Warning: All opinions expressed henceforth belong to Matt "Smoot" Bowyer, and do not in any way, shape, or form reflect the opinions of Fortunecity, Left of Nowhere, or probably anyone.

Spell check? HA!

  Well, first, the obvious. We're not dead. It's the year 2000, and somehow, through all the hoopla, ranting, raving, fear, warning, hysteria, and indismissable whine of Anerica, a shred of sanity broke through.

  The power didn't even go out at my house, let alone the world coming to a complete halt. N Sync (or was it 98 Degrees? I can't tell them apart) still played, Regis Philbin was still on the same hardcore drugs during the celebration that he's on during Who Wants to Be Ridiculed And Be Made A Fool Of While Trying To Be A Millionaire, and my computer was online right through the supposed apocalypse.

  On a cooler note, I think it was ABC that showed Sting singing "Brand New Day" right after the ball dropped, which was pretty neat. I mean, that's how I'd like to start the New Millennium*, with my personal favorite solo artist singing a good song.
 

* All you people who are complaining that the new millenium doesn't start until 2001.... well, you're right. Just shut up about it, all right? *grin*

  Matt Bowyer's Random Questions and Pet Peeves of the Day:

  Pet Peeves:

  1) No Naptime in School - Face it. Not a day goes by where I don't want to sleep through one of my classes. They should solve this by giving us time to sleep. We already have to wake up too early.
  2) Exams - Physics exams in particular. My AP Physics exam took me 5 hours.
  3) People Who Won't Give Me Backrubs - You know who you are.
  4) College Applications - Still haven't done them, and a bunch of deadlines passed on the 15th, including NYU, one of the places I really wanted to go. Drat. Blasted guidance department not doing my transcript on time...

  Questions:

  1) Presidential elections; For those of you under 21: Who cares?

  Now it's time for Matt to ramble about his latest computer game, an event most of you will remember me doing in the original so very long ago. So what is it this time, this thing that's caught my fancy and I see as worth taking up space and this column that none of you read anyway?

  Myth II: Soulblighter. It's made by Bungie Software, and is a 3D strategy/fantasy wargame, in the same genre as Command and Conquer and Starcraft, but far different.

  First of all, it doesn't feature resource gathering, like about every other game on the market. You start with a number of units, and you may or may not get reinforcements. More often than not, you're stuck with who you have, which means you have to take care of your units. Secondly, units that stay alive transfer from mission to mission, and become stronger as they make it through more and more hazardous scenes.

There's an insane amount of units in this game, ranging from the armor-clad Warriors and the long-range Bowmen to the javelin-tossing Soulless and big ugly piglike Mauls. But no unit in the game as anywhere near as fun as that cocky little devil, the Dwarf. They throw Molotov Cocktails or fire mortars, depending on which sort of dwarf, and then scream, laugh, and jump around after watching something go BOOM.

  That other strange thing up there is a Wight, which attacks by stabbing itself and exploding in a goopy mess. Fun, eh?

  First multiplayer game I ever played I won by tossing an explosive into a pack of melee troops, mine and my opponent's, AC, and watching everything blow up nice and pretty. I won, with that single attack. *grin*

This is funny as Hades.

  With this update, I've included a lot of writing, mostly just poetry. I'd like, though, to make a note on one story I just completed. And you're gonna listen, or else I'll kill your family*.

  "The Fragile", first of all, has nothing to do with the Nine Inch Nails album, but now that I think about it, probably reads rather well when accompanied by it. It's one of my first real tries at writing something disturbing, yet with a different sort of feel to it. I mean, anyone who knows me and has seen my poetry knows that it's pretty damned easy for me to be disturbing.

  One of the more fun parts about writing this story for me was creating Victor and Nathan, two characters I would've hung out with in real life had they been actual people. I keep company with some of the most cynical people in the world, which fits my characters rather well in this story.

  I also swore a bit more than usual in this story (read that: At All), just because I couldn't envision the words "Goshdarnit!" leaving Nathan's mouth. It's just a bit odd to think of that. It'd be like WWF's The Rock speaking in the first-person, or Wolverine and Cable trading carrot cake recipes.

  It took me a much longer time to write it than I thought it would, which just goes to show that one simple, unchanging fact:

  Matt is a lazy mofo.
 

* I am NOT going to kill your family. Don't call the content police on me.

  Hey, did anyone watch the American Music Awards? Well, neither did I. But I did accidentally tune in while Genie girl Christina Aguilera was on, and I discovered something.

  She can sing.

  I mean, I don't like the style of her music or anything. Personally, I think I'd rather listen to Twisted Sister for about four days straight than listen to Aguilera's album. But she has a nice voice. And, unlike the boy bands, we can tell the girls apart.

  Speaking of the boy bands, (ahh! another connected rant!) we've come up with a theory which explains the remarkable similarity between the Backstreet Boys, and 98 Degrees, and N Sync, and Five, and all those other kids. It's just the same five studio singers, and different headlining dancers. It makes sense...

  Well, that's all for this edition. I figure you guys are still reeling from that last one. Man, it went on for days... well, buckle up and drive safely. And if you're drunk, just remember that two of those headlights are real.
 

-Matt Bowyer is the columnist, The Man Who Sold The World is the column, Left of Nowhere is the page, Dr. Pepper is the drink, Ben is the cat, mum is the word, and Larry King is the narrator.
 
 

Hey, here's an idea. Email me and tell me what you thought. C'mon, it'll be fun. Really.