Repent! Harold Camping Was Right!

Duke Nukem Forever has actually been made and will be in stores this June. It's been in development hell longer than the new Conan movie and will suck just as much.

Duke Nukem 3D was one of those games which came out and "changed everything" in terms of humor and interactivity in games, and the creators were set for another home run when they announced another game in 1997. They wanted something as revolutionary as Duke Nukem 3D, but they kept getting leapfrogged by technology. They would make an announcement about graphics, interactivity, story... and and someone else's game would do it better. So they kept going back to the drawing board.

As a result, Duke Nukem Forever, along with Daikatana, became a running joke in the industrial-gamer complex. I used it to explain the slowly tanking US economy to friends.

1) Daikatana is going to be released real soon.

2) The Government goes ahead and spends the tax money it will get from Daikatana before it is even released.

3) They believe ION Storm (developer) when they say Daikatana will sell a million copies, and Daikatana II will sell two million. They spend accordingly.

4) They praise the wise economic policies of President Bill Clinton which will enable Daikatana III to sell four million copies. They spend accordingly.

5) Someone notices ION Storm isn't doing anything. At all. They just sit around the office eating junk food. Government spends the tax money it will get from the eight million copies of Daikatana IV anyway.

6) Daikatana isn't done yet and the bills are due. Everything starts to collapse.

7) Democrats accuse new President Bush of allowing his cronies at ION Storm to rob millions of dollars. Point out that if President Clinton were here, we would be wondering where to spend the tax revenue from the sale of sixteen million copies of Daikatana V.

Raptured

I would like to think that if I knew the world were coming to an end I would do country song worthy stuff, but I know myself, and I would probably go to work then spend the evening looking through RPG resource books. Kind of like what I did yesterday. (After I almost got raptured/ruptured by a semi which crossed my path trying to get to the gas station parking lot, exactly at six. Three cheers for not being worthy!)

I have more sympathy than anything else for those who gave up everything to await The End as foretold by Harold Camping. Times are tough and people, being people, are looking for easy answers, even if they come from a con man who may not be aware that he is one. At least those who ruined their lives gave up their jobs and their money instead of everyone else's.

To make it more clear, many of those who jeered the loudest should look hard at their own crazy religion and their prophets who proclaimed X number of years ago that the Arctic would be ice free in X number of years... and stop giving them MY money when they turn out to be constantly wrong!

First Fruit

First strawberry from a plant that wasn't well established to begin with. Poking around the leaves and there it was. Just one though. The plants which were bought in mid-bloom have slowly been producing, and it looks like there is going to be a bumper crop for June.

Oddly enough, they don't have a classic "strawberry" shape; they are more like two cones put together. I think the mathematical name is lookslikeareddtendron. Too bad the tags blew away in the wind. I've got plants that I have no idea what they are or what they do.

BTW, I'm learning by trial and error what works and what doesn't. Lettuce, for example, likes it cool and turns seriously bitter in the Texas heat.

Now I'm Just Piling On

I've heard a rumor that the ATF assisted in setting a wildfire in West Texas. Dry conditions, intermittent high winds... yeah, let's set off some explosives. I know boom-boom is fun, but surely there has to be a bacteria out there which will eat your particular chemical if there is a fire ban in effect.

Regardless, if I had done the same, I would be lucky if I got away with picking up trash on the roadside one hour for each acre I burned. These people have far more power than anyone I work for, yet my employers holds everyone to a much higher standard when it comes to responsibility.

Suddenly Worth It

There it is in my grubby little farmer hand. After zero rain, fires, burning winds and hail, my very first tomato. I'm cheating, because I bought this one with the tomatoes green on it, but the plants I grew from seed also went into the ground today so it's a process.

Taste? Actually very good. Tangy but not acidic. The skin is a bit thick from the dry conditions, but it is not a distraction from the overall texture which is neither oversoft burst nor fleshy with the horrible granular innards you get at the supermarket. If you don't like tomatoes, and I know a lot of people don't, you might try one off your own plant. Trust me, they are totally different when you grab them and eat them before the lifeforce drains out.

Envirused

Remember that scene at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy is very carefully weighing his bag of sand before switching it out with the idol? Of course you do. That's been me pretty much all day (sans work time) as I slowly pry the tentacles of a virus off my computer. I miss the old days of '95 when I really didn't keep anything very important on the hard drive and any sign of trouble was an excuse to reinstall. I could format! Gosh, I felt so important. Now I go outside and pace a bit before deleting another line from the registry.

I'd like to meet the person who unleashed this particular virus on the world:

"I can steal you identity and close you bank accounts."

"Yeah, well I can put steel or lead through your heart. Better for you if we did it before breakfast."

'

A War Becomes Dusty History

Word has come down that the last combat veteran of World War One, Claude Stanley Choules has died at the age of one hundred ten. It's probably asking too much, but it seems a shame that he couldn't have made it long enough to see the hundred year anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War.

Reading about it is very odd to me, because I'm old enough to remember when there were lots of First World War veterans still around. I don't think it was ever a common stock character, but Grandpa up in his room having flashbacks and appearing in greatcoat and gas mask is something I remember from more than one TV show. (Possibly. I may have seen it just once, but the comic/horror effect caused it to multiply.)

When the centennial does roll around in 2014, let's hope the powers that be give it serious reflection, because we are still dealing with its aftershocks all these years later.

Mr. President.

We have your chili bowl. Do you want it as is, or would you like us to polish the rim and give it some handles?

Prince Marries. Hats Involved.

Well, it looks like the first wedding of the century has gone off without any problems. I guess all the protesters stayed home, and the terrorists, being political beasts, knew the only thing that might anger the inhabitants of Yob Isle would be an attack on the Royal Family.

So that brings up the question: Based solely on what you have learned by reading in the checkout line while waiting for the lady ahead of you to finish writing her check and fumble for her drivers license, which member of the Royal Family would you give a gun to in a fight?