I'm an avid gamer. What kind of gamer? Hey, if it's a game, I play it!

How many ways can you fill in the blank? "____-games"


My favorite,

The Navy Hymn
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Eternal Father strong to save,
Whose arm doth bind the restless wave,
Who bidst the mighty ocean deep
it's own appointed limits keep,
Oh, hear us when we pray to thee
For those in peril on the sea.
(original verse)

Eternal Father three-in-one,
Whose hand ignites the glorious sun,
Who bidst the force of gravity
To guide the planets eternally,
Oh hear our prayer made to thy grace,
For those in peril out in space.
(verse by your host)



A poem I wrote a few years ago:

Vacuum's Warm Embrace
-----------------------------

The cacophany of bedlam surrounds me, pelting my ears with splatters of nonsense. Stop it! The noise rages on.

Rooms resound with the swelling stupidity, spilling out into the street, wave after wave of hopeless, wasted thought.

I stand amidst the maelstrom, striving to listen selectively to the clamor, helplessly lost in its oppressive weight.

The tempest carries me outward, away from normality, into uncharted waters of desperation.

Somewhere, there is peace.

Somewhere, above the not-quite-three-dimensional reality in which we live, sailing into that third dimension, away from the rules, have-tos and the can'ts.

Above the swirling tumult below, I sail into the third dimension.

Past the birds, with thier modest extension into three-space, their simple freedom granted by animal consciousness,

Past the airplanes, piloted by eyeless, swaggering buffoons, obliviously deafened by their own wings,

Past the freezing temperatures populated only by the trace of a distant jet that appears suddenly, with a roar is gone,

Past the fringes of that slim rind of air that clings to the dirt pellet we claim for our own, where the slight inverted smile of horizon glows a deep azure blue as it disappears below me.

Slowly I rise, leaving the dust and the weight of air beneath.

Turning, turning away from the sight of the sea and land, away from the seething vessel of constant blare of discord,

Turning past the blinding sun, undiminished by sky and cloud, burning intensely, purifying the psyche with blazing fire,

Turning to the black darkness beyond.

The blackness isn't, but speckled with a powder of light. I slide between the specks, the silence engulfs me in precious contentment.

Here, in the space above the plain, above the two-dimensional world we inhabit, away from the air which carries our constant battle with reason, in the warm embrace of airlessness, here I am serene.

April 29, 1996