> BTW, way to throw in random comments, Iss! That's what makes it so fun in here!
>
> --Ch"modulator, demodulator"ris

Well, thanks. :-)

I haven't had much to say the last week or so (too busy at work to come up with responses to all these threads), but I still feel sort of compelled to put in *something*, at least, each day. Just so my membership doesn't lapse, or something, I guess.

To Darien: I've got a semi-working Commodore 128 and bunches of old C64 games at my parents' house; I'll have to see whether I can still play some of those old classics next time I visit them.

More Commodore schtuff: My friends and I had a grand time chortling over the user's manual for the C128, which had a section in the middle with color photographs. One or two photos were intended to show how "portable" the computer was, by portraying a student walking to class with the C128's main unit tucked under his arm. I wonder how he figured on carrying that twenty-pound disk drive that he'd also need, or a monitor, and so forth. Maybe his school had a lab where you could bring your C128 and plug it into an existing monitor-and-disk-drive setup.....but in that case, why not just include the C128 with that setup and have the student simply bring disks with his work on them? Portable computing sure has come a long way since then. :-)

Random Comment for Today: Jacqueline and I spent last weekend at her parents' house, and they wanted us to take a fake plant back home with us, since her parents didn't want it. The plant was a ficus (a fig tree), so naturally the discussion prompted comments like: "That's the fakest ficus my eyes have ever focused on!"

Later, on the drive home, that bit was expanded and put to song, so without further ado, here's what exists so far of the "fake ficus song" [sung to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic]:

Stanza I:
Mine eyes have finally focused on the fakest ficus found
It's forg'd in the finest phony flora factory around
Oh, its flowing fronds and fairly fibrous filaments abound
The ficus marches on

Stanza II:
(not yet written, but something about the ficus' "fight for freedom", and so forth)

Stanza III:
In the fullness of the fragrant Fall the ficus' fate was sealed
By the florist's flushing fingers was its fantasy repealed
As the fulminating firmaments flung fire on the fields
The ficus marches on

Anyone care to help finish or edit this? This could be the inaugural poetic production of the coming century! Pitch in and become part of history!

Iss "can't figure why no one ever wants to catch a ride with Jacqueline and me" achar