Fat-Man & Burger

I think I was 7 or 8 -- somewhere around that age -- when I got hold of a mechanical pencil for the first time in my life. I loved the fact that the tip never blunted, which is still a problem with modern pencils, so I spent and afternoon/evening drawing "Fat-Man & Burger."

The ending lacks a punch, but I'm fond of some of the illustrations, particularly the panel where Fat-Man is sweating profusely.

Beginning

With every beginning, there's obviously some kind of end.

You see new sprouts popping up in some places as we get closer to the calendar start of Spring. A lot of trees around here get that hazy green look to them. Then, almost overnight, there are leaves and flowers. But before that -- the way things are right now -- everything looks pretty much dead.

It's the clockwork aspect of this cycle that has always intrigued me. If humanity vanished tomorrow -- every man, woman, child, and points in-between -- just up an went, the seasons would stretch inextricably from one to the next without fail. Trying to figure out how all of that works -- spinning of the Earth, tilt of the Earth, the orbit of the Earth around the sun, weather, ocean currents, and so on -- hurts my brain. The amount of balance required to keep things just so is difficult for me to comprehend, especially given the scale of, well, the universe.

I don't like letting my brain stray into that territory if only because it makes me feel like a speck. Barely a mote. Insignificant compared to the vast OUT THERE-NESS of the rest of existence, of which we've barely scratched the surface of and may never actually accomplish to any extent. Forget the rocket-to-face of discovering other life out there, if it's there at all. This isn't Mass Effect or Star Trek or Star Wars or Alien or ALF. This is reality and the reality of making a connection with some other race out there... well, it's billions of trillions to one. A long shot.

Boldly Going, etc.

The Armchair Empire has undergone a lot of changes in its nearly 12 years of operation but the biggest change is right around the corner.

And it's entirely out of necessity this time. Usually changes have been cosmetic in nature -- logo change, etc. -- but this change comes about because the old infrastructure and tools for posting AE's content are cumbersome and unwieldy  when it comes to timely posting of articles. I've been using FrontPage 2003! As you can imagine, it's showing its age in Internet terms. And there was no such thing as YouTube. Or Facebook. Or Twitter. And Myspace was the new thing that everyone was talking about. So incorporating any of those items into the site, making them features of the site, would essentially mean tearing down the entire site and trying to rebuild thousands of pages of content. It was a daunting task to consider.

We looked at our options. And almost all of them would either mean a massive time or money investment. (Or both.) Neither option was appealing because I don't have much of either one (and I'm pretty sure Jeff's in the same boat).

So, as we approach E3, there will be a cataclysm.

The classic Armchair Empire will fracture and splinters of the site will spiral off into space. The flagship Armchair Empire will still exist (as will a dozen years of content including the Top Ten: Best Cleavage) but we'll be posting everything new to The Armchair Empire Infinite (working title), which will showcase a more integrated approach with the likes of Facebook, YouTube, personal blogs, Twitter, et al to provide more interaction and an actual discussion. All the fresh links on armchairempire.com will be content from Infinite.

We have every confidence that this move will mean more timely posting of reviews, opinions, and other features from writers that have been with The Armchair Empire in one form or another for a long, long time. To these people, I'm very thankful. If it weren't for them, The Armchair Empire would have folded long ago. (Of course, I love you readers, too! You're awesome -- take the rest of the day off!)

From The Air

Perspective is everything.

In the case of these two pictures, it's all about being thousands of feet above the ground from the vantage point of a helicopter. These pictures were taken by Leah Holiove -- @Leah_Holiove on Twitter -- who regularly takes picture from the air in the course of her day job and these two are from her latest round of photos.

One shows the construction of the new Port Mann Bridge. (It's easy to spot because there's still a gap.) I've driven over the current bridge thousands of times and I've never given any thought to anything other than what drivers are doing around me. I've never considered how spectacular it might all look from a different perspective.

The other picture (above) looks westward to Vancouver. (The helicopter was probably close to the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge.) There's something really awesome seeing this from the air like this. Google Maps/Earth is great -- with Street View and satellite pics -- but there's something missing from those resources. Maybe it's a "texture" or maybe it's just the angle of the picture. Maybe it's the sun shining on the city and the rain brushing up against the slope of land in the distance. Or maybe it's the way the picture is framed. I can't quite put my finger on it.

What I do know is that the pictures put me in a different frame of mind.

It's really easy to fold in on oneself and focus on the issues that sit in our line of sight and nothing else. There's a lot more out there to consider. People we haven't met, friends we haven't made, stories we haven't heard, and places we've never been. Given a little perspective, a view from the sky, makes me better appreciate what this part of the world has to offer and just how good we have it here.