Unwinnable

On January 1, 1984, defenders of freedom worldwide breathed a collective sigh of relief when the morning sun dawned on a world mercifully devoid of Thought Police, Ministries of Love and Two Minutes Hates. Didn’t that sunrise mean we had avoided the grim prophecies in George Orwell’s 1984, that his prophetic novel was proven wrong?

But 1984 was not the year to relax our vigil against the Communist threat. Even 29 years later, in 2013, when the Soviet Union is a memory and Russia allied with the West – even now, the Soviet threat is not without weapons. No, I’m not talking about the atomic bomb – I’m not even talking about Hollywood. No, Communism’s deadliest weapon is a computer program, a seemingly innocuous little game. What it lacks in explosive yield or razzle-dazzle it makes up for in soul-sucking, time-wasting, all-pervasive brain death.

I am, of course, referring to Tetris. (more…)

The crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise is dead.

Sulu is the first to die, hurled from his seat at the helm when the Klingon torpedo hits. Uhura slumps over her console, which has just exploded in a shower of sparks. Dr. McCoy is killed by another blast as he hurries to attend to Sulu. Spock has just had time to announce, “No power to the weapons, Captain,” before shrapnel spears him in the back and he collapses to the deck. (more…)

By KEVIN J. RAINERI

Some situations in life are simply unwinnable.

Alanis Morissette gives a list of them in an inappropriately titled song “Ironic.”  You see, children, irony is the use of words to convey the opposite of its literal meaning. Unfortunately, most of us are familiar with this tune and let me set the facts straight: There are no ironies listed in that song. (In fact, there is only one line of true irony in the song and it is not a part of her lists of ironic things: “And as the plane crashed down he thought ‘Well isn’t this nice…’”) The song, however, IS a decent list of unwinnable situations.

I have too often found myself in unwinnable situations as my life has progressed. It is not a matter of perspective or figuring that my glass is half-full. My glass needs a refill and there is nothing to fill it with it. Ironic? No. Unwinnable? Yes. Let me digress. (more…)