Bastard blogger just crashed before I had a chance to save my post! Grrrr.

OK, a pithier version of what I wrote before, because I've got stuff I have to do tonight:

Response to time travel guy from friend of friend, an astrophysicist (the friend of friend, not the friend. The friend works with crazy people while getting her degree in Social Work of Psychology, can't remember which, so I thought the original letter might be from a client of hers. It's not: Apparently the time-travel-wannabe's lament has been floating around the internet since 1997.)

I received your email via a friend and think that I might be able to help. I do have a Universe editor (Microsoft Universe Editor 2.0). Evidently, the first release had a bug in it so that you had to reboot the Universe after loading a new file - annoying. I managed to get this newer version as a freebie for getting AOL Universe Premium.

I have had problems, though. I created a new Universe with me as ruler, and all planets inhabited by monkeys (be careful to choose the monkeys that don't bite under the species menu). I also created one planet inhabited by Asian women. Well, it turns out that my version is only a "demo", so I was unable to save my Universe. After clicking on "save", a dialog box comes up saying that I had to register with Microsoft and pay full price - well, suffice it to say that the price is simply astronomical.

As for your time machine, I do have one, but I haven't used it since I went back to high school with the full knowledge of who would eventually grow up to be losers. I had fun with this, but my machine is broke and it is sitting next to my Betamax in the garage. I hope to get both fixed soon. Just to be clear, it still partially works, I.e. it maps X, Y, and Z into X, Y, and -Z. The problem is the negative sign in the Z term. When you use it, you end up walking upside down. You'd think you might get used to this, but I never did.

Anyway, please let me know if this helps.

Thanks,
Don

I also have a couple of cool links to share:

Depress (or comfort) yourself by finding out what others had accomplished by the time they were your age.

If you love a book, set it free.