The Twilight Report

Pluto

“ NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that, as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet and that March 13, 2007 be declared "Pluto Planet Day" at the legislature. ”

—New Mexico State Legislature

In August I am going to be in the only state in the Union where Pluto is (as it should be) recognized as full fledged planet.

I don’t usually get misty-eyed when reading legislation, but I did when I read “New Mexico’s excellent night skies.” The night sky in New Mexico is pretty, and NM is definitely the Land of Enchantment.

2007 US Tour

Some of you already know this, but for those that don’t, I will be in the USA for most of August to visit good friends, go hiking, and to eat some mighty fine New Mexican cuisine. Here are the approximate dates:

If you think you might coincide, let me know. You too can be part of the action. And knowing is half the battle.

1. somewhat flexible
2. just kidding
3. somewhat flexible
4. that place where Kirk kicked the Gorn’s butt with his home made cannon

I was having Raw Fish for lunch today (yes, some call it Sushi) and decided to have desert, which means Green Tea Ice Cream. I dunno if this is a widely accepted practice among all Sushi restaurants, but the place I was at today has these really vicious looking spoons for eating ice cream. I remember thinking that they looked a little like the sort of spoons Klingon's would use... if Klingon's used utensils.

Note: Yes... I am an X-Star Trek Geek. No... I'm not anymore.

Anyway, later in the super market today I was revisiting this thought in my mind and it occurred to me that the spoons are really too small to be entire spoons, but they are about the right size to be tea spoons. So I was eating with Klingon Teaspoons in the Sushi House Today.

On leaving the super market I started thinking about this Chatbot I have been half heartedly developing. I have two best friends from College. One of them has or had an acquaintance that spent all of his time developing a Quakebot. I think maybe he dropped out of school because of it. It made conversing with him pretty unplesant because he pretty much couldn't talk about anything else. So naturally this made me think about my friend, and social drawbacks to being obsessed with writing a bot. So I think I will cancel the bot project before it gets any further.

On the drive home, I decided to call my mother to tell her that I had eaten Ice Cream with a Klingon Teaspoon today. Then we talked about the olympics... and how well Australia is doing. Neither of us ever fails to take the opportunity to point out that Australia is always ahead in the per capita medal tally... even if it is only to each other. I am not quite sure why this is.

When I get home I chat on-line with my other best friend from college who is now working for a video game company in LA designing sound for a first person shooter. In a way, I am incredibly jealous. When I was younger I wanted nothing more than to work for a company designing computer games. Of course I was more interested in the more cerebral interactive fiction games of Sierra "[fill in the blank] Quest" fame. There is no money in that anymore, and I won't scoff at the Quake-esq games my buddy is working on. I estimate the sound on his games will be stunning. I'm really happy for him.