Things will be a bit slow from me for a bit. I'm trying to have a new motherboard installed in my computer, and there are software problems. Since thats the computer that has all my writing on it I won't be working on any of my fiction projects until its back operational. So anyone waiting for new stuff will have to be just a bit more patient. Fortunately I have access to the online world via this computer, so I can do things like write this.

That should of course be Beyond Good and Evil, but stupid old blogger.com won't let me edit my post to correct it. BAH!!!!

Here's something for the Undergrads fans passing thru. I was browsing thru the software section of a local Staples office supply store Monday morning and came across a game called Between Good and Evil. Interestingly I think the main character in the game, Jade, looks a hell of a lot like Jesse. Take a look at the screenshots here, especially the portrait shot near the bottom. The official page for the game, which is available in both PC and game system forms, is here.

There's not much to say about this link other than that its all KISS's fault.

I just saw something that referenced When Harry Met Sally, and of course this made me think of those annoying Herbal Essences shampoo ads. Unless you're recently arrived from abroad or are one of those odd folks who don't own a tv you've seen ads in that stupid campaign a zillion times. Well, believe it or not When Harry Met Sally came out 15 years ago. So it should be obvious to the folks that make that stupid shampoo THAT ITS TIME TO DITCH THAT STUPID CAMPAIGN, BECAUSE ITS SO BLOODY OUT OF DATE!!! Seriously Mr. and Mrs. Advertising Exec, most of us are tired of the damn things. I don't care how supposedly successful they've been, its time for a new idea. Those ads are the equivalent of a tv show in 1984 treating hippies as if they were hip and current, instead of vaguely farcical..

If you're a major league baseball fan, especially a Canadian one, you might want to check out the Batter's Box Baseball Blog. Not surprisingly a lot of the content deals with the Toronto Blue Jays. Personally I find the discussion there better than the alt.sports.baseball.tor-bluejays newsgroup on Usenet, although thats really not much of a surprise I suppose. A personally run blog is going to weed out the nuisances than an unmoderated newsgroup attracts.

Its not much fun being a Jays fan this year. The wheels have come off, and no one seems to be able to put them back on for very long. Letting Baltimore have an 8 run 8th inning like in today's game is a good example. I can't help but think that the team needs someone to do something spectacular to inspire them, but I doubt that's likely to happen.

Bummer. Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts is being treated for cancer. Fortunately he's reported to be doing very well. Its ironic Watts would be having such problems, as by all accounts he's always been the cleanest living of the Stones. Compare him to Keith Richards, who has probably tried most of the narcotic and intoxicating substances known to man at some point.

I was just watching Muchmoremusic's(Canada's equivalent of VH1) Ten Worst Dressed in Pop thing. But amongst the badly dressed, at least for this program, is host Karina Huber herself. She's wearing this horrible purple slip style dress with a sort of sash under her breasts. Ugly. Who told her wearing that was a good idea? Of course given that its probably a dress from the line of some sponsor of the program she may not have had much choice in wearing it.

Just a little update for folks waiting for chapter 8 of Bootleg. I'm working on it.

Honest.

Hopefully I can get it out within the next week or two. As usual I'll make no firm promises. In any case when it does come out I'm sure some folks will be quite happy with what happens in Chapter 8. I'm also hoping to get some other stories done in the next while.

Given all the frooforah in the current US presidental race about who served and what they did here's an interesting link. Its a list of prominent politicians and others from both sides of the political fence, and their military service, or lack thereof. As always its interesting to look at this from a Canadian perspective, since military service is very rarely an issue in Canadian elections.

Just a small request. If anyone comes across any Undergrads fan art please let me know.

Just a little heads up for certain folks. I was looking at the Teletoon schedule for September last night.

Nitz and the Click are back.

Need I say more?

Sunday afternoon must be pornblog update time at blogger.com. I was just looking at the recently updated blogs list and there's a couple dozen or so that seem to have just been updated. As if the porn biz needs more places to post stuff. Hmmm, then again maybe it does given how much having your own domain costs versus using one like this one.

Sure am chatty tonight aren't I?

I just went to check on one of my fav fanfic related sites, Rakhal's The Penultimate Ranma Fanfic Index only to find "WebSite Disabled, Please Contact Our Billing Department" in big letters. Ouch. This also means that the Lost Library of Florestica, a repository for various Ranma and other fanfics, is also out of action. Double ouch.

Here's a new word for your vocabulary: tablehooter. And what is a tablehooter, you ask? The answer can be found here. I even own one, namely a Realistic Concertmate 500, a rebadged Casio SK1.

I just remembered a bit ago that this is the 59th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Oddly enough I've seen nor heard nothing in the media about this, when in past years I'm sure I have. Perhaps its just a case of WW2 becoming more and more like earlier wars, namely a true historical event instead of something that sort of hangs over everything. This process is of course inevitable for any historical event as it becomes more distant from the present and more and more people it directly affected pass away. Thirty years from now 911 will be the same way.

The musician body count for this year has gone up yet again. This time it was Rick James. Given his long problems with substance abuse it's ironic he died of reported natural causes, although the cocaine and other drugs likely didn't help even if he hadn't done them in years.

An interesting book worth checking out if you're interested in geopolitics and so forth is Thomas P.M. Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century. Its both a discussion of how the US might deal with international relations as the world changes and a look at how some of what currently drives US policy came about. I don't agree with everything he says, but he's definitely got some interesting concepts going, like his division of the world into Functioning Core, that is the countries of the industrialised world and those elsewhere with similar economic setups like India and China, and the Non Integrated Gap, places that are disconnected in some way from the modern world economy. He's not a partisan of the current adminstration and has some criticisms of its behaviour which I think are valid from his perspsective. He also has a personal website dealing with his writings.

This BBC article on the toughness of digital storage devices for digital cameras reminded me of a photography magazine special edition I read last year. It was about photographers present during the World Trade Center attacks. Included was an article about a photographer whose digital camera survived the attack when he unfortunately didn't. They were able to download the last photos he took with the camera. Very eerie.

I was watching ESPN's Friday Night Fights this evening. No, I'm not writing this via time machine, rather that's when TSN here in Canada played it this week. It was recorded before Friday's Tyson-Williams fight, and the regular commentators and guest Buster Douglas, who fought and beat Tyson back in '90, expected Tyson to win, as did most of those who posted to ESPN's website. Only 6.8% thought Williams might win. I hope at least some of those folks bet some money on Williams, as the payoff was likely rather nice.

Too bad for Tyson. This loss probably diminishes his chance of getting some really big fights lined up, and he apparently needs the money, as he supposedly owes the IRS a big whack of cash.

Even boxing is becoming grist for the reality tv mill. There will be two boxing themed reality shows this fall, with contestants competing to get a chance at a professional boxing career. One involves Sylvester Stallone and former champ Sugar Ray Leonard, while the other has involvement from current boxing superstar Oscar De La Hoya. Is this the kind of thing boxing needs? Boxing's image is tarnished enough in the eyes of many without linking it to the less than classy reality tv genre.