Relive Your Geek Past: Play Zork Online

80s Baseball ShirtOne of the great things about being my age (which I will not say, but should not be hard to guess), is that many of the things I got teased about when I was geeky kid are cool now that I am a geeky adult. TV shows like Psych and Chuck make their money by appealing to lifelong geeks like me. Geeks are so cool now, you’d think everyone in my generation grew up reading Tolkien, programming TRS-80s, and playing Dungeons and Dragons. But I know better. There weren’t many of us back then, at least in the heart of Montana where I lived.

One of those geeky things I loved to do was play Zork, a text-based computer game by Infocom. My friends and I would play Zork on my Apple IIe and try to conquer the underground kingdom while avoiding being eaten by the Grue. Ah, the hours we wasted getting lost in an imaginary world created solely by green text on a black background.

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St. Vidicon, Pray for Us!

St. Vidicon to the RescueIf you are a computer troubleshooter, you need to know about St. Vidicon of Cathode. He was martyred in the year 2020 when he was electrocuted in order to keep the Vatican broadcast equipment working so that Pope Clement could send his message to the world. Since his death, people throughout the world have prayed for his intercession to combat those terrors of technology, Murphy’s Law, the Imp of Perversity, and Finagle.

His story is recounted in St. Vidicon to the Rescue, a novel by Christopher Stasheff. St. Vidicon is a spin-off of Stasheff’s popular Ron Gallowglass series (The Warlock in Spite of Himself, etc.). Father Vidicon employs the help of computer troubleshooter Tony Ricci to come to the aid of various people plagued by the forces of entropy. Tony gets to wield Occam’s Razor, travel through time, and thwart the legal system. At the same time, Father Vidicon helps Tony in his relationship with Sandy, the object of Tony’s affection.

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