Pulls out the App-Al keyboard as the WORLD dies and the BLUE SKY rises.
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It can be an incredible hassle to view a PowerPoint file on a Mac without Microsoft Office or iWork. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any modern viewer application. The only solution I’ve found thus far is to use NeoOffice, which is as slow as heck. And then there’s the added problem if the file is in the new Office format, .pptx. Then it has to be converted to .ppt by some other means before it can be viewed in NeoOffice. Oh, and did I mention how incredibly slow NeoOffice is? It’s really overkill for just wanting to view a file.
So, Preview is used for viewing documents. Why not add support for PowerPoint files into it? I realise that one of the driving points of Preview is that it’s so lightweight and fast, but I doubt adding in support for PowerPoint would compromise this. It could even convert it to some viewable intermediate file like it does to PostScript files if it would help.
Constant panting echoed through the pure white halls of Heaven as John Brown hustled towards the transporter room. Once inside, and still gasping, his sweaty hand slapped the red button to send him back to Earth. Sparkles flew and particles of light circled around him as the room began to incrementally shake in a mechanical way.
Soon enough, John was sliding through inter-dimensional wormhole. The walls of swirling purple plasma and constricting high pressure came to a relieving end as his body began to materialise on Earth. Visually, it looked much the same as the beginning of his journey: sparkles with particles of light spiraling around him.
After fully materialising, John stretched. His large white feathered wings straightened to their full length. His superhuman manifestation was entirely snow white, except his skin retained some element of life, bearing a fleshly hue. Considerably taller than a normal man, he still was retained an humanoid form, with the notable addition of the wings. Each hand held a large doubled edged sword with the blades encircled by glowing white flames.
Apparently, it was nighttime, with a mild breeze in the air. Noone was out and about, despite the nice light cast from the not entirely full moon. In this light of darkness, John began his first visit. The way in which he moved gave the appearance that under his long white robe, neither his feet nor legs were actually moving, but rather floating or sliding along the ground effortlessly.
Before long, his irking pace led him to the wooden door of a farmhouse. With both fists, still holding the swords, he beat on the door. A middle-aged woman answered the door.
Letting out an elongated “Hoooo!” with his rounded lips and with the tip of the sword in his left hand he bopped her on the head, inflicting a mortal wound. Upon hearing the commotion, her husband rose from his chair, yelling, “What the sam hell..”. Seeing the visiter, his eyes grew larger, leaving him in a paralysed shock. Brown then lunged towards him with the sword in his right hand, piercing the man’s chest. The man hollered, “Ahhh! You got me!” before Brown lopped off his head with the other sword.
Now, the entire household was awake. The slaves rushed to their master’s aid, only to find they no longer had a master. Seeing them, Brown raised both arms into the air, and boisterously declared, “You are freeeee!” With feelings mixed with gratitude and fear, they fled his presence.
The remainder of the night continued in much the same way. John joyously jogged from one homestead to the next. He developed an rhythmic methodology, not unlike that of a ballroom dance. In fact, the Bitter Sweet Symphony Remix began to play at the beginning of each visit he made.
Finally, after another visit, the wide eyes of his no nonsense expression gazed into the sky to see that dawn was quickly approaching. Around half way back to the town square, he realised he wasn’t going to make it. Dropping both swords, he used each hand to hold up his flowing robe. Bustling along as quickly as he could, he cried allowed with a tinge of desperation in his tone, “I have to get back to Heaven!”
Reaching the destination right in time, he quickly spun around and stomped his right foot onto the ground. The earth shook and sparkles flew as particles of light began to encircle him.
This is the concept for a TV game show slash reality show. Basically, a store is selected to be used a stadium, no colosseum. Depending upon the size of the store selected, participation could either be team based, one on one, or even free for all. In fact, it would probably be interesting to have a few different leagues to keep things interesting.
Additionally, there could be some variation by means of different scenarios. For example, a defend and assault scenario where one team could be given a head start to bunker down in the store, and then the other team begins with an assault. Of course all the favourite modes could be done as well, like capture the flag, last man standing, etc.
Basically, the rules are that you can use whatever you find in the store to combat the other players. This means, you reach the gun sections first, you can use guns. Wanna be more creative? Get to the cleaning supplies aisle and concoct yourself some weapons. The possibilities are really limitless.
Obviously, long standing players would acquire a preference for certain items and techniques, so by switching the store around, it requires the players to be creative and to produce more weapons. At a hunting store, the best weapons are obvious. But what about at a book store? Or a grocery store? This is when things get interesting.
Every nation needs an anthem. There’s no reason the pirate nation should be an exception. Thus, I nominate He’s a Pirate (Orchestral Mix) by Dj Tiësto to be the anthem of the pirate nation.
With the air of adventure and exploration, the song captures the spirit of the pirate that lives on since the golden age of piracy. In addition, the electronic sounds bear witness to the modern state of piracy as well as the projection of piracy into the future.
As I was at a conference, a doctor was speaking. Already, he had oiled his institution and programme in prestige. The arrogance metre was elevating. He was telling of how he had considered giving some pointers for the admission interview to a prospective student of the graduate programme of this particular doctor’s institution. Explaining why he chose not to do so, with the air of having received a revelation in his personal journey in life, he suddenly declared, “Because that would inject a bias!”. Whilst making this declaration, he cocked his head, jolted both index fingers into the air and even his buttocks from off his seat. I can’t say a normal person would have acted this way.
I have no quarrel with his decision nor his reasons behind it, but the way in which he recounted the event and turned it into an academic outburst is what raised the eyebrows. The whole incident was so prestigious.
Standing inside a dimly lit room of his house, young fell gazed out the window into the clear blue sky. It was another late Friday afternoon, right when there’s that stillness outside. No wind, and very little sound. Hardly another soul to be seen. He looked back inside the room, seeing the dust particles floating in the rays of sunlight. But, beyond the sunbeams, a dark figure stepped out of the shadows. It was Lucifer.
Another steady step, and then he stopped. His eyes continued to gaze into the boy’s, as Lucifer opened his mouth with a touch of wetness. Then it became clear, his lips where wet so his offer could roll of them so smoothly: “Give me your soul, and I’ll grant you seven wishes.”
Startled, the boy stepped back with his right foot. Reaching into behind his back, he pulled out an orange water pistol and fired with lighting precision into the face of Lucifer. The attack was accompanied with the response to the offer: “Screw you!”
In a shrill voice, Lucifer shrieked in pain, “Ahhh my eyes! You douche!” Continuing to fire, the boy rolled once he was empty, picking up a water burst rifle. This weapon was quite the analogue to a shotgun, pump action with bursts of water.
Repeatedly being hit with shots from the new weapon, Lucifer began roaring as he stepped backwards. Suddenly, a black hole opened behind him, spanning the entire width of the room and even part of the floor behind. On its edges, drips of darkness blurred and mingled with the physical realm of the room. Continuing to step backwards, Lucifer finally put his weight on a foot that had no foundation and he fell backwards into the black hole, roaring as his stiff body rotated.
Though we failed the mission, we were still alive. Our chopper had gained enough altitude that we were relatively safe, no enemy fire, no enemy aircraft, and no anti-air. The only ‘threat’ that remained were a few ants on the ground still pursuing us. They had slaughtered most of our unit on the ground with their swords, but there wasn’t much they could do to us now.
After a few minutes, I looked back. We’d lost a lot of good men down there.The patches of blood were still visible, even from this far away. It’s at this time, that I noticed the enemy was still chasing after us. More disturbing is that they were actually keeping up with our helicopter.
Then, one of them pulled ahead of the rest. Gradually, he was not only keeping up, but actually gaining on us. As he got closer, I remembered him. All of them fought fiercely, but this one, it was like he was possessed. By now, I could distinguish the colour of his armour against the glow of that giant sword. The sword was as sharp as any from these lands, but had to have been over 2 metres long and it burned as hot as Hell itself.
When I began to make out the details of his face, I realised that he was no longer on the ground. He was running in the air. No, not quite. He was stepping on butterflies. Not stomping on them, but gracefully bounding from one to another with every stride.
The situation was quickly turning into a real problem. Alerted, the commander ordered us to open fire with whatever weapons we had left, mostly just pistols. No effect, that which actually hit barely dinted that blue armour.
He disappeared. I looked out the door and saw him nowhere. In an instant, I was face to face with him as he jetted up from below. His eyes were opened wide with that possessed look. As quickly as he appeared, still outside, he jetted to my right, the front of the copter.
With my jaw dropped, I don’t think I moved for a second. But when I did, I could see a beam of light spanning from the left to the right side of the fuselage coming towards me. It sliced right through the helmet ‘protected’ heads of the pilot and copilot. This was it, he was decapitating the whole freakin’ chopper.
the WORLD 