An Ode to Activision

[MidKnight Lament]

Even if you can't say much, or haven't got time to write more than a line or two, it's great for us to know that you're still reading posts and hanging around. With relatively frequent posts you'll have tonnes of people in this forum before you know it. Thanks.

- MKL

[Slingshot]

Hi guys.

Actually, I have been writing. Things are going a lot more slowly because work is so busy . I am also training for a Triathlon (end of this month) and so there's not much time to be thinking about the story.

I wasn't planning to release the next episode until Friday, but since you two were nice enough to post....

[Slingshot]

Eis and the Ogre had taken a more direct route. They were dressed as Actigator agents and wore rigid-looking masks. The job was simple. The Goblin was now off-duty, and should be fast asleep. They were to storm into his quarters and become assassins. Eis didn't like that next part, for a couple of reasons. First of all, there was no honour in killing a man in his sleep. Second, this was a real person. In a way, that was strange as well. To be honest, Eis loved beating on Actigators. They were nothing but sophisticated robots. This guy was mostly machine, yet he still presumed there was a human heart beating red blood.

"Mr. Ogre?"

"Yes?"

"Why are we going to kill an unarmed man? Why not do it in a more noble fashion?"

"Two reasons, mainly. First off, he's a heartless killer. Second, this is the only way we have a chance at winning."

Eis frowned. "Oh come on. Goblins are smaller than Ogres. Why give such a small title to somebody so bad?"

"You'll see. The Goblin fights like a cat in water. This is the only way."

For the rest of the trip, the Ogre refused to speak. He held a face of grim determination. It was almost as if the whole job bothered him as well, and that he didn't want to talk about it.

The two imposters rounded a corner. There were other Actigators in this hallway. They walked to the end and stopped at a closed door. The Ogre pulled a transparent card from his pocket and waved it over the door panel and leaned close to it. "It's a nice day for rain. Forget what your master wants for ten minutes."

"Ten minutes," responded a voice from the panel. The door opened.

They carefully walked into the dark room. Mr. Ogre pulled out a gun and set a silencer. Suddenly the Actigrammer stopped dead in his tracks, and Eis walked straight into him. "What the-"

The Ogre crouched and sprung out the door, taking Eis with him. The Actigrammer was still backpedaling when an explosion ripped through the doorway, singeing both of its recent occupants. Without hesitation, they jumped up and ran as fast as their feet would carry them down the hall. Another, bigger blast rocked the section of hallway behind them. Eis looked back, smoke pouring out the ravaged door way and filling the hall behind them as alarms rang. He turned forward again and stumbled. About 10 meters ahead was the biggest, ugliest, armoured hulk of a demon he had ever seen. The figure towered, even at this distance. Mr. Ogre readied a grenade launcher and said "Eis, meet the Goblin…"

[Slingshot]

Before finishing the sentence, Mr. Ogre launched a grenade. It whistled a kamikaze-style screech as it bounced down the hallway. "Quick, fall back through the fire!" he shouted as the grenade detonated.

"What do you mean?" asked skorpion as they jumped past the burning doorway down the hall. "Don't you think you got him?"

"Not a chance. If anything we've sealed our fate. The Goblin loves to play cat and mouse! We need to find a better place to fight. These hallways are death traps."

The Ogre was running fast, and it took everything Eis had to keep up. Suddenly there was a hollow swooshing sound and the panic-stricken duo skidded through a door to their right, which opened to a concrete stairway. As soon as they entered, the swoosh became a red torrent through the smoke, and a small rocket peeled through. It impacted a wall nearby and erupted into a shrapnel-loaded shockwave. The force blew the door off its hinges, and skorpion was thrown down the stairwell with a crash.

The Actigrammer had already climbed a flight of stairs, and ran back down to where his buddy lay. "I'm all right. My head hurts, but I'm all right!" shouted skorp. "This guy likes to play hardball!"

"I told you so," replied the Ogre. "You look like a bloody mess. Anything broken?"

"No, I'm just sore."

"Good, follow me!" Mr. Ogre planted a proximity mine under a handrail. He made a 'shhh' sound and bolted up the stairs again, Eis following closely behind. They traveled four flights up, when Mr. Ogre stopped.

"We wait here. Beyond that door is an Actigrammer programming pool. When the Goblin comes, try to do some damage and then run into the next room. The Goblin will have to stop firing blindly, because he can't disrupt Activision's production."

Seconds later, there was another explosion. Eis guessed from Mr. Ogre's reaction that this was the proximity mine. The agent readied an assault rifle in one arm, and pulled out a frag grenade.

Eis stood tense as ever. Sweat poured from his bruised eyebrow, stinging the cuts on his cheek. He could hear the mayhem of their excursions below. Smoke was filling the stairway now, clouding the view downwards. "This is crazy, he thought. The Ogre must have done some damage with that grenade. The rocket was probably just a blind shot - the final retaliation of someone mortally wounded. "Yeah, that's it, he thought." There was still no sign of movement in the stair well. "Heck, if the proximity mine went off, that probably finished him."

Then he heard a clink. The Ogre fired off a volley of bullets down the stairway. He nodded at Eis, who pulled the pin out with his teeth. Slowly he stretched out his arm. Just as he released the grenade, the concrete staircase lurched sideways and downwards. Rebar screeched as it was pulled from the foundation like a mangled stalk of celery. The motion caused Eis' grenade to bounce off some steps, instead of down the stair well.

Eyes wide open, Eis turned as fast as he could. He looked behind him and saw the Ogre standing in the door, which was now two meters above. Eis leapt towards the door just as the grenade exploded. A piece of shrapnel whistled past his ear, and another flew through his left thigh. Eis shouted in pain as the Ogre caught his hand and pull the agent to safety.

[Slingshot]

Mr. Ogre half-carried, half dragged Eis through a new corridor. "We don't need these anymore," he said as he removed the rigid Actigator mask. Then he took a fast look at the wounded leg. The metal had ripped a nasty cut straight across. "Well, it looks as though most of your leg is still intact. I don't see your femur, and it doesn't seem as though anything became imbedded." Eis' Actigator uniform was beginning to grow a membrane around the wound, gradually the bleeding stopped.

Once again, the Apolytoner had that grim look. "I can manage. The leg isn't broken."

Mr. Ogre continued on, "don't worry a bit. I'm going to take you to an Actigrammer friend of mine. He'll transport you to the medics and they'll patch you up. Better than new! Heck, once they were able to re-attach an Actigrammer's head from his body during an - 'incident.'"

Eis was leaning against the Ogre, hopping on his good leg to keep up. "What about the Goblin?"

"It's an all out war, now. When he catches up to us, we'll have to set some kind of ambush. We're going to need to find reinforcements - fast! By that time you'll be back in business and we can continue."

Just then they arrived at a doorway. Mr. Ogre opened it and they walked into a gigantic room. It had permanent scaffolds everywhere. In fact, it looked like an indoor Cape Canaveral launch pad - without the space shuttle. An Actigrammer ran towards them. He looked at Mr. Ogre and shouted "Sir!"

"Harvey!" replied the Ogre. "Good to see you. Get our friend patched up at the medic lab - on the double. I'm going to find Boomer and the gang. We'll meet here in 10 minutes!"

Mr. Ogre rushed off. Harvey looked at Eis, who was a great deal taller than he. "Whoa! You're missing half of that leg, at least! I'll bet that hurt!" Everything Harvey said seemed to be emphatic - like it meant more if he shouted all the time.

Harvey continued as he lead Eis across the large room. To their right was a tangle of scaffolding that held a massive, round platform. It was maybe a story above their heads, and measured about 100m in diameter. "What's that?" Asked Eis. Talking made the pain more bearable.

"Oh that? It's a Top Secret project! If I were in PR, I'd say you don't need to know… But since you're a friend of the Ogre, I'll tell you! Whadaya think of that!?"

Eis grimaced. He didn't think Harvey had wanted an answer, so he didn't say anything. Harvey continued… "It's a gravity lens. Very cool, let me tell you! And that's not all we have here! No way! But anyways, it looks like you're in a lot of pain! Ever been in pain like that before?! Actually, I haven't but lots of my Actigrammer friends have! I'll bet you heard about the decapitated fellah, but another guy that works here? Ya know what happened to him? You see, he loves to snowboard... yep! And he was saying that it hurts a lot when you crash, because your feet stay on the board and something like your head takes all the impact!"

Harvey's voice was driving Eis crazy. He got the feeling that little Actigrammer had absorbed one-too-many head impacts in his day.

"That's right!" continued Harvey. "So this snowboarder says the most painful way to crash is when you land on your butt! But that's not all! You see, sometimes the butt cheek that's on the down-hill side keeps sliding, while the butt cheek on the up-hill side gets some good traction! Boarders up in Canada call it the butt-cheek pull! Uh huh! They say it'll rip ya in half! Now that's what I call pain!"

"Okay, that's it!" cried Eis. He hobbled a step backwards, next to the wall of scaffolding. "Why don't you just tell me where the medics are, and I'll just go-"

Eis couldn't tell what happened first. Was it the screeching sound, or was it the fact that Harvey had been reduced to a couple of scorched limbs? His mind raced as he looked for the source of the holocaust before him. Then suddenly his brain yelled "maybe think about this later… get out!"

Eis jumped with his good leg onto the bars of the scaffold. He used his hands to climb to the top of the big disk. His leg didn't hurt any more - he was too scared to think about that. Below was another screech sound, and the ground he had vacated was now a crater. Up he climbed until he reached the big white platform. It looked a lot like a suspended launch pad. Nearby was a small panel set into the floor. It was slightly inclined, and read Gravity lens. 'Accel = ___ g's. Enter value or turn dial.' The agent panicked. There was nothing else here but some pieces of steel. No weapons, and nowhere to hide.

Suddenly he heard a sound. Then he saw an mammoth paw grab the edge from below. Eis froze as the Goblin leaped from the edge onto the platform. The Goblin looked scratched up, but certainly not hurt. The creature made an ugly grin - the kind that evil things make when they know they're about to get away with something even more evil. It took a few steps forward and pulled out a curved knife.

Eis rose on his one good leg. He grabbed a piece of pipe in acceptance of the challenge. The Goblin moved forward, and lunged.

In a flash, Eis fell back down and cranked the dial on the panel. It read Accel=50g's. Below him there was a ferocious whirr, and behind him Eis heard a big splat. The agent found himself about halfway in the field. He could move his arms freely but his legs now weighed about two tones each. Eis couldn't even drag them out. He looked back and saw a crumpled hulk of armour that was the Goblin. The floor was awash with red blood as it sped along the surface of platform.

Eis then looked at his own legs. He could easily see his bones as all of the flesh got pressed to the floor. The sight scared him so bad he cranked the dial back to zero. With a painful bound, his pancake-like legs became round again. It was just like watching a cartoon.

From the far side of the platform, and elevator door opened. Out raced some medics, followed by Mr. Ogre. "Good job!" he shouted. "We saw what happened to Harvey and followed the trail of carnage. You got the Goblin! Mission accomplished!"

[This message has been edited by Slingshot (edited May 15, 2000).]

[St Swithin]

BTW, MrOgre in reality frequently uses the words and terms "rats", "ew", "dammit, initialize", and "gnu god, the open source deity". Joe, didja hear that? Ha ha ha ha ha.

[Grier]

Great story Slingshot, you have me enthralled and pissed that I didnt get here earlier.

[Slingshot]

Clunk. Clunk. Skorpion59 was getting tired. He and Steve Mariotti had dropped off Pintello and Locutus a few minutes ago. Pintello's light show had knocked out all power in the area, which meant that the only way up was to climb.

The two had started up an elevator shaft. Then they made a detour through some ducting. Now they were suspended by magnets on their hands and knees, crawling along large water pipes. "Almost there," said Steve. "We'll try another way back - hopefully by then the security sensors will be defunct."

Skorp laughed. "Check it out now - defunct's your brother! Er, where are we going to find MidKnight?"

"About four meters ahead," replied Steve. "I'll drop a line to the suspended ceiling and we can take a look at what's in the room." He fastened an Apolyton-like proximity sensor on the end of a strong cable, and lowered it until the silver box rested on a ceiling panel. Then he donned a pair of dark glasses and stared in silence for a few seconds. "Hmmmm. One person. Looks like MidKnight. Funny there's no guard around."

"How about the other side of the door?" asked skorpion.

"Can't tell that from here," replied Steve. We'll have to check when we get down there. It would be nice to leave through the hallway." The Actigrammer fastened the other end of the cable to a sturdy pipe. Then he slid down to the panel. He let go with one hand and carefully lifted the tile, stealing a quick glance through the ceiling.

Skorpion59 waited until he saw the 'thumbs up.' Then he slid down as Steve jumped to the floor below. The two found Midknight, seated in the corner of the room. He looked like he just woke up.

"Goodness, you're a fright," said skorp.

"Good to see you, too!" replied MidKnight. "I've got a nasty bump on the head, but other than that, the Actigators have been very gentle." He laughed. "I suppose you've experienced the same!"

"Actually," replied skorpion, some of the worst treatment I've received came from Eis. He's gotten bashed up a few times - never forgiven me for bringing him here. Now they're going to take care of the Goblin."

MidKnight grinned. "So then you two got the easy job. I suppose you're wondering why there are no guards around."

"Uh-huh. Rumor has it that you took out ten Actigators before they caught you."

"Actually, it was nine. The last one jumped behind a desk, and then Silica bopped me on the knogen before I finished the job."

Skorpion59 chuckled. "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You're lucky she let you live!"

"Lucky?" asked MidKnight. "Maybe not so lucky. There are no guards around because the Actigrammers are rallying for the offensive. My guess is that the way back to Activision command will be difficult. Silica told her agents not to hurt me on the way down. I think they're waiting for me to return so they can kill me on the way up."

"That's where we come in," interrupted Steve. "The Actigator forces shouldn't be a problem in a few hours, but before that time we need to take out Silica, before she sees what's happening and tries to escape." Mr. Mariotti drew three pairs of silvered sunglasses and handed a pair to each of his comrades.

MidKnight examined the handle. "These are good ones! Are they new?"

"Yes," replied Steve. "This model also comes with a pair of gloves. You should be able to analyze anything electronic with these. The left arm is equipped with a charge of Thorium. Gamma particles are funneled through the front, and a sensor on the right arm picks up the reflections. You'll be able to see through a meter of steel, or three meters of silicate-based material."

"Like the rock within concrete?" asked skorpion.

"Exactly," said Steve. "The lenses are a transparent mix of transistors and Charged-Couple Devices. A CPU tracks what your eyes see, and then it tries to resolve it for you."

"What about the gloves?" asked MidKnight.

"They serve two roles. The first is for marking. They're covered with traces of barium powder - anything you touch will have glowing marks. The second function is for remote circuit modification. You've got two hands, and each glove can transmit electrons. Try everything on and see!"

Skorpion59 put on the gloves, donned the new pair of Armani's and his world was transformed. The plain-looking room suddenly became highlighted with multicolored grids. He looked up and saw the florescent lights, digitized and mapped with radiative distributions. Paths of yellow-green 'electrons' flew along copper wires that were buried on the other side of the ceiling. He traced their paths to a main panel. From there he saw the pale outline of wires that didn't carry a current. Far above that was the water pipe. He could see eddies and turbulence of the water within.

Then skorpion looked at his comrades. They were shadowy outlines of men with an orange, liquid outline surrounding calcium-rich skeletons. Their hands glowed brightly from the barium metal, as did their glasses when they looked straight at him. "You two look like jelly fish, I swear!"

"You don't look so different yourself," replied Steve. In fact, you look like a peacock with your butt in front of that heat register."

Skorpion59 turned around and saw what Steve was talking about. Blue air swirled upwards next to red heater pipes at it absorbed the heat. The current then rose as a yellow plume towards the ceiling like steam. He turned back and said "Enough gawking, I'm convinced! Let's get going already!"

Steve distributed weapons and supplies from the rest of his pack. "It's time to reclaim Activision."

[Slingshot]

So St Swithin: what kinds of things does Steve like to say? I was thinking about "shucks darn" or "zut alors!"

Maybe you know of some better ones...

[St Swithin]

Steve says things like "mongolian butt rotunda" (which is also our Quake clan name) and "hairy sweaty man boobs", and occasionally uses the word "bonus" as a verb, as in "I'll bonus you a fiver".

[Slingshot]

Three dark figures stole along a quiet hallway. Periodically the leader would stop, and they would all hop over the invisible beam of a IR motion detector. Other times they would walk along and suddenly break into a limbo. Finally, the three made it to an elevator shaft, and they stopped for a rest.

"This panel will need 'fixing.' Why don't you do the honours, MidKnight."
"Sure, but why not just try that 'It's a nice day for rain' thing?"

"That won't work here. We need to bypass systems without activating them."

"Then what do you want me to do?"

"We'll be scaling the shaft without help from the elevator. Just keep it from hitting us on the way up."

"Roger, mate!" With that MidKnight opened the panel and examined the circuits. "Wow…With these glasses, I think even a moron could do miracles!"

"Why do you think we developed them? Not every programmer is as talented as the guys on the CTP team."

"I suppose morons are cheaper, too. We have our own 'mix' of talent. One fellow apparently jumped down a flight of escalators while playing the new dino game."

Steve looked stunned. "Civers playing with dinos! My goodness, what's this world coming to?"

MidKnight chuckled. "Civers are starved for attention these days. We're so desperate for a new title that some are willing to try anything - even real-time strategy."

"All right, that's enough from you two," blurted skorp. "You're depressing me already!"

"Don't worry, you're saved. I'll be opening this door … now." MidKnight took his hands from the panel and pried the elevator doors apart.

Skorpion59 peered inside and gave a whistle. The shaft extended hundreds of floors up and down.

"Holy cow! I thought we were already at the center of the Earth down here, what's below?"

"Material for another story, maybe," answered Steve. "I'll tell you the tale if we get out of this one."

Even MidKnight looked doubtful. "So I suppose you think we're going to climb a kilometer upwards under our own steam? We won't have anything left for fighting."

Steve grinned. "Ne'er would I be such a knave as that. We've developed a technology for focusing gravity, and the best part about it are these babies!" Steve pulled out three odd-looking bars from his pack. Each looked something like an obsidian tire iron. "This is about four generations of development from the Yttrium-Barium-Copper-Oxide superconductor. It's good up to 400 Kelvins, and it's wrapped around something even more special. The conductor holds about half a Coulomb of charge and spins it inward. Hold it with both hands and twist the one end to shift the 'focus.' These are actually designed to bend gravity around, so you'll float upwards like a helium balloon. We'll adjust to neutral buoyancy first, and then walk through the doors."

The three adjusted their instruments and 'walked' into the middle of the empty shaft. Steve looked happy. "Good stuff, men! Now turn the handle left and up we go!"

It took a while for Skorp to get used to the antigravity. He kicked his feet and swung wildly, keeping a death-grip on the floating bar. "Are you sure this is safe?" he shouted.

Steve grinned as they rose upwards. "You look like you're doing the mongolian butt rotunda! But if you were to fall, before you died, you might just find out where we got all of this technology in the first place!"

[skorpion59]

Slingshot,

Glad to see your still doing your story telling since it can be quite addictive. And.. getting those key words in there.

Hey markos, how about creating us an animated Gif showing what the 'Mongolian Butt Rotunda' looks like. J/K, I know your swamped.

[Nordicus]

Great stuff, Slingshot.

[Slingshot]

Near the top floor of the Activision building, an Actigator guard stood rigidly at attention beside an elevator door. Through the other side of that door came a beam of white light. At first it was aimed at the ceiling, but then swayed from side to side, as though it was searching for something. The beam widened and diffused through the room, then it focused into a blue line that cut downwards along the Actigator's back. The guard fell into two halves like a piece of raw meat.

Seconds later, two other beams shot out from behind the door. These cast small speckles of light, looking a bit like snow on an old television screen. Nothing else moved in the room, although occasionally one of the beams would stop and focus on a panel in the ceiling or wall. Then they vanished.

More time passed. Finally, the doors were pried open and out stepped two Apolyton agents, followed by an Actigrammer.

Steve patted skorpion59 on the back. "Good show with the Actigator! You're sure getting the hang of those glasses."

"Like you said, Steve, they're from Activision… If only SLIC was this easy!"
"If indeed!" laughed Steve. "Well you boys know where the sensor panels are. Let's trip them up and be on our way."

The three split up and found a circuit access panel in the lobby. The objective was to rewire the security system so that it couldn't tell the difference between active scanning and a self-diagnostic command. Then the team was to remove the active scanning loop entirely.

Skorpion59 removed the panel door and looked at his circuit. It was a series of I/O boards with a single processor. That processor was linked to a node connection that looked like it went to another floor.

"Wow this is easy!" remarked skorpion59. He placed his left glove over the circuit board and took a closer look at the system. The CPU in his glasses continued to test circuit paths through inductance sensors on the glove. About a minute passed before it isolated the nodes that needed reconfiguring. Then a 'Analysis complete. Rewire?' prompt lit up on the left lens. It looked like the words were 10cm high, and about 1m away from him.

"Rewire? Yes, go ahead! Umm - Steve? How do I rewire the circuit?"

Steve looked up from his own panel across the room. "Actually, the glove is rewiring the circuit for you. Can you feel your glove getting warm?"

"Yes. Why's that?"

"The palm of your glove is made up of layers of conducting foil. The paths are being cut out right now. Keep that glove still until it says so."

Soon after, he saw 'Wiring complete. Reanalyze?'

Skorp smiled. "Sure. I mean yes. Reanalyze."

The words were replaced by a picture of a magnifying glass. A few more seconds went by, and then he saw 'Analysis complete. Rewire?'

Skorpion59 shook his head. He removed the glove and scanned the circuit with the glasses. The glasses stuck coloured symbols over things he saw, identifying what was what. He could see pieces of foil that had been deposited over the circuit board, but still it all looked wrong. "Hey Steve!" he shouted.

"What's wrong? Didn't it work?"

"You tell me. Things seemed okay until the circuit was fixed. Now I don't know what we've got. It's weird - like the original circuit has changed or something… Activision isn't owned by Microsoft®, is it?"

Steve finished his work and walked over to skorpion59. "Ha ha. That's a low blow if I ever heard one. Let me see what you've got."

The Actigrammer took a long look through his glasses. Well, I see the problem. These three terminals should be grounded here."

But they were grounded. Last time I looked that point was a ground point.

"You sure it wasn't a closed gate? It's an easy mistake. Let's just rewire and see." Steve put his own glove over the circuit board and waited. After a while he said "Yes, reanalyze." Then there was a "Hmmmm."

MidKnight had finished his work and was looking over the Actigrammer's shoulder. "You forgot about this ground connection here… and here. This one's wrong as well. It should be before the resistor."

"Another easy mistake, I guess. Looks like we both screwed up!" said Steve.

MidKnight saw the tension growing. "Don't worry, we'll get it this time. Heh heh, did either of you notice that the CPU here looks like a happy face?

Skorp looked back at the panel. "Well, more like a happy skull. See? Look here. That part's flat. Here looks like a jaw, and this - hold on. Where did the eyes go?"

The three exchanged glances. "Where's the CPU?" asked Steve. "It was right here!"

Skorp gave a weak laugh and took off his glasses. "So much for good hardware. I just saw Pac Man float by with these stupid things!"

But his buddies weren't listening. They kept staring into thin air - jaws open.

Afraid of missing something, Skorpion59 hurriedly put his glasses back on. The circuit had become a rainbow of patterns, swirling in on itself like a kaleidoscope.

"Wow!" he exclaimed. The Skorpion was thinking about another smart remark when the swirls turned into a very real-looking skull - a skull with a voice.

The first sounds were fuzzy, like sand falling on a drum. Then it turned deeper, like the sand had turned into water and finally a beautiful, womanly voice.

"You should have died hereafter. Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day. But this night you will die. The Actigrammers have committed their final atrocity against the Activision Elite. There is nothing you can do to stop me!"

MidKnight recognized that voice. "Silica!" he shouted.

The voice continued. Activision is not what it used to be. Your ancient vigor is gone, and it is time you become extinguished. My Actigators are in every way superior. Your attempts to dismantle the new regime will fail. You have become too sterile and uniform in thought. I can read you like a book."

Silica's face reverted to the skull. "Fools! The first rule of survival is diversity!"

With that the skull cracked and fell apart. Behind it was a number. 20, then 19, then 18 …"

[This message has been edited by Slingshot (edited June 03, 2000).]

[Nordicus]

Slingshot, Locutus:
Damn, I just caught that bit about the radio stations here in Edmonchuck (I've only listened to Duh Bear for almost 8 years!). Our resident Borg is not only sneaky but astute as well:

quote: No, I didn't really count on Nordicus. He has the strangest habit of dissappearing suddenly for a few days or weeks and then reappaering again. He's been gone for several weeks already (so he could come back any moment and be amazed by this fantastic story ), and this time even I don't know why (usually we keep in touch through email but not since I went offline myself a while back).

Yes, and I've been having computer problems of late--my email has been whacked for about a week now

quote: I had better not say too much more, or my Canadian brothers from the other provinces will get mad... People from British Columbia (the province west of us and north of Washington) get most upset about Albertans talking about the land of milk and honey.

Quite true, Slingshot. A little rivalry is okay, though, IMO--as long as one doesn't start making fun of the way they drive over there


Later, people!