The illness has arrived; it's a cold and do I feel lousy. I was at work (where I caught it) yesterday and most of today spreading my germs around to help boost everybody's immune system responses. Had to attend a big meeting this afternoon regarding our coming move out of our spacious but temporary trailer-grouping ("The Village") into the old building (which has been undergoing renovation). Office occupancy there will be 150% nominal, but my co-worker/supervisor and I shall be sharing a fairly generous space - a big square room in which (as we discovered today) we'll be able to set up our existing modular partition-furniture into a miniature cubical-farm. No more windows, but the privacy will be quite adequate.

Now and again, for all the wrong reasons, there's apocalyptic discussion on the Usenet newsgroup comp.software.year-2000 about "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov. This is his story (later expanded into a novel) about a planet in a triple-star system whose inhabitants go nuts every zillion years when all three suns set at the same time. Naturally some of the no-nothing posters can't be bothered to read the book; instead their source is the 1988 movie, available at the video store and hence (to Ike's posthumous chagrin) wearing some mantle of legitimacy. Naturally I haven't seen this film; nobody bothered when it came out in 1988 - we were warned. I did however save the capsule review from the "LA Weekly" because it was so amusing; when the subject comes up I've posted it to rec.arts.sf.movies. I'm weary of repeatedly re-typing this blurb so I'm going to record it here, where I can find it next time I have a need.

They live in a future world with three suns -- a world without darkness or talent that awaits the prophesied coming of night that will bring their pathetic world to an end. Once every generation a film comes along that is so incompetent, so completely disjointed, it becomes a standard against which all other bad movies must be judged. In order to qualify for such an honor, the film must be abysmal on all counts -- the script, the acting, the camera work, the sound, the editing, even the costumes must add up to one big zero. The only reason for seeing "Nightfall" is so you can join in a class-action suit against the filmmakers for wasting your time. <1>

And speaking of Usenet, here's a post I found recently:

Newsgroup: rec.travel.europe
Subject: Amsterdam/UK Used Bicycles
From: mlnf1@sonning.demon.co.uk
Date: August 31, 1998

I have heard it said that if you want a bicycle in Amsterdam all you have to do is stand at a busy traffic intersection and whilst the lights are red just shout "That's my bike" and someone will throw one down and run off.

My temporary crown just fell out (as I was eating chicken noodle soup) so it's back to the dentoid tomorrow. Those characters making the real one won't be finished for another week - what a racket that is! $30 worth of gold - after they're done the price becomes $700. What's wrong with that picture?