Holographic Jor-El Kicks Butt! (The Misadventures of Plasma Bleeding)

   Rereading the Ghost Sequence again, first of all parts of it were excellent (heh) and actually pretty fascinating even to me, nothing that couldn't stand a rewrite and even reformatting one day maybe, but... I apologized, like, a lot. How many time there, two, three, did I point out that reading this blog is a voluntary choice, and you don't have to read if I get too, best word I can come up with is, amateurish? Yes. And, uh, man, I can't tell if I should apologize for those apologies, when I should have just done better in the first place and let everything stand for itself...

   Maaan, though, even without apologizing, I think this might get boring, here, because I'm all obligated to tell you this story. Go away, critics, it's not for you (ham!). This story, anyway, is about my trip to the Biomat on Wednesday, and all the wacky adventures I had...

   (If this were A Real Thing, I'd place the jump break there, but this is Disney Villain Death instead, where I only do jump breaks for footnote purposes. So.)

   Every day I have classes, so Monday-Thursday, they start out either 7:45 or 8:00, and I have a break for however long with classes starting at 3:15 again. Wednesday has the longest break before 3:15, so it's the day I've got time to pull stuff like this, but: time to go in for my second plasma donation (they throw away your precious fluids if you don't come back a second time, probably to make sure you're not a bioterrorist or something.) As long as I'm out before 3:15, we're good.

   Easier said than done...

   I told you how I saw the 40% off sign, and so pooched the duck by screwing into the Game Pulse next door fir-- or, wait, what?

   Hold on...

   Yeah, sounds about right.

   Where was I. There's a card they give you on your first time through, to present on a future visit-- I think generally the next, but I haven't used mine yet-- which allows you to cut to the front of the queue, but I figured I didn't need to here; there weren't that many people sitting around waiting to be cleared and admitted onto the donation floor.

   There's a movie playing- they make sure there's always something to look at while you sit there. Is it fantasy? There's this really angry guy, going wild on all these nicer guys, and there's this chick with the angry guy who looks a heck of a lot like the chick who played Faora-Ul in Man of Steel, and there's this royal-looking guy, and is that Russell Crowe? and the insignia on the royal crest is this diamond, and, oh, okay, it's Man of Steel. Not long after the beginning, either-- Clark Kent is still on that oil rig, and I know enough about the film to know that's more or less where it starts off.

   I read the AIDS notice plaquart they give you to read every time before donation. It takes a while for them to call me up after checking in. I don't have all day, should I have used my VIP access pass? But my name is called, eventually, to go into booth 1: to be weighed, and my blood measured, and my temperature taken, and my risk of disease transmission probed.

   There's some kind of accident that's happened on the rig. Everything's on fire. Clark Kent saves everyone, but says something about seeing another guy up there that still needs to be saved? The tower collapses onto him, but he holds it back, the weight pressing him through the floor, until the rescue helicopter leaves and everything explodes.

   In the booth, they make you give your full name and the last four digits of your Social Security number, the way they have you do to prove it's you. I'm also weighed and everything. The girl/lady human female person there, she asks for a finger to extract blood from to test. I offer my left index this time; it'd been the left middle the first time and it doesn't hurt or even throb like I'd remembered, and OW goshdarn it my pointer is so much more sensitive than my middle apparently. She milks the blood into her glass tube, centrifuges it, separates the red from the plasma, begins to do science on it.

   The computer fails. Is it my fault? I think it might be my fault. I'm sent back out until a second booth can hopefully have a computer work for me.

   When Clark was a boy, the Earth's yellow sun gave him powers, and he became overwhelmed by his super senses.

   Booth 2.

   Full name and last four.

   The computer fails here, too.

   It's probably my fault.

   When Clark was a boy, his bus crashed off of a bridge. He saved everyone. Including the bully.

   We transfer immediately to Booth 3. Full name and last four again, even though we weren't apart for two seconds. It's required.

   The computer fails again.

   It's not just ours that's having the problem.

   It's not my fault.

   When Clark was a boy, they talked about him. He was witnessed being a hero. Was it God who made him a freak?

   The problem turns out to have been a, failure to reset the computer after installing the new thermometers, or something, only manifesting itself here because of the science.

   Back into one of the booths. Full name and last four. They need you to state your current address as well.

   Wait, seriously? I needed to know that? I saw my documentation of address back at the apartment and deliberately didn't pick it up.

   Address, address. They allow you to look it up, but they can't tell you themselves. The wifi here's protected. There's a printer wifi, but it proves to be impossible to connect to-- what's the wifi password here? I ask.

   She tells me, but doesn't explain how to spell it because by now it's superfluous-- it's on a little card on the bulletin board on the wall, and once I figure out my address I can take it up at the desk and they'll call me back into another booth. She attaches a sticky note to my file folder, noting that my health stuff is all completed, and I just need to verify the last couple of things.

   There's something mysterious and ancient underneath the ice of the Antarctic. Is it General Zod's ship? Is that how long ago he'd been banished? Was he an ancient dude? What are the odds that he's awakening right when Kal-El is also on-planet?

   It's the Fortress of Solitude! Of course.

   I find the wifi information and look up the address.

   Clark and Lois are both investigating the place at the same time, although the last time I'd seen Clark, he was hitchhiking across the country, not beating up rude dudes but doing plenty of damage to their logging trucks. There's probably loads of insurance on that kind of thing, though.

   I'm called into a booth eventually. Full name, last four. Address, I got it. But...

   They also expect you to know the ZIP code.

   I take a stab at it. Nope, the dude (it's a dude this time) says.

   I already have a connection to the wifi, of course, so it's not that tough to look up the code for Rexburg: 83440. I'm verified.

   Now I get to wait in the blue chairs. Zod is messing with Supe's head, drowning him in ESP skulls and everything.

   They have you show your arms for bruises-- they refuse to stick needles into bruises. Last time, my first time here, the anticoagulant didn't take, or something, and so the blood clotted inside of the needle. I'd had them stick my left arm, and so they had to restick me, in my right. My left arm is covered in bruises from that, and so they have to use my right arm this time for sure. There might be a tiny little bruise on that vein, but it's alright. If something goes wrong with this one, they won't be able to transfer the needle to my other arm, and that's just always the risk.

   Zod's got his gravitic technology and is attempting to implode the earth. You know whom this looks like a job for.

   I finally get in onto the floor, for them to bleed me. It's a couple of hours later than if I'd have been prepared, and, hey the same movie that was playing when I got in is still going on.

   Man of Steel is a looooong movie, man. Holographic Jor-El was awesome, closing doors with the power of his AI fist clenching. The alien signal hacking first contact scene with all the different languages being broadcast, that was genuinely pretty chilling, and I can see the effects that that would have on the world which the trailers to Dawn of Justice hint at to be more fully explored in that movie. The fight scene at the end wasn't just one solid hour of Supes and Zod flying each other into buildings irresponsibly like the critics made it seem.

   That movie ends, Amazing (Incredible?) Spider-Man 2 begins, Electro is so cool, and the way he gets his powers is just awesome, in a no-kill-like-overkill kind of way.

   I take a Poweraid, sit around till they allow me to leave. It was a long process. I've still got enough time before classes that I'd probably be able to watch through Spider-Man as well if I really wanted, but it was still a long process. Oh! And I didn't tell you throughout the entire thing:

   They make you drink plenty of fluids before donation, of course. And there's a urine test your first go-through... though apparently not the second? Which I did not know. So I made sure to drink plenty of fluids, and not relieve myself of anything or anything, beforehand...