallpaper, then hide all the icons in a folder' trick. That left him hammering at his mouse convinced it was broken, before throwing it on the floor in rage, and going and getting his OTHER $200 mouse. Which then also didn't work. I dropped a hint that maybe it was the Ginyu virus again; but....
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'''Part the Thirteenth: Walrus'''

So again, time moves on and, perhaps sadly, we come to the last major case study of living with THAT GUY. The world turned, and spring turned into early summer. Luke had thankfully been abducted by his parents several times over the intervening months, with predictable results - the raw, scraped look of a man who has been forcibly pushed down a stretch of white water rapids with a barber's shop at the end. Each time, the same cycle of filth build up. It was at one point where Sirk and I had just managed to find evidence of the end of the squirrel infestation that Luke announced that he would be looking to move into a house. There he stood, in all his encrusted glory, with a look in his eyes that perhaps implied that there was some part of him that truly, honestly needed us. He was looking for a house for next year's study, he informed us, as the Landlord had refused to renew the contract and was looking for new tenants after the end of the currant tenancy. Me and Sirk exchanged a look, an I gave possibly the most meaningful response I have ever, and may ever give.

"Righto then, good luck with that."

He never spoke to us again. He left for his room, and soon we heard loud rap music permeating through the floorboards above the living room, a cacophony that was to last for several days before he was threatened with an ASBO by the neighbours. His smell lingered for a while, then went to join him.

But that, of course, is not entirely the end of the tale.
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'''Part the Fourteenth: Walrus'''

CASE STUDY 6: Being a case study of THAT GUY's room, after his departure.

Luke left several weeks later. Sirk and I had found accommodation elsewhere in a house with our other friends and acquaintances from the society. As all of you will know, however, an integral part of the end of a tenancy is the cleaning up of the house in order for viewing to take place. We elected to draw straws for cleaning tasks. We would each clean our own rooms, of course, and then draw straws for division of tasks. One one side was Luke's room and the Bathroom. On the other wise was the living room and the kitchen. I drew Luke's room.

Not one to back out on a deal, I donned my old clothes and gloves, drew a deep breath, and opened the door to the room. The first objective would be the windows - if I could open those, the smell would start to disperse from the room, allowing me to work without retching too much.

The door was difficult to open. Several seconds of pushing followed, without success. In the end, I took a couple of steps back and threw my weight against the door.
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Of course, with the momentum of my not-too-modest weight, I ended up inside the room, on my knees. The first thing that struck me was this: The object obstructing the door was the aftermath of a refuse avalanche. I was currently knee deep in cocktail sausage packaging, half finished Pot Noodles and, disturbingly, clumps of hair. Then the smell hit me. Before, it was merely extraordinarily foul. Now, the coming of the warmer weather had combined with the mounting refuse to create... I resolved not to breathe, and focus on the objective. I waded forward past the landslide, dislodging a bad that contained hundreds of tiny flies, clouding my vision. My eyes watered as the smell overpowered my senses, and the wax began to melt in my ears. Every inch of uncovered skin itched, such was the foulness of the place. Finally, I made it to the window, and pushed it open, dislodging a year and a half of dust and corrosion. Sweet air!

I took a deep breath, and waded back out of the room. Obviously, the room needed to air out a little - Sirk didn't mind, as long as I got rid of the clothes I had worn and didn't go anywhere near him. I showered.
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A couple of hours later I returned, in a different set of old clothes. The air was... bearable, at least. But the rubbish would have to go first. Our bin was already full, so it was time to employ the shed to hold the refuse while we waited for night to fall, to deliver presents to unwitting neighbouring bins. Rubbish collection and movement is never a nice task at the best of times. Luke had never used a bin bag to store his waste in, so the first task was to gather everything into easy carrying devices. Of the rubbish, the more notable pieces contained Luke's Book (which has been alluded to before, but not extrapolated on by myself,) heavily used and stained with a green, slightly viscous substance. Smell confirmed as cum, much to my revulsion. No less than 6 of the 8 house plates, with large amounts of furry mold growing from their surfaces (and in one case, the underside as well.) The remains of the dead flowers, also covered in mold along with the vase. Two heavily used pornography books, depicting a faeces-related fetish on the encrusted covers. The remains of a pizza, possibly the one from Case Study 4, covered in flies, with evidence of maggot infestation.

I resolved to be a better person for the rest of my life, if only I never had to do this again. Waste successfully moved, I surveyed the room at large. The carpet was caked in dirt, hair and an unknown substance. The area of the carpet that had been eaten away during my last visit had grown significantly to about a half foot in diameter; blackened around the edges. This revealed the large hole in the skirting board, the area littered with droppings concurrent with the squirrel infestation.
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The furniture in the room had been left largely intact, but with a thin coating of waxy grease. He had left his Cup, which had started with a drinking capacity of about 1.5 pints, but now could carry as much fluid as a champagne flute. This was hastily disposed of. The house cutlery, although tarnished, would survive. I put them to one side to give to Sirk later. The curtains were removed, to be washed. This dislodged a small rain of dirt and grime from the top of the curtain rail, where it had collected. The windowsill was caked with dirt, presumably from when the vase of flowers fell over. This would only be removed with a wallpaper stripper. I moved over to the last part of the room that I hadn't surveyed yet; the bed. The duvet and sheets, of course, would have to go. I pulled them from the bed. What I saw there caused a hasty retreat to the bathroom.

A large black stain, at groin height on the mattress. Yellowed at the edges, but only just noticeable. No smell, blessed be, but enough to make me wretch my dinner into the toilet pan. Eventually, after I had composed myself, I called Sirk, and showed him, with similar consequences. We turned the mattress over, and resolved never to speak of it again. We moved the furniture in such a way that the holes in the carpet were concealed, and scrubbed the floor as best we could. Once all of the grime was removed, it was about 3 a.m. in the morning. Just in time, as the first house inspection was in the morning.
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The house inspection went reasonably well. We had worked our hands raw for most of the previous 48 hours, so we were glad of the rest. The landlord, too, was pleased and impressed; liberal and strategic use of air freshener had all but obliterated the lingering smell - only a slight metallic tang to the air remained.

The prospective tenants were three South American exchange students, all female. They liked the living room and kitchen, found the bathroom and smaller bedrooms to their liking, and really liked the location. Just one room left. The landlord looked over their heads at us, penseivly. We nodded slightly, and with a deep breath he opened the door to the room. We went downstairs, to get a cup of hard earned coffee; we could do no more.

I will never forget the screech of horror, disgust and revulsion as he turned the mattress over.

Surprisingly, he managed to secure the deal. We gave him an inventory of the damages to the room, which he assured us he would claim from Luke. We moved out a week later, into our new home. We were followed.
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'''Part the Fifteenth: Sirk'''

I'll grant you that Luke's room was bad .... but aside from the strip in there where we were winning the battle to keep the bathroom clear of Luke-filth (we had to dispose of mopheads every foot or so of cleaning; wringing them out didn't get rid of the .. for want of a better word ... solid organic matter. Nothing internal mind you - we wouldn't have stood for that - but the amount of very-clearly-Luke's hair and footprints and ugh....

HOW THE FUCK HE DID IT WHEN HE DIDN'T EVEN USE THE SHOWER

THERE WAS A FINE WHITE GREASE MIST ON THE WINDOWS OF HIS ROOM THAT I HAD TO GO BACK AND CLEAN WITH OVEN CLEANER TO REMOVE. FFFFFFFFFFFFFF-

So. So much rage.

Oh god the flies... it took us so long to make the - now obvious - connection with the flies and his room. We'd assumed there had been some food off in the bin (which, as is often the way in student houses, was often piled two feet high with pizza and takeaway boxes)... and had a big run of sterilizing the kitchen.

Seriously, you're bringing back the most horrible memories.

Like his bag of potatoes.

...How on earth did I manage to suppress all this?
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'''Part the Sixteenth: Walrus'''

About a week after moving into our new house, we had a knock at the door. It was, to use the cliche, dark, cold and slightly drizzly weather, so we were surprised to get a visitor - especially during our 10 way Magic night. It was Rho'nekh, our new, lawful-angry housemate, who let the visitor in and welcomed him.

As my nose shut down in self-defense, I realized who had darkened our door.

He had apparently managed to locate us from talking to people on our respective courses. He had then made the trip across our city to find us, in the drizzle, to tell us all about the flat that his parents had got him in the middle of town and that his internet wasn't working yet so he would use ours. Sure enough, within half an hour of his entry, all conversation had shut down bar Luke talking about his newest Laptop and all his new friends. The conversation moved onto the old house.

"It was awesome, wasn't it guys?" he said. "I can't believe we had to leave. Still," he grinned, exposing a mouth of clearly rotten, gums and olive hued teeth, "It's not as if it was much of a problem to move out, was it? I bet you guys had to spend ages clearing your rooms out though; they were awful!"

A silence descended on the room. After what seemed like an eternity, Sirk broke it.

"Get. Out."