Recently, as I blasted away at another mineful of malicious robots in Descent II, aided by just about every cheat code in the book (isn't it strange how all of these unusual occurrences always happen while I'm playing Descent something-or-other?) I was suddenly engulfed with a strange light. Thinking that I had somehow missed one of those guys that fires flash missiles, I swooped into a rolling dive and fired off a couple of Mercury missiles in thay general direction.
Even though I clearly heard a distant explosion that was not unlike a drone being ripped to smithereens, the light didn't go away. Taking a quick jab at the pause key, I decided to investigate. The light seemed to be coming from the direction of the window. After taking a few minutes to let my eyes adjust to the sudden outpouring of light (a procedure I usually associate with a trip to the refrigerator) I saw something that I haven't seen in a long time. The sky above, which, for as long as I can remember, has been a uniform shade of gray, (Once, when I first moved to the Seattle area, I asked a kid if it ever stops raining here, and his answer was "How should I know? I'm only six years old!) but was suddenly completely blue. My first impulse was to think that I was losing my mind again (I let it wander once, and it took several years before it was found and returned to the rightful owner) I panicked. I was about to call the looney bin and check in when I realized that I had already strangled the phone about six months ago, in the ugly little incident that landed me in the field of technical support (If you missed it, Here it is.) I tried anyway, but sure enough, the line was dead. I paused to give the telephone a proper burial in the big pile of obsolete junk(tm).
I had no choice but to grudgingly accept the fact that I would have to think clearly. Not having done this in quite some time, it was a challenge, but eventually I was able to do so, and realize that the sky has been blue before, and most of the time this has been a good thing. As I sat and pondered this, the sudden impulse came to my mind that I should open the window. Quickly jumping into Windows on Lazarus, I tried to find that particular window on my desktop to open it, but couldn't seem to do so (Apparently, you have to be Bill Gates to afford a house that has that capability.) I realized that here in Seattle, a blue sky as the one I was seeing right now is completely unnatural, and for the sky to change like this and the clouds to go away meant that it was only a matter of time before the devil himself arrived on a flying pig, complaining about how his fiery dominion just got frozen over.
Finally, I found the right control (who would think to put it on the window itself?), and opened the window. Suddenly I heard a whole bunch of chirping sounds which I couldn't immediately place. Suddenly, I realized that it would probably be a bad thing for a hard disk to be making a sound like that, and began panicking anew. Quickly, I tried to run SCANDISK, but in my panic, ran FDISK instead. fortunately, I was shaking so much I hit the esc key and exited oyut of the thing before I could comit virtual suicide without even realizing it. I turned off the computer to try and avoid further damage, but when I did, the chirping sounds didn't stop. Getting really mad at this point, I threw a defunct floppy drive (one thing we have plenty of in here) out the window, and it landed in a tree, scattering birds in all directions. Finally, when the birds regrouped in a distant tree, the chirping was significantly quieter. Immediately, in the back of my mind, a design for a slingshot capable of launching defunct computer peripherals very long distances began to form in my mind.
Now mostly convinced that I wasn't insane (I don't think I am, have been, or ever will be totally convinced that I am sane) It finally hit me what had happened when a window popped up on the screen that it had automatically adjusted the clock for Daylight Savings Time. Apparently this long dull thing called "winter" has ended. In it's place is spring, where all of the brown out there suddenly turns into a bright green color, and all these birds decide that they really didn't like it that much down south and decide to come back, ultimately deciding it's a bit too cold up here and heading south again. I guess it's some sort of weird bird thing.
Anyway, this is the time of year that the other people who occasionally wander into the den decide to come up with some excuses to get off the computers for a while and engage in reality. Contrary to popular belief, I actually do some things other than sitting in fromt of the computer, with waterskiing and fishing (2 very common ones in the Northwest) being pretty high on the list. Baseball has also returned (in this household, Opening Day isn't just an event, it's a holiday.) I had the chance this Opening Day to actually attend the game between the local Mariners and the Yankees, Everyone's favorite team to hate in the American League. This is not surprising, since a significant portion of the decor of the walls here in the den is comprised of sports art.
Still, with the change of season comes an interesting revelation: If all of this reality stuff keeps up, I may end up beign forced to get a life after all.