Most people are unaware of this. Before he died, Jobs created a massive virtual reality landscape deep in the most secretive of Cupertino laboratories where, once released, millions of users will be able to interact across hundreds of worlds and thousands of communities. And rumor has it that within this massive universe are a sequence of puzzles that, once unlocked through a series of progressively more intricate tasks, will reward the clever and ambitious with a prize of untold fortune. Rumor also has it that Woz has some involvement and knows a thing or two about how it works. Hmmm. They pterodactyl glitch had me playing for twelve hours straight. Got to love them there ostriches...

Joe--you're the follicle-challenged guy who used to write for Playstation Magazine...or was it PSM? I forget...but those mags were the best!! As far as I'm concerned you are absolutely the hands-down Expert on the discussion here. For those of you who don't know, Joe was part of a regular and fun cast of folks who would steer the aforementioned magazine each month, providing articles and thoughts on reviews back when the PS2 was king. I still have a stack or two lying around...

Rent the damn things first. There's no better critic than your very own self.

I spent many hours picking apart the artwork on "The Division Bell", searching for clues...

Flaming Lips, there, baby. Flaming Lips.

Maybe this has already made the rounds --I don't know. But this easily gets my award for coolest video of the year. And it's also a wonderful tribute to Mr. Carl Sagan. Props to the creators at symphonyofscience. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

Well okay, okay. After some contemplation and with some degree of guilt I can say that maybe it's not THAT bad. The language must have gotten away from me.

Listen up. Los Angeles is an awful place. Period. Sure, the city looks as if some giant behemoth crawled out of the ocean and, dog-like, regurgitated a mass of dirty concrete, graffiti and condos on to the landscape. Sure it's almost impossible to read the signs over the freeways because they are so coated in grime and filth. Sure, the local geological topography looks like its having some sort of ongoing acute schizophrenic episode. But what really annoys me about that place are the people. So many people there (at least many of whom I've encountered) are so immensely snooty and narcissitic it's almost eye-popping. Hyperbole? Too harsh? Maybe. But honestly. Who do these people think they are? Apparently it's true: you can't throw a rock fifty feet without hitting someone who's working on a script/taking acting lessons/connected somehow to the Great American Hollywood Thing. And boy, do they let you know it. Admittedly, there are some nicer areas. Long Beach, for instance. And I hear that Pasadena's decent although I've never spent any quality time there. But fer Cripes' sake. When I hit the Cajon Pass and the twelve lanes o f headlights thin out I really feel like I can breathe again. Ya know--this doesn't escape me. That I'm here openly and probably unfairly slamming the people of L.A. for being collectively narcissistic when this whole entry has been not much more than an expression of my own "I-me-mine" self-centrism. Lol.

C'est le gnome de Travelocity, n'est-ce pas? Hmmm. At least it's not that Burger King guy. Now that guy gives me the shudders. (what's up with that freaky mask, anyways?)

Honestly, people. If you can make it through the day without need for a rubber room or straight jacket...well I'd say that's pretty f-in' creative. Yeah.

- Atari's "Adventure". Nice. Does anyone here remember the fun of finding the hidden "Easter egg"? For original 2600 owners only! Extra points if you can actually recount the process. - "Crazy Climber". An original coin-op still stands in the Pinball Hall of Fame here in LV. Works like a charm. Mysteries of the Universe #457: Why did they play "The Pink Panther Theme" when the big ape was swinging in the windows? - "Pitfall". Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. Wasn't that the game with the famous "Tarzan yell" as done by an electric razor? - "Life". Time for a modernized version. Buy a house and watch it go into foreclosure. Besides blue and pink pegs add a green one for the sibling who's hooked on meth. And allow terrorists to wipe out the entire board and instantly end the game with a nuclear suicide bomb. Oh, and line the border of the game board with obnoxious banner ads. - "Twixt". Reminds me of the film "The Road". Well, actually it doens't. Not even close. I just wanted to find a way to toss in here that "The Road" was two hours of cheerless, actionless, grimey emptiness. And depressing--sheesh. How many times do we listen to Dad tell his kid that blowing his brains out would be a step up? Ugh. The staff at the cinema were handing out free samples of Zoloft as patrons as they were leaving. Take me back to Pandora.

WARNING!!! LEFT-IST MESSAGE INCOMING!! CONSERVATIVES PLEASE AVOID AT ALL COSTS and PLEASE DEFER TO OTHER REPLIES!! A-hem. You've been warned. So. Methinks that Rush Limbaugh suffering serious chest pains was as good a prognostic indicator as any that 2010 is going to be a good year. Of course, this presumes that 'ol Rush actually has a heart which, I maintain, is debatable. Now if he were to fall over dead as vials of Percoset spill from his shirt pocket then I know that a). 2010 and the consequent decade are going to really be a blast and b). I need to re-think my views on the possibilities of Divine Intervention. Ba-dum-dum.

Bah!!!! Amateurs!!! You were nuthin'. NUTHIN' if you couldn't master the complex, dizzying, blitzkrieg of colors and zippy noises that was "Stargate". Six buttons AND a joystick. And everything happened very, VERY fast. And the supreme prize? The high scoring player could enter their FULL NAME on to the leaderboards, rather than the mere three initials, which was the standard at the time. That was a true "Bow down, arcade peasants!" moment. And by the way, only *real* gamers developed callouses on the inside of their middle fingers from working those old ball-tipped joysticks. Obscure classics must include: "Moon Cresta" (Space Invaders on LSD), "Elevator Action" (what secret agent would wear red boots, btw?) "Zoo Keeper" and "Bagman". Ahhhh, Bagman...

The traffic in Los Angeles can be grizzly. Thirty lanes of tailights and layers of graffiti on the battered concrete. Yay. The 405, the 101 and the 10 (among others) are nightmares and beyond what any civilized species should have to endure. And though watching a winter storm crawl in off the Pacific always brings about a certain sense of ominousness, in terms of malevolence there's nothing quite like a midwest blizzard, where snow-drifts cover the car in an hour, the wind slices like diamonds and subzero wind-chills coat the bones...

Well, just about everyone on this side of Rigel IV knows about Phizer's illustrious and quite successful campaign to market SSRIs to the Vulcan masses in the mid 1990s. In fact, if you read the fine print on the drug label you'll see it states quite clearly as a contraindication "...linked to suicide, mood swings, increased libido... and may induce indifference and/or Pon Farr in Northwest Airline Pilots and Vulcans." Read it myself, I did. (Just a little diversion from the thread)

On a different topic: great movie, even on DVD. But really. How the heck could Spock physically watch Vulcan blow up from the shores of Delta "RIP-Gary-Mitchell" Vega? Or is Vulcan really like some kind of "Death Star" that freely roams around the galaxy like a king-sized "Book-mobile"? And what about the time-line? You would think that Guinan would be out there somewhere having seizures over the fact that Spock and Nero single-handedly frakked up the time-line in a majorally historic kind of way. And yet Spock seemed so indifferent to it all. Hmmm. Do Vulcans take Zoloft? Just wondering. And now we return you to your original thread...

Wrong, wrong, wrong. You all have it all so very wrong . Why waste precious cerbro-space trying to re-install garbage you've already established that you'll never, ever, EVER need? Instead, forget more stuff. Jeezes. Clear out the closet, so to speak. If you know the answers to questions like "who ws Charlemagne?", "where is the Hudson Bay?" or "what's Avagadro's Law?" then methinks it's a-time for some down-home cognitive cleansin'. You need to make room for more pressing concerns. Like "what's better--Count Chockula or Cocoa Puffs?". Or "why is Woody Harrelson in every. Frakin'. Movie. These days?". Or "are the traffic lights really conspiring against me?" (answer: yes). Because as every loyal American knows, I.Q.s are like body temperature: if you get it up too high you're brain will melt and sludge out your ears. Just sayin'...

Tell it to the heavy-drinking, cigar-smoking, kleptomaniacal, misanthropic, egocentric, ill-tempered robot standing in the back.

You writing guy needs big work the grammar for help. With writing or the speling wow cool because,,, Me am good mommy tell me i am good grammar with. Mommy I like dangling participle.

Vegas is a place full of memories, dreams and closed-down Star Trek attractions, although the latest buzz is that the Experience will be re-opening at Neonopolis on Fremont Street (note to Wil: that's FREmont Street. But you knew that, right? ;-)) Anyways, to see what life is like in Vegas off the Strip check out this bloggie thingee. Wait--oh yeah. It's mine. So shoot me. Lol. http://cyberyukon.blogspot.com/ Final word? Vegas is a HELLUVA lot better than most places. Have you ever been to Baker, California?