Guess I Oughta Write Something

You know, it's probably a bad idea for me to write a column based entirely upon the idea "I should probably write something" but never mind.

Perhaps I should talk about world events, hmm? Oooh, I know, let's see which news stories cancel each other out.

First of all, worldcom are evil, corrupt, and stole a lot of money. This story cancels itself out, since first all the stock markets crashed, then they got back up and said 'oh right, silly us, we already knew that anyway'. The only really long term effects of this are that your ISP will find someone new to date, get really sulky, and stop giving excuses for why they raise prices and lower service. Oh yes, of course, all of your pension fund was invested in worldcom - so your pension is now worthless. But that is neatly cancelled out by the story about how no-one is taking out big enough pensions anyway.

Secondly, bush wants israel to win and comes out and says it. Blair wants Arafat out, but lies about it. Bush says "I love it when you tell me lies" and the whole scene can now only be seen after midnight on premium channels. Let's see, this is probably cancelled out by the "Israel rolls big whacking tanks in. Again" story - good to see bush coming off the fence and demanding really unpopular things of the side that is winning a conflict.

Africa and the G8 are completely NOT blown up by terrorists after someone leaves the security plans at a picnic site. Damn those sunny days, have to outlaw them quick. Africa demands more cash and plans to "stop screwing us over" G8 can't even be bothered to make up soothing lies and promise things that they have already promised this time around. Instead they let russia join, presumably on the basis that it is small enough to be manageable this time. Capitalism based upon unequal wealth rolls on, so I still have my internet connection. This is cancelled out by president mugabe killing white farmers in land redistribution. Yes, the world has problems but unless you're gonna kill everyone, killing isn't the answer.

And on the 'killing everyone' front - india and pakistan didn't go to war yet. I wonder if anyone told them about MAD - or was it just assumed? It's not like america particularly needs an indian subcontinent anyway. Lets cancel this out with stories of accidental deaths by explosion in afghanistan. The popular reaction to this seems to be "They knew what to expect, they were in afghanistan" Not to suggest that America might have blown it up covertly to suggest that there is still some kind of menace there. I'm only not suggesting it, because have you ever tried to blow something up covertly? It goes boom dammit, that's overt.

And todays newest news story; Manchester install the worlds biggest bank of monitors and automated 'stuff detector' to go with their really rather silly array of CCTV cameras (yup, you just lost the "It doesn't matter, they can't possibly watch all of them anyway" defence) Or, if you prefer, the story that CCTV is no damn good (for good) anyway

Geeze. Wonder why I don't cover mainstream news more often? Gaming news is, at least, mostly optimistic. (New game released! Hundreds play it and have fun!) Speaking of which, nwn should be in the stores round here right now. But I don't have a gfx card that can play it. Or a network connection to fully enjoy it. Or the money required to rectify these situations.