“The moon could come crashing down on our heads any moment — let’s destroy it now!”

Tom Tomorrow’s cartoon “The Modern World” via Salon.com

In the beginning, there was darkness…or was there light…no, there was darkness. Anyway, then Man came on the scene and verily did he create a great spacefaring empire and unto him…you know I’m almost positive there was darkness in the beginning.

The Book of Endurium, Chapter 1, Verse 1 (Starflight manual, Appendix C)

“Starflight” and its successor, “Starflight 2″, hold a special place in my heart. They are two of the finest games ever written and are on my very short list of favorite games of all time. They were published by EA and developed by a company called Binary Systems. “Starflight” was released back in 1986 (when I was just the tender age of 7), but I didn’t get a copy of it till 1988 when my parents purchased a computer. The game was massive — on two floppy disks (you know, the 5 1/4 kind … they might have even been 720k disks). It had an entire universe you could fly around in, complete with countless solar systems, each one inhabited by planets that you can land on and explore. It still puts most modern games to shame with it’s breadth. Sadly the game is now unplayable, even with MoSlo.

After hearing that Toys for Bob had released the source for Star Control 2, I began searching the web to see if anyone ever released the source code for Starflight or Starflight 2. That was when I stumbled upon Tim Lee’s “The Making of Starflight”. On this page, he has already published many of the design documents and is slowly releasing the source to Starflight as he recovers it from the floppies used to make the final release. The only problem is that it’s written in Forth. Before today, I can’t actually ever recall seeing a Forth program but I can tell you right now it squarely kicks Perl’s ass in the “impossible to read” department. Maybe it’s time to go Forth and learn.

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

Abraham Lincoln

I don’t really know what to say except the title of the article, “Jordanian doctors remove ‘fetus’ from baby.”

Source: United Press International.

“You can have my gun when you can pry it loose from my cold, dead hand.”

Popular NRA slogan

I ran across this depressing story about a guy, two years younger then me, who is up on charges of criminal negligence causing death, unsafe storage of a firearm and possessing an unregistered restricted weapon after his younger sister (seven) shot his younger brother (six) in the head with his illegally-owned (and unregistered) .45 semi-automatic handgun.

Source: The Calgary Sun.

“It’s Good To Be the King!”

Mel Brooks as King Ralph, History of the World: Part I

I ran an interesting article about a new website called NationStates.net. It’s really neat and you should take a look at it. I created a nation already, The Empire of Defrema. It suits me don’t you think?

“Jennifer Government: NationStates is a nation simulation game. You create your own country, fashioned after your own political ideals, and care for its people. Either that or you deliberately torture them. It’s really up to you.”

Trust me … it’s fun.

“Our neighbours have faced it alone and I am one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their noses at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.”
— Gordon Sinclair, Radio Broadcast, “Let’s Be Personal: The Americans”

In my continued insomnia wanders, I stumbled across an interesting find. This is a transcript of a broadcast from CFRB Toronto in June 5, 1973. Now this thirty year old broadcast features Gordon Sinclair who defends the United States from a lot of nay-sayers who claim that the U.S. is a war mongering state. He describes the U.S. as “the most generous and possibly the least-appreciated people in all the world.” In the broadcast, he mentions all the things that the U.S. has done for other countries and how these countries have celebrated in the the U.S.’s misfortunes. Now, that bit right there strikes me as wrong. Why would a country celebrate the misfortunes of a country that helped them out? The only thing I can think of is that the U.S. did something to really piss those countries off. In any case, that isn’t the point of this paragraph. I read the transcript and I was really impressed it. What impressed me more was how the U.S. reacted to the commentary. A far cry from the current U.S. president forgetting to even acknowledge Canada’s existence. Talking about current events, his argument that no one has ever helped out the U.S. when something terrible has happened is no longer valid. Take a look at September 11th, 2001.

In cold December fragrant chaplets blow,
And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.

Alexander Pope, Dunciad (bk. I, l. 77)

Parliament Hill Ottawa, 5:15 am CST, Jan 5, 2003

I was wandering on the web and I found this wonderful site with a webcam pointed at parliament hill in Ottawa … doesn’t it look a lot like a fairy tale castle, sitting in the snow?