Sorry friends, been busy these last few days.  Here's a short recap of what's been going on in my life:

• Last weekend we went to a memorial for my little nephew Sean who tragically passed away last year.  It was emotional, but good that it provided some closure on it all.  The best part was seeing his Mom looking strong and happy.  It looks like she and her family are moving on.  Another wonderful thing to see was the recipient of Sean's kidneys, who now had a new chance on life, who was in attendance at the memorial.
   
• Work's been nuts.  I'm trying to transition to a new project but the customer from the old one keeps asking for more.
   
• In my free time I've been trying to do a project in .NET, an experiment I've wanted to run for a long time.  It's an interesting idea, but I'm not going to tell you what it is yet.  I would rather wait until I have some results.  A good friend of mine once said to me when you tell others about a good idea before you put it into practice, you give away “your power”.  He's right… the more I talk about doing something, the less likely I am to do it.
   
• I recently tried out the computer games Galactic Civilizations II and Darwinia.  The former is IMHO a knockoff of Sid Meier's Civilization through and through.  I played it a couple times and soon tired of it, and why not, I've already played that game haven't I? Darwinia on the other hand was wonderfully original and a blast to play.  It's a modern game with completely retro early-80's style computer graphics and very entertaining.  Computer geeks will love this game.  Not only is the story interesting and the retro graphics cool, but the sound track is great, using inventive pieces that sound like they were composed on a TRS-80.  The basic story is one of Dr. Sepulveda, who in 1980-whatever or 1970-whatever, starts a company selling his own design of a personal computer (the “Protologic 68000″ — it vaguely resembles a Commodore 64 or a TRS-80 Color Computer).  Unfortunately the good doctor's company is a flop and he is left with a warehouse full of these anachronistic computers.  So he goes into seclusion and begins networking the old clunkers together and eventually creates an artificial world inside this distributed system.  The world is inhabited with artificially intelligent life forms called Darwinians who live out their lives, die, and are reborn, continually improving their source code along the way.  The Darwinians maintain Darwinia, mining “raw polygons” out of the fractal landscape which are fashioned into whatever apparati they need to get by.  In a desire to understand their own nature and to commune with their creator, these creatures unfortunately end up downloading a virus from Dr. Sepulveda's computer and it wreaks havoc in their world.  Your job is to help Sepulveda and the Darwinians defeat the virus and return Darwinia to the Darwinians.  I played the Windows version, but I believe I read that the game is ported to both Mac and Linux.
   
• Speaking of music, after playing Darwinia, and mentioning to my wife how much I loved the music, I was delighted to learn that the songs that make up the soundtrack, and many more pieces by the same author, are available on the internet at Trash80.net. I downloaded a bunch of these and have been listening to them.  (Anyone who has used a Tandy Radio Shack computer from the 70's or 80's will recognize the name “Trash 80″ as being the nickname given to the TRS-80 personal computer.)  I don't know how the author actually creates the music, but the name strongly suggests that he uses ancient computer technology to do it… which I find strangely cool.  There are a number of great pieces on that site but one of my favorites is Faces of a Fashion.  While Faces tends to be kind of somber, you may find another of my faves Pain Fade Down more peppy and probably a little amusing simply because it sounds so retro.
   
• Healthwise, my allergies have been beating the crap out of me.  Latest symptom?  Ringing ears.  Yayyyy…
   
• My daughter's expressing an interest in taking Karate classes, so we are trying to make that happen.  Nice to see her getting into an afterschool activity other than homework and television.
   
• They're teaching about the planets in school right now for my kid.  I was a little sad to see the worksheet that said “Pluto is the smallest planet and the coldest because it is furthest from the Sun” which the teacher had editted to say “Mercury is the smallest planet.”
   
• Politics?  Jesus.  Don't get me started.  We're doing away with habeas corpus now? (link, link, link) Is there anything King George won't stoop to?  Is there anything his subjects won't grant him?  The Dark Ages Fun Ride™ is making me nauseated.  When is this country going to wake up and recognize the supreme mismanagement and erosion of liberty that have been the hallmarks of this pathetic administration?  Who are these people who still support the Bushies?  Can we get their brains front and center so we can gently tap on them?  “Hello?  Is this thing on?”

Well, that's all I can think of right now, and I should be working on my .NET project.  What I will tell you is that it is a project I've wanted to do ever since I read a certain book written by a former MacWorld columnist, and that I was inspired to finally take the plunge and just build the thing since I started playing Darwinia.  The idea has been kicking around in my head for over 10 years now.