Flat Major

Or, the apparent result of dropping a piano on a military base. The complementary riddle concerning the release of a piano down a mineshaft (flat minor) is a little more subtle, but requires the first to aid its setup.

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned MS Paint Adventures. If I haven't, it is a grave injustice because it deserves to be mentioned. Repeatedly. I have never seen another webcomic - I use the term loosely, because "webcomic" does not properly describe MS Paint Adventures - create such a sense of epic scale so successfully. Part of it may be that readers are able to influence the story by making suggestions for character actions, so there is a very real investment in characters. The other part consists of the grand-scale animations, which are staggering in their length and complexity. Things happen in this story, and they are BIG.

Now if I haven't mentioned Alice is Dead before, this is because I didn't know of it previously. This is also a grave injustice, though an unintentional one. There are currently two episodes of the game, and while the puzzles aren't too hard, the writing is riveting and the art, beautifully detailed. The world of Alice is Dead is twisted version of Wonderland, and one can't help but want to know how deep the rabbit hole goes. So to speak.

I've been cleaning up the corners in my life, quite literally. There comes a time when one must sit down and go through the belongings which were once valued, now not so much. I have twenty years worth of collected material, most of it junk, to sort through. It is inevitable when pursuing such an occupation that there are a few surprises. For one, I discovered a large number of fancy pens, most of them still working well, including a lovely Sheaffer. I also found some old, old things I've forgotten about - photographs, papers, drawings, even cash - hidden away like a squirrel might hide its nuts. With the same effect.

One of the interesting surprises came when I was searching through a folder of art constructed by myself primarily between the ages of one and five, and which proved very difficult to prune down. I found an old, old drawing of a bird by myself at around the age of four, with the wobbly lines and patchy colours typical of a hand lacking dexterity. It was recognisably a Kakapo.

Clearly the drawing had been copied from a photograph - I doubt that at that age I could even pronounce "Kakapo" properly. But the main features had been preserved, so that my twenty-one-year-old self was capable of recognising it at a glance. There is a lesson here somewhere.

My father is finally retiring his seven-year-old IBM ThinkPad, a model which I maintain was the best work laptop ever made. I remember playing Lego Robohunter on that thing, and taking my first wobbly steps into the Internet. I remember using it as a backup computer when mine failed repeatedly, and then again when mine failed for good. I remember the day when it finally could no longer function without a constant power supply, its battery not nearly as durable as the computer itself.

I think I will miss it. When something has been nearby for so long - especially something with so intimate an association as a laptop - it leaves a mark. Suddenly the things you thought would always be there clearly and firmly demonstrate that all things are tentative.

Change is inevitable.

Except from vending machines.