Gogen - Or GOGEN!

Sorry If I Startled You -
Just trying to build a sense of drama.  I manage to startle people at work on a regular basis.  Apparently having my large and forbidding form loom silently over you can be a little - disconcerting, shall we say.  All I can say is that's how we covert assassins were trained, which might not suit well when a colleague is prostrate at one's feet, having suffered a heart attack.
     None of which has anything to do with GOGEN! or even Gogen, if we try to keep a sense of proportion about a name that sounds like a Japanese kaiju*, straight out of the stable of Toho Studios alongside Godzilla, Gamera and Mothra.

Toho, baby, Toho!

     Personally I don't think they put much effort into that latter.  Yes, it looks like a giant moth, which appears to be as far forward as the idle studio artistes considered.  Did they look at the design for Godzilla and think "A yes an Allosaurus, we shall christen him "Allosaurusra"?  No they didn't!  Did they look at Gamera <Mister Hand intervenes to edit a rant that could well go on for hundreds of words>ing giant tusks! 

Go on, call him Turtlera, I dare you!

     Okay, now that we've established that Conrad, the wretch, shares the pure glee of small children at watching giant monsters ambidextrously stomp a quaking Tokyo into smoking rubble, shall we reveal the terrifying true nature of - GOGEN!
     Right you are.

Revealed

     Er - possibly not quite as terrifying as advertised.  Alright, I admit it, I'm a jerk, it's not terrifying at all.  Compelling, however, for the word-wielding fop in your life.  You have to create the words on the right - though I'm not sure "chivy" is a real one - that link together horizontally, vertically or diagonally.  Harder than it looks!

Red Dawn Redux
Yes, Conrad is still venting over this farrago. Don't worry, nearly done**.
     Suddenly, the Russians are here, and have taken over the entire Eastern seaboard of the United States, with some goodwill ambassadors being sent to the Pacific north-west to help the locals adjust to the new job-hunting situation slavery. 
     Alright, I lied, they're sinister Spetznatz types brought in to help hunt down the Wolverine resistance fighters, who -
     - hang on, the Sinisters just invaded the whole Eastern seaboard of America and - they get away with it?
     You'd think someone would have noticed.

I mean, these Russian guys stand out.

     Then what happens to the Mayor's son?  He gets set up as a fall guy, which means the Wolverines throw him from the train - not literally, that would have been too expensive - and we never hear from him or see him again.  The survivors appear to be too embarrassed about him to ever refer to him again.  What was his name?  Who cares.  They didn't and neither do I.

I bet they ordered turkey ...

     Then we get the McGuffin plot, gun battle, jumping, gun battle, jumping -
     It ends.  No, it doesn't finish, it just ends.  Perhaps they ran out of money, or patience, or the will to live.
     Well, be grateful that it's over and that you don't have to watch it because Conrad did it for you.
    That's me all over.  Taking one for the team.

Tumbleweed Town
One of the less pleasing aspects of working in The Electric Goldfish Bowl is doing a late shift in winter.  This is because the building empties of 95% of the staff at 5 o'clock exactly, leaving the remainder of us to scowl sullenly at their retreating backs and man up until 6 o'clock.

Dawn

     Bilious jealous resentment aside, the other thing that renders a late shift less pleasant is our building's spooky ergonomic lighting system.  If nobody has moved under a light for several minutes, it goes out.

Another Dawn (plus Sara)

     Having whole batches of light do this simultaneously, leaving you in the small circle of bravely-defiant flourescent tubes much akin to the chalked circle that keeps the demons at bay - well, it causes the mouth to dry out, rather.
     Thus it was that Conrad took cautious, even trepidatious, footsteps towards the Green Core in order to chase up a customer's query.  There hadn't been any movement down there for a geological age, the lights were out, the seats were empty, a black cat ran across my path, lightning ripped the heavens -

This sort of thing ...

     "Hello!" chorused the three remaining wags, looking on in puzzlement as your humble scribe dangled from the ceiling panels, where fear had lent wings to his feet.
     'Dammit!' I replied, once my teeth had stopped rattling together.  'I thought you'd all gone home!'
     "Say what?  You thought?" they rejoined, one after another.  
     "Stop dangling, mate."
     "Come and do your Think On The Ground.***"


*  Japanese for "Strange Beasts"
**  Yes, I heard you go "phew"
** In-joke.  Only three people might get this.