This commercial used to air on northern Michigan's TV 9 & 10, among many other stations. Most people from Sault Ste. Marie will recognize it. I've described it to people over the years as one of the most hilarious commercials I've ever seen, but those who never saw this commercial when it aired in the 1990s usually refuse to believe that it existed.

A couple of years ago I went looking to see if anybody had put the commercial online. I found several threads in forums and on usenet about the advertisement, including full lyrics, but nowhere was there a posted video. Recently I searched YouTube for it again - and found it. I'm assuming that somebody must have had it kicking around on an old VHS tape, captured it, and uploaded it. Here it is for your enjoyment.



(Anybody reading this post as a bulletin on the BBS may wish to go to www.electronicchicken.com to view it on the web.)

I started writing the first draft of Blue Shift on January 17th, 2007, got about halfway through, and somehow lost the will to continue with it. I knew what was going to happen in the second half, but I didn't like it, and I didn't exactly know how best to get there. Eventually I withdrew what few chapters of the story I had posted on the website because it didn't seem right to leave them there when I had no idea if or when I would finish the story.

Six months later, I tried writing the story again, got only a few chapters in, and found that I was up against some sort of barrier once more, unable to proceed.

Around the middle of March, 2008, I felt strangely compelled to pick up this particular story once more and see it through its unpleasant (but fun to read) second half and all the way to its unfortunate ending. I rewrote it from scratch, changing a few of the details (simplifying the story somewhat for clarity's sake) and completely altering the pace of the story. The result is a book that's consistent and entertaining, and stands as a worthy sequel to Green Filter by continuing the story without retelling it.

So what began on January 17th, 2007 finally ended in the wee hours of April 8th, 2008, when I finished editing the story. I've carved it up and made HTML and PDF documents out of the chapters, and posted it online. It's available here on the website under the stories section, so please check it out and post your comments.

I just finished writing the last chapter of Blue Shift! A quick proofread over the next couple of days, and then it'll appear on the website.

I've had this NEC PC-8201A kicking around for about five years now, doing little but collecting dust (much like another system I wrote about recently.)

Recently I picked the NEC up again and started messing around with it and its built in N82 BASIC programming language. I quickly learned how easy it was to do I/O through the serial port, and realized that it might be possible to run a very simple BBS on the machine - if only there was a device or a piece of software that, essentially, served a serial port in the same way that a telnet host serves a shell. It turned out that yes, there are several different types of devices and ten or more software packages that serve this purpose.

And so another project began . . .

There is one comment on this entry.

They may not be Bionex, and this may not be the Siloam Project, but the Boston Retinal Implant Project has developed an artificial eyeball. Apparently it offers a very limited perception of light and basic shapes, but not enough detail to make out a person's face.

Given this development, and the fact that the technology will undoubtedly improve over time, it's possible that artificial eyesight will be available to the blind within our lifetimes. I guess setting Green Filter in the present day wasn't so unrealistic after all.