Mr. Speaker

Channel 9 - No Fear, No Favour. Tonight - “Terrorism. Are we doing enough?”…For those not old enough to remember, the world at the beginning of the new millennium was a joyous, peaceful place. Children danced in the street singing and smiling. World leaders came together in harmony to organise tree planting operations and beach side barbeques. Big Brother delighted us all in it’s first season.

But all that was to change… forever. One sunny September day, I forget which one precisely, the metaphorical towers of global happiness and goodwill passed away and turned over it’s inheritance to it’s evil next-of-kin.

“Longhorn” is the rather ridiculous name given to the next version of the Microsoft Windows operating system. It has been a long time coming. Frequent delays have forced Microsoft to omit various features that were going to make their debut in this release. But they have to get Longhorn out soon, ‘cause they need some more cash.

Pictures of the new version have been circulating, and a review of it can be found on the winsupersite site. I had a look around and noticed some pretty weird stuff about these leaked images…

The most shocking discovery was that the screen shots appear to have come from a person who has a relationship of some description with the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard. Could this be Bill Gates’ machine, and if so, why does he have a “stack” (as it’ll be called in Longhorn) of documents about our main man?

Mr Speaker is not one to speculate without valid sources, but it would most certainly seem that John Howard and Bill Gates are planning to create a small Internet start-up company that will sell “virtual-handicrafts”.

More details as they come to hand.

Well the end of the world as we kind of know it has drawn a few weeks closer and as promised in part one of this historic and important series on Keeping Entertained During the Immanent Apocalypse I did indeed watch The Wombles. I also purchased a solar panel, and planted some tomatoes. With these skills and products in hand I reckon I’ve lifted my ranking of “ability-to-survive-the-apocalypse-in-style” from 1,800,000th to about 1,250,000th. Not bad. I should be number 1 or 2 in 1.5 years, by my estimates.

Making good use of the things that we find.

First up. The Wombles. Although the guy at the counter thought I was making up the whole concept of rat-creatures that recycle, my local parasitic virus of a video store (blockbuster) did indeed have a copy of The Wombles - Orinoco Springs into Action.

For those who choose not to remember… “the wombles live in a burrow under Wimbledon Common and spend their days building all kinds of ingenious inventions with hilarious and unexpected results!” Maybe hyping it up just a tad, but a good watch none the less.

The first thing I was surprised to learn was that the theme song is “The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we” and not “The Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we”. I did some searching in to Wimbledon Common and it is true that they are not so common, and perhaps were killed off at some point since the making of this video in the seventies.

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Is “peak oil” for real? (warning, link not safe for design-conscious eyes) I don’t know, but I’ve been scouring for information about it for the last whatnot months. Mostly to avoid doing work, but also because I’ve noticed ‘lil signs and hints of it popping up more frequently lately.

Are the powers-that-be desensitising us in to the petroleumless reality of the not-to-distant future? Like they are doing with the aliens? Oops. Did I type that out loud? Anyway, here’s the latest I’ve seen in the medias about (peak) oil…

Gotta be worth a thought at least, with oil prices hitting record highs and blah blah blah…This one reckons “The oil cartel has set an unofficial target of 55 days of oil inventories in industrialised nations. Analysts estimate current stockpiles are around 52 days.” I think that means if they stopped producing oil right now, there would be 52 - 55 days of oil still stockpiled. Interesting hey. We’ll have to keep an eye on that one and see if it changes at all. Time to go to the library to look for historical data on this one.

Oil exploration aims to meet energy shortages - There are heaps of articles around like this at the moment. “Oil prices are so high, because demand is greater than supply”. And though I’m no economist, I’m pretty sure that thats supposed to be bad.

“Currently, the organisation is producing around 29.5 million barrels per day (bpd), which has ensured that demand is fully met, and global crude oil stocks continue to build,” Sheikh Ahmad said. But c’mon, thats Opec’s president Sheikh Ahmad al-Fahd al-Sabah. Seems like Opec might have vested interest. Oil prices did dip after he said it, so people smarter than me believe him I guess.

What’s happening to oil prices? - This article is beautiful. But boring. I’m sure it would alleviate all my concerns, but it’s just too long for this time of night. Though a highlighted bullet point does say “The tightness in supply position is expected to continue in 2005″ and isn’t appended with “, but don’t worry, it’ll be cool in 2006″

There is some big ol’ meeting coming up with the Opec bunch on the 16th. Hopefully I’ll be all studied up on oil by then. There’s just so much out there about it. Luckily I’ve watched this informative documentary from archive.org, and am well on my way.

Well, things look shaky for the happy continuation of modern society. Either global warming is going to get off it’s lazy bum, wipe out our food supply and leave us living on the juice of cockroaches (lucky I live in Sydney). Or global warming will be averted due to the fact we have run out of fuel to burn, in which case food transportation and production will be halted and leave us living on the juice of cockroaches.

Either case will have the same result of course - our shortage of fuel/food will be balanced by an over-abundance of commercial television’s delightful shock-reports that no family can afford to miss. I might try and tape as many of those as I can actually… If we can dig up a VCR they will be hilarious to watch in 40 years time.
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Mr. Speaker presents a brief historical comparision of Tokugawa Japan and the 1981 video game PacMan, in point form.

Introduction

• The first Shogun of the Tokugawa period was Tokugawa Ieyasu.
  He was a pretty dang good Shogun, heavily influencing japanese history and achieving almost unlimited power and wealth.
• The first video game to spawn its own line of merchandising was PacMan.
  PacMan was created by Namco designer Toru Iwatani and is the best selling coin-operated game in history.

Definitions

• Shogun means “Foreign barbarian subduing generalissimo”.
  It was applied to Ieyasu after he defeated the Hideyori loyalists and other Western rivals.
• PacMan has no meaning.
  It was changed at the last minute from PuckMan so that no one would graffitti the machines and make rude words.
• Tokugawa Ieyasu was the major ruler throughout the Tokugawa period.
  The Tokugawa period was a time of peace that allowed visual and performing arts to flourish.
  The Tokugawa period lasted from 1603 to 1868.
• PacMan was the major ruler throughout the 80’s.
  The 80’s was a time of innocence and neon that allowed anyone who so desired become a pop/rock star.
  The 80’s lasted from 1980 to about mid 1988.
  

Interesting point

• There have been many periods (jidai) in Japan’s history.
• There has been only one 80’s.

The mystery of the monikers

• All of the periods had an alternate name. I don’t know why.
  The Tokugawa period was also called the Edo Period. Edo was the name of the place that is now known as Tokyo.
  The Momoyama period (1568 to 1603) was also known as the Azushi period. The Muromachi period (1336 to 1568) was also called the Ashikaga period. An so on.
• All of the ghosts in PacMan had an alternate name. I don’t know why.
  • Shadow, Speedy, Bashful and Pokey had nicknames of Inky Pinky Blinky and Clyde.
  • Their Japanese names were Oikake, Machibuse, Kimagure and Otoboke.
  • Their nicknames were Akabei, Pinky, Aosuke and Guzuta.
• They also had alternate names. I dont know why.
  • Their alternate names were Urchin, Romp, Stylist and Crybaby.
  • Their alternate nicknames were Macky, Micky, Mucky and Mocky.
• The common ghost name in Japanese and English was “Pinky”

Summary and conclusions

• No Shogun was ever called Pinky.