I remember when that came out. A friend and I were having lunch at a MosBurger in Akihabara across from one of the myriad little electronics shops. The shop had various game demos running on this ridiculously large (for the time - it was a tube TV) TV out front.

And then Silpheed came on. My friend and I left our burgers at the table and wandered over as if in a stupor to drool over the then-amazing graphics. My folks (who went with us) had to drag us away. We had played the original to death on my PC Jr. years before, and the Sega CD/Mega CD sequel was a dream come true for us.

Good times, good times.

I was in Beijing on Saturday. Flickr was in fact inaccessible. Right now, China is undergoing Olympics Madness. Particularly in Beijing, they have stores dedicated to Olympics schwag with T-shirts, toys, pencils, bags, you name it. There are posters, TV advertisements and billboards plastering the entire country. China is racing to get ready for the impending event. The week before I arrived, they installed small ratings boxes at immigration, with four lit buttons showing faces ranging from smiling to frowning that you can choose from after the official stamps your passport to rate your experience. We already know the Chinese government takes a rather narrow view on freedom of speech, and in the middle of what might be their biggest P.R. effort in history, they're going to spare no effort to clamp down on negative press--especially when it touches on the heart of Beijing.

Spanking? How ironic, in light of your signature.

Are you saying your parents were incompetent?

;-)