|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- OSOAWEEK--ISSUE 154--7/5/97 <-------  ||  OsoaWeek  ||  Issues  ||  Book 12  ||  -------> (Cup OWis154, Created v1 (4/27/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = OsoaWeek Book Twelve 11 "OsoaWeek154" by Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana, Tarb 6445 (7/5/97), copyright 1997 OBLIVIANA REGISTRY Nothing new this week, but get ready for the next big phase in the development of Obliviana--the major launch of Severe Repair! NEW REVOLVERS None NEW CUPLINES None NEW CUPS None *OW* LORD OF OBLIVIANA Mon 6/30/97 * 9:10 PM Well, Hong Kong has got about two hours and forty-five minutes of freedom left. I'm going on vacation. Back to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. So I'll have a tough time getting the weekly update done for this week. Yesterday I did 10 Cups each of "Peculiar Lather" and "Winter Stadium Them". Then I did some new writing on a Cupline that will be called "The Carbonize Neighbor". These accomplishments, along with the completion of the layout for LWOR on Friday, is making me feel pretty good about Obliviana right now. But I have to get a handle on things so that I can keep up the momentum. Firstly, I think that Severe Repair has great potential to be the first thing that brings a lot of people into Obliviana. I'm very enthusiastic about SR, and I want to get people reading it. But how? Well, there must be some kind of online sci-fi club sort of thing going on. But alas, SR is not yet developed to the point that I am comfortable promoting it. That is, I don't think that SR, as it currently exists, will be able to retain a reader. That is, thre is not enough of an infrastructure, besides there not being enough content. Severe Repair is an endeavor which, even if it were the only thing I were doing, would take up all my time. But since I have so much other stuff, what am I to do? First of all, I have to focus on the idea of limitation. The LITTLE World of Racetracks, where SR is one of only a few things I am doing. So in the overall picture of Obliviana, SR is a big slice of the pie. I need to build the SR infrastructure, which will assist people in their exploration of SR. Now, in the interest of limitation, I want to define my endeavors in Obliviana. I think that an examination of the past decade of my work gives a good overview of what should be in Obliviana. Severe Repair, Superior, and Zope are three endeavors that are absolutely "in". Welcome to the Weasel Village Mall, my "radio" endeavor, is very important to me, and I think it will be "in" too. Antebellum, my NJ-based superhero-type computer game... hmm... and the other game... Devastating Nightscape... I don't know... Super Object is very promising... Balbitype... my typefaces... Anything But Monday... should be "radio" in the future... collaboration with Mike Massotto... Classictronica... classic video games... collaboration with Mike Etler... Obliviana Classic, the boardgame... and other games... Vamershee... Deluge of Primacy... LWOR... and 209... and the Primitive Interface... Hmmm... gotta get this all in order... One standard I think I'm going to use is the idea of endeavors which I do by myself 100%. This would excluse Weasel Village Mall and Anything But Monday right away. That is, it won't be a foundational endeavor. Tue 7/1/97 * 12:32 PM Fuckin' commies. Anyway... Now wait a second--if I want to move in a direction of being more "family oriented", why am I saying "fuckin'"? Ah, whatever. So... I want to establish "Core Obliviana". Core Obliviana is to be that which is "launched" later on this month. As I mentioned before, I want to focus on that that is 100% by ME, Frank Edward Nora, Lord of Obliviana. Severe Repair and Zope are firmly established. Pelters and Yargo Trees are not so firmly established. Superior is floating around betwwen these two areas. Little World of Racetracks is firmly established. This incorporates 209, Fonosta, Forge of Wander, etc. Pelters, as Storm Pelters, are certainly "in" LWOR. What about Yargo Trees? And with Superior... should there be Storm Superiors? Or should Superior be a part of Severe Repair? Right now on the website there are six Revolvers--Severe Repair, Zope, Obliviana Central, Pelter, Yargo, and Opmarquee. Are Racetracks to correspond to the Core Obliviana elements? I think it makes some kind of sense to do this. There are eight Major Racetracks, and three Minor Racetracks. The center Racetrack, which connects the left and right sides is the logical place for "Obliviana Central". The other two Minor Racetracks are mysterious. Core Obliviana is to be limited in scope, and will include only those Revolvers that are exclusively mine. With Severe Repair and Zope definite Racetrack-Revolvers, that leaves six. LWOR is a set of many ideas, so it makes sense that these ideas should be presented as Racetrack-Revolvers. I like the idea of four dualities. Severe Repair & Zope 209 & Friction Enhancer Superior & Pelter Fonosta & ? Yargo Tree Okay. Well, I'm getting somewhere here. Hmm... Pelter, Yargo Tree, Opmarquee... graphics... HALFEVIL GRAPHICS!!! Severe Repair & Zope 209 & Friction Enhancer Superior & Halfevil Graphics Fonosta & Forge of Wander Um... Is this it? Tue 7/1/97 * 8:22 PM Well, the list above has a little problem. Three of the Revolvers start with the letter F. F is the sixth letter of the alphabet. FFF=666. I'm sensitive to this sort of thing. Anyway, I just want to go on record about the Pathfinder Mars Probe which is scheduled to land on Mars on Friday. I believe that it is most likely a hoax. I've set forth my ideas about space travel many times in the bytes of OsoaWeek. But this mission is a true landmark, as it will supposedly give us our first view of Mars from its surface since Viking, around twenty years ago. And unlike Viking, Pathfinder has a little robot that can move around, and presumably send back video. Back at the time of Viking, I was very much into space travel, and I was fascinated by the images it sent back from the Martian surface. Today, I think that these images look pretty fake. And they wouldn't have been that hard to fake, either. And even Pathfinder, with its moving images, seems like it might not be too hard to fake. Especially since it's easy to fool people about something they WANT to believe. And even more especially because if you doubt it, like I am, you're gonna be called a "wacko". The last Mars probe, if I remember correctly, mysteriously vanished as it was approaching Mars. Could it be that the hoax team screwed up and was not prepared with the fake images and data at that time? I can only assume that this mission has been better prepared. I believe that we will get back images, and further, I believe that these images will have telltale signs of faking. This won't really matter, though, since the ridiculous special effects of the Apollo missions have never been seriously challenged. People want to believe. And people feel tremendous peer pressure to believe. I don't believe it. But I'm a small minority. This morning I saw a woman interviewed on TV who was involved with the project, and she said something like "I'm having a hard time sleeping at night, the landing is so near". Her words did not ring true. There was something suspicious about the way she said it. Anyway, I just want to make my opinion on this matter very clear. If the fact that these space missions have been faked is officially revealed, everyone is going to be terribly hurt. It will be a betrayal of enormous proportions. And I guess I want to soften the force of the blow to myself. On one level it's "I told you so", but on another level, space travel was a thing thing that was very important to me when I was growing up, and to find out for real that it was a lie would even now be a hard thing for me to deal with. You might wonder why I'm writing all this then. Not that what I'm writing will have much impact on anything anytime soon... but I think that we're going to have to face this horrible truth sooner or later. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad to face the next millennium without this trauma still to come. But I will not actively seek to find evidence. I half wish that the lie will go one forever and ever, because once the lie is revealed, the world, and especially America, will never be the same again. Oh, but one more observation. If Bill Clinton wants to divert attention from the growing awareness of his monstrous crimes, the fakers at NASA could throw in an alien artifact or two on "Mars". And with the public all buttered up by the truly pathetic lie of "life on Mars" of last year, such "proof" of one-time intelligent life on Mars will divert the public for a few weeks at least. Well, it'll be interesting to see what we get from the Pathfinder "mission". Of course, they could just crash the darn thing and avoid having to come up with any special effects at all. 9:40 PM So let me get back to Core Obliviana. I have been operating with the idea that Obliviana will blossom into a thing which will involve a lot of people doing a lot of things. And I while I still see that happening, I think that a stage in which I set forth my ideas in a concrete, coherent way is called for. This is the idea of Core Obliviana. To clarify, up till now, Obliviana has been pretty much just me. Sure, a few people here and there have been involved in or experiences aspects of Obliviana. But for the most part, Obliviana has been, and for now continues to be just ME. The idea of Core Obliviana, then, is to set forth my central ideas and creations in a way that is easy to navigate and comprehend. Core Obliviana is the true foundation of the fully implemented Obliviana that I have always envisioned. To establish Core Obliviana, I am going to establish the Little World of Racetracks, wherein the eight major Racetracks will each represent one of my eight Core Revolvers. I divide this set of eight into two parts--"creations" and "infrastructure". The four "creations" are Severe Repair, Zope, Superior, and Halfevil Graphics. Halfevil Graphics is the name of my original "company", in which I produced more than a hundred minicomics. Later, after the fall of Anything But Monday, I returned to the name "Halfevil Graphics" as the name of my company. With the coming of "Obliviana", "Halfevil Graphics" faded away. In the pages of OsoaWeek, I continued on with some ABM-style humor and called the feature "Halfevil Times". It is also important to note that Halfevil is the world where Zope lives. Anyway, it occurred to me that all of my graphic works--Pelter, Yargo Tree, Opmarquee, the not-yet-named "faces" thing, Balbitype, etc. could all exist under one Revolver with the word "graphics" in it. "Halfevil Graphics" instantly came to mind. So, the creations can be further split into Severe Repair & Superior, Zope & Halfevil Graphics. SR and SU relate to each other, and ZP and HG are also related. Now, I am comfortable with this set of four. It is the "infrastructure" quartet that is giving me a little trouble now. As it stands, I have 209 & Friction Enhancer, Fonosta & Forge of Wander. As I stated earlier, I am uncomfortable ina numerological sense with the 3 F's. But this is not my only problem with this set; it still needs some work. Revolvers are intended to be major things unto themselves. Therefore, I cannot split up a Revolver just for the sake of getting X number of Revolvers. My intention with the two types of "infrastructures" is thus: [a] 209, zoning, Wonder, Friction Enhancer, Stormjaunt, etc. [b] Fonosta, Octagon, Little World of Racetracks, Cups There are an awful lot of interrelate ideas here. Let me try and sort it out. Firstly, Friction Enhancer is a thing unto itself. It can exist apart from Stormjaunting. And as for the name "Friction Enhancer", it is a name that I have questioned at times, but at this point I am happy with it and I will certainly keep it. The other side of Friction Enhancer is: Stormjaunting, 209, Forge of Wander, Wonder, etc. This Revolver sets forth the FOW, the Jukewand, the idea of Storms and Stormjaunting, etc. So the counterpart of Fonosta will NOT be Forge of Wander. I think I might like to call this Revolver "Forge of Wander", though, so the FFF problem is still here. (Note: On the Public Image Limited album called "Album", is a song called "FFF", with lyrics "Farewell my Fairweather Friend". Hmm...) If the counterpart of Fonosta also starts with F, then there will be four F's and there won't be a problem. 7/2/97 * 12:46 AM I just finished a tape for my trip, which I called "Shenandoahgain". It's one hour long with 19 songs: SIDE ONE [1] ELO, "Telephone Line" [2] Ultravox, "Dancing With Tears in my Eyes" [3] David Bowie, "Fashion" [4] The Human League, "Fascination" [5] The Monks, "Monk Time" [6] Nirvana, "Son of a Gun" [7] Pink Floyd, "Lucifer Sam" [8] Duran Duran, "Planet Earth" [9] Leroy Shield, "Bells", performed by The Beau Hunks (Little Rascals music) SIDE TWO [1] Art of Noise, "Paranoimia" [2] Frank Black, "Los Angeles" [3] Kim Wilde, "Kids in America" [4] David Bowie, "I'm Deranged (Edit)" [5] The Strawberry Alarm Clock, "Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow" [6] Ramones, "Spider-Man" [7] Bonzo Dog Band, "Kama Sutra" [8] King Crimson, "Cages" [9] Bonzo Dog Band, "Keynsham" [10] Beatles, "Free as a Bird" So that's what I spent the last couple hours working on. So... back to the issue at hand for a minute. It seems that I need to determine the Revolvers for defining Fonostas, Cups, Octagons, LWOR, etc. Could Octagon be the name of a Revolver, as opposed to Fonosta? Tue 7/2/97 * 9:02 PM Heading down to Virginia tomorrow. I definitely need a vacation. Now, I would like to go on this trip with a question to answer. The question I am considering is the issue of the four "infrastructure" Revolvers. Here is where I am at with them now: [1] 209--Stormjaunting, "Actuality Destructor" ideas, Jukewand, Storms, Forge of Wander, Wonder, etc. [2] Friction Enhancer--challenges, new ways of interacting with reality [3] Fonosta--your little "guy" in Obliviana, your own personal Obliviana "dossier", Cups, Octagons, etc. [4] Little World of Racetracks--Specifics on LWOR, Primitive Interface, purpose of "cyberspace", etc. Now, let me consider the idea of doing things in the real world to help your little character in an imaginary world. "Doing stuff in the real world" -slash- "interacting with reality" is quantified by Friction Enhancer. This quantification is essential because it takes an element of the Obliviana system that might have been very weak and makes it very strong. That is, if I simply said "go and interact with reality", it would be extremely confusing and cause people to lose touch with what I am driving at. But with it being so specific, people will be more comfortable with the system, and have an easier time embracing it overall. Fonosta is the Revolver that describes your little character that exists in the imaginary world of LWOR. Now, 209 sets forth a theory BEHIND the sorts of activities in Friction Enhancer. In the same way, LWOR will set forth the theories behind the structure of the Little World and the Fonosa which exist within. In terms of LWOR, it is important to note that I envision the system as being manifestable without computer, but in addition, the Primitive computer interface is a significant aspect of it. To clarify, LWOR is a complete system and THEN it is computerized. This then brings up the question of how much of the nature of LWOR should be in the LWOR Revolver, and how much in the Fonosta Revolver. Could there be a "Primitive" Revolver which covers the elements of the computer interface solely? Interact with reality to help your little character. Your interaction with reality is called "Friction Enhancer" and your little character is called "Fonosta". The system which forms the foundation for Friction Enhancer is called "209", and the system which forms the foundation for "Fonosta" is called "Little World of Racetracks". I think that this reasoning is sound. But I am thinking that "Little World of Racetracks" is not the right name for that Revolver. I am thinking of calling it "Octagon". As of now, Octagon is the "place" where FEs are transformed into "help" for your Fonosta. So, Octagon is at the center of all Obliviana. I shall define 209/FE as "Outside" and Fonosta/Octagon as "Inside". Outside, where you interact with reality, is the ultimate purpose of Obliviana. Inside exists as an essential tool for Outside. Inside provides the focus, recordkeeping, and most importantly, motivation to do Outside. Thus, Octagon, which I said was at the center of things, can be said to be Inside, since it is part of the Inside system. This "Outside/Inside" thing is very interesting, in that I wrote a document in late 1988 called "Nomadi Entertainment in 1989", which defines "Inner, Central, and Outer". In fact, I just remember that this document is right next to me... in a rarely used "slide-out writing surface" in my desk. I taped the document there at the time, when this desk was in the Anything But Monday offices in Caldwell, NJ. I may as well transcribe the document for you. I know that it exists somewhere else in OsoaWeek, but I'd rather just keystroke it than search for the text. *********** NOMADI ENTERTAINMENT IN 1989 12-26-88 by Frank Edward Nora INNER: <a> Interweb <b> Noyage <c> Severe Repair <d> Zh Research <e> Unreal Systems Tester <f> Ed Balbi's Dossier (mental clip art) CENTRAL: <g> NomadiNews <h> Nomadi Concept Vault <i> Nomadi Staff <j> Organize Nomadi <k> Advertising and Promotion for Inner and Outer OUTER: <l> Anything But Monday <m> Mike's Liquids <n> Red Alley Earth <o> (New) Zope <p> Steering Zonebook Thozheen <q> Hollow Fantasia Journal <r> Naming / Idea Service <s> Super Object <t> Nanobook <u> T-Shirts <v> Nihilistic <w> E-17 <x> Battler of Yontaro <y> Shady Afternoon <z> Czarball ******************* I could go on for days analyzing this list. But I'll let it suffice to say that the Inner and Outer referred to here relates to stuff released for members of Nomadi (inner) and the general public (outer). I will also comment that just about all the elements in my current system are represented in this 8.5-year-old list. Anyway, the stage that I am at now is DEFINING the four "infrastructural" Revolvers. I have 209, Friction Enhancer, Fonosta, and Octagon. It occurs to me that Octagon defines a method of creating an online world, of which LWOR is an instance. In this view, LWOR is a part of the Fonosta Revolver, in that LWOR exists because Fonostas need a place to be. So: Severe Repair Superior Zope Halfevil Graphics 209 Friction Enhancer Fonosta Octagon Check it out: 11 words, 8 existing words, and 3 "made-up" words (Zope, Halfevil, Fonosta). Okay. So I will go with this set for now. This set needs to be numbered, and Racetracks need to be assigned. Racetracks (RTs) shall be defined as they relate to the Center Racetrack (C) and intersections (x). These are accompanied with very vague descriptions of the RTs: x C left (sea turtle) x C right (tiki) x (x C) only left (scorpion) x (x C) only right (bird) x (x C) and another RT left (ticket booth) x (x C) and another RT right (sleigh) x (x (x C) ) only left (mortar & pestle) x (x (x C) ) only right (helmet) Note that there are four RTs which intersect with only one other RT, and four which intersect with two other RTs. Now, which Revolers should "mirror" each other?Severe Repair & Zope Superior & Halfevil Graphics 209 & Octagon Friction Enhancer & Fonosta Here are the Revolver/Racetrack associations: x C left (sea turtle) Zope x C right (tiki) Severe Repair x (x C) only left (scorpion) Halfevil Graphics x (x C) only right (bird) Superior x (x C) and another RT left (ticket booth) Friction Enhancer x (x C) and another RT right (sleigh) Fonosta x (x (x C) ) only left (mortar & pestle) 209 x (x (x C) ) only right (helmet) Octagon Now again I have to step back and get the big picture. One major idea here is that Core Obliviana is something that must be completed before Obliviana can move on to the next phase, where the idea in Core Obliviana are implemented. Implemented in that OTHER PEOPLE will be involved in Obliviana. So how long will Core Obliviana take to develop? And what of the July 28 "launch", now but 25 days away? My impulse here is to "launch" Severe Repair as opposed to all of Obliviana. SR is substantial enough to attract people to Obliviana. But I have to have the other parts of Obliviana functioning to some level as well. Here is another impulse--now that I have established the basics of Core Obliviana, I should now focus on SR and its coming launch. This does not mean that I will not spend time on the other Revolvers in Core Obliviana, just that at least for the next 25 days, I have to focus on the launch of SR. Thu 7/3/97 * 12:40 AM I just took a shower and all during it I was thinking about this new idea of focusing on launching Severe Repair only. And I like the idea. And it is what I am going to do. I want to clarify that the rest of Obliviana will still be here, and I will still be working on the rest of Obliviana. Severe Repair will be my main focus, however. The goal of the launch is to get people reading Severe Repair. This will require promotion. And of course, there will have to be plenty of Cups of SR available for the launch--I was thinking that it might be cool to have 209 Cups at launch. The other major aspect of SR will be the "support system" on the website. This will include a reference, a detailed introduction, a "coming attractions" area, a letters column, and of course, a system by which Cups can be sequenced. So... Cups, promotion, support... The idea is that promotion can get a person to check SR out--but without the right support system, the person won't be able to "get into" SR. The one part of SR that I'm not worried about is the writing itself. I am fully confident that a great many people will very much enjoy Severe Repair--once they "get into" it. The problem is this "getting into" thing. The problem has several aspects. First of all, SR is very different from anything that people have experienced before. Therefore, I need to come up with a very good explanation so that I can paint a picture in a person's mind of what SR is all about. When a person gets to the SR splash page, I will have to grab their attention and interest them long enough to present them with the initial description of SR. From there, the person will read some introductory material, and then jump into a few selected Cups to give him or her a taste of SR. From there, hopefully the person will read some more and start "getting into" SR. So it's a progression. I'm sure marketers have gone through the same reasoning a billion times before. But this sort of thing is not so easy for me. Marketing takes a lot of time and energy, and I'm the one that's gonna hafta do it, and I also have to write the Cups and format them and upload them and do the support material and the graphics and EVERYTHING ELSE!!! Alright. Anyway, I am fully aware of the potential difficulties in getting and keeping readers. I do have the security of knowing that the content is very, very good, and if enough people are exposed to it, word of mouth should help a lot. Regarding money, I have no budget for promotion, and I will not charge people to enter the site. Nor will I have any ads. The purpose of this SR push is to generate interest in Obliviana. If SR gets very popular, however, I may have to put up ads to offset the additional cost of the increased traffic. But this is not something I'm going to worry about at all right now. I want to create a sense of community among SR readers through a letter column. A weekly set of letters with answers will be interesting to readers of SR, and will serve to create interest in different Cuplines through the references in the letters. As well, letters will be an excellent source of "review blurbs" to describe SR. The idea of SR as similar to a comic book universe with its myriad related titled just hit me. This is one of several paradigms I am considering in terms of describing SR. Maybe you'll be able to choose a paradigm! "Click for: *COMIC BOOK FAN, *SCI-FI FAN, *MOVIE FAN..." In my thinking it has become apparent that SR will cry out for being implemented with technologies far beyond the straight HTML it is now in. For example, there should be a searchable database, which could automatically make links to words in the text, such as the first mention of a character's name in a Cup. This would allow folks to link to a description of the character when reading from an unfamiliar Cupline. Unfortunately, there's no way that such stuff is going to be implemented anytime soon. So I will have to use the limited technology in an elegant way. Another idea: I could offer to mail out checklists of Cupsline and Cups so that people can keep track... or maybe fax from the computer?... ASCII text lists that readers can print out would be most efficient... but a mailing with stickers and buttons and other fun stuff could be a good promotion tool. 1:59 AM Well, I'm going to bed in a minute, and I'm leaving for Virginia early tomorrow. I am happy with the progress I have made here tonight. I think that Severe Repair will indeed be the gateway to success that I have always been striving for. Mon 7/7/97 * 2:46 PM I had a great trip. On the drive down, I had a vision of the Bridgewater Commons Mall, and the Bridgewater Library, and me there in the early nineties, drifting, a loner, a loser. And I am still trying to decide if I should go down there today... a vision quest... Then I looked at the date--7/7/97. In the past I have related the incident of the date 6/6/86. 7/7/97 is somewhat similar, though 1997 breaks down to 8, not 7. I any event, one of the primary events of 6/6/86 was my (parents') BMW breaking down on an overpass over Route 22 in Somerville. And this overpass was also in my vision! I want to work on Severe Repair, but I also want to go down to the Bridgewater Commons Mall and the library and a place to buy coffee in-between... Bagelsmith... It was the day after 6/6/86 that I started Halfevil Graphics. I just realized that 7+7+1997 breaks down to 22! That's a darn lucky number. Anyway, I'm off of work today, and I need a weekday afternoon to recreate the atmosphere of my Bridgewaterian vision. 8:04 PM I went on the "vision quest". Did it on a Stormjaunt. On the whole, the trip was more upsetting than inspiring. The places that I went suck now. Things have changed. I have changed. I guess that's the biggest part--how much I have changed since my loser days of the early nineties. I was trying to come up with some breakthrough for Severe Repair, and I came up with the idea of checklists in JPEG Yargo file format. It wasn't the sort of amazing breakthrough I was looking for, but it does bring up an interesting issue--the question of the possibility of low-tech being the final goal. See, my wesite is now, and will be for some time to come, totally no-frills. There are HTML and JPEG files, and that's it. No Java, no CGI scripting, no databases, no animation--nothing. Severe Repair, which is my focus at this time, seems on the surface to beg for "frills". That is, it seems to call for a system whereby a user logs in and sees a "map" of all the Cups he/she has read, with the ability to click on any Cup in the map and go there. My idea of a JPEG checklist which can be printed (or bought via mail order) is on its surface an intermediary measure, a thing to be implemented before I can implement the high-tech system. But I am now wondering whether it might be preferable to stick with the low-tech system. That is, to NOT have a log-in. But won't I eventually need a log-in with LWOR? In my current vision of LWOR, yes--there will be a log-in. But I am interested in the idea of doing all this WITHOUT a log-in. Why, though? What's wrong with a log-in? Tue 7/8/97 * 12:06 AM Mars update: They've released a lot of images. None of them would be hard to fake. The images offer little evidence one way or the other, regarding the possible faking of this mission. BUT... and this is a big but... the people involved in the mission, at least the ones I've seen on TV, have been acting VERY oddly--very much in line with people who are acting and trying to cover something up. One thing is the overreaction, where they're all dancing and screaming and hugging each other. Another is the very rehearsed way they are saying things. Tonight on Nightline the chief scientist for the mission said something like "We're doing something real here. We're really doing something fantastic for people." I'm paraphrasing, but it was weird how he kept saying "real", almost as if he were giving a very subtle clue that it's NOT real. Anyway, I better upload this issue, eh? Get all Obliviana. *OW* -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----