Say, wha...?

Crikey, who puts their Myst conquests up on YouTube!?? Just shows you how dull & unimaginative I've become! I liked the old PC puzzler, back in the day (and I got the spaceship to work, too!) But avoid the Nintendo DS port. It's waay too small, and waay too titchy, and way too dim, dark and unintentionally puzzling. Max out your screen brightness and play in the dark, it helps. Buy it used, if you must, but it's not worth full price, and avoid "Zip" mode if your copy comes without a manual. Good luck figuring out which is which — my guess is green means ON, so Yes means "jerky screen transitions" to speed things along, while No means "glacially slow but normal." Ahhh, human interface guidelines...! Who needs 'em?! To get past the tedious opening titles, logos and narcissistic melodrama, just use your NDS sense — touch the stylus to the screen. Incidentally, I trust you noticed that D'Ni is pronounced Deny? Myst screams for an Oedipal parody. The best ending is NOT giving Atrus the white page, then listening to his impotent fulminations as you blithely turn him off. Don't give the final red or blue pages to Achenar (sic) or Sirrus (sic-er) either — there's sibling rivalry to be considered! If I could rewrite the ending nearest heart's content, I'd have Riddick kidnap the much-neglected Catherine and carry her off to the solar furnaces of Crematoria. Heh.

Sick transit, Gloria Monday

I voted for Barack Obama, even though I think he's a titch overrated. My first choice, back in the caucusii last year, was Joe Biden. In fact, Obama reminds me of the young Jack Kennedy just before the Bay of Pigs. Cool, collected, confident, ignorant... Arrogant.

In fact, I expect Biden is ten times exactly right; Obama will be tested, and Obama will prove himself a consummate fool on the world stage before he ever starts paying attention to history and exercising independent thought, especially in the Middle East.

Hillary Clinton's appointment to State reminds me of George McClellan's appointment to the Army of the Potomac, frankly. She'll be a pedestrian gadabout with a colossal chip on her shoulder and no sense for the urgency of the times.

Knesset Vaudevillains (sic)

I see Ehud Olmert had a few choice words for home consumption about "embarassing" Condoleezza Rice by "making her abstain" from a U.N. Security Council vote about a cease fire in the Israeli invasion of Gaza. The gist seems to be that he tattled on her to our increasingly ex-President Bush, "and told him what to do." Uhhh... sure. Whatever you say.

If Rice got on Olmert's nerves, more power to her, it means she was doing her job — but I guess what this really means is that Olmert will soon start bragging privately about late night panty raids on the Clinton State Department.