Trench warfare.

Above us it loomed, its great bulk blocking the early afternoon sun. Oh, foul it was, with a stench that recalled many a dormitory morning back at S.U.N.Y. New Paltz (Gaige Hall). Queasy.... so queasy...

Oh, Jeebus.... my mistake, friends, sorry. I didn't know I was posting that last bit. Just getting a bit ahead of myself, that's all - some of my contemporaneous impressions during the strange events that befell us this week, as we made our way westward along the N.Y. State Barge Canal (successor to the Erie Canal) towards the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home (squat house). Some of you (or perhaps all of you) may remember our decision to surreptitiously board a riverboat, which had obligingly docked near the spot where we had made our precipitous exit from the Thruway. Not the wisest decision, as it turned out. Ever seen Ben-Hur? Not the chariot race - the part where the guy is counting cadence below decks with a big drum. Well, we were surprised to find that fucker still in action. (OSHA needs to take a closer look at these riverboats, damn it.)

Okay, so anyway... row, row, row, goes the galley; boom, boom, boom goes the drum. After a couple of days of this, we're getting a little, well, tired. So I encourage Marvin (my personal robot assistant) to sneak upstairs during his bathroom break (not entirely necessary in his case, anyway... Marvin's leaks all involve machine oil) and have a look around. Well, he came back with a couple of interesting discoveries. First, the ship appears to have an engine and a great paddle wheel... which suggests to my mind that they're making us row purely out of meanness and nastiness, and not for any locomotive purposes. Second, there's gambling going on up there at practically all hours of the day and night. So this barge turned out to be one of those riverboat casinos (either that, or the captain has a bit of an issue with certain compulsive behaviors). On top of that, Marvin was, quite frankly, sent away with a bee in his ear by the captain's imperious wife. There was only one thing for it - mutiny!

On Big Zamboola's signal (a slight northward shift in his primary magnetic field - subtle, yes, but noticeable), we all dropped our oars and marched up the stairs, deaf to the belligerent calls of our overseer, with the intent of confronting our captain. I felt the spray from the canal as we broke through the bulkhead doors and climbed up on deck for the first time in four days. It was then that we saw it. Oh, foul it was, with a stench that recalled.... oh, right, you've heard that bit. We saw what looked like an enormous garden hose stretching straight up into the sky. Closer to the water, you could see the outlines of some kind of Diplodocus-like body. No doubt about it - this was the real thing. The lock 17 monster. I'd heard legends, but never... never did I suppose they were true.

So, I don't know, what do you say to an enormous prehistoric creature as it towers over you with something akin to hunger in its eyes? There's only one thing you can say, and friends... its starts with *GULP*