A pleasant Monday to all. Rain is predicted tonight. That's when the skies open and liquid falls, in case you've forgotten. Don't be alarmed. It's normal. Or at least it used to be.

NERD I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if an entire city of gamers had suddenly been exposed to sunlight. This will strike some as the equivalent of a colony of ants dying off for no reason, but it's a fascinating tale. This stuff matters to a lot of people.

It takes a low, lousy person to do something like this. Doesn't matter that it's virtual; this is a pastime enjoyed by millions, and to have your work ruined by some pimply sociopath who ruins other people's accomplishment for lulz - well, let's he the miscreants are located. If they're domestic, put them in jail for a few months. About the third day standing on the roadside in prison orange, picking up trash, a light might go off: Maybe there's an actual connection between the typing I do at home and things that happen elsewhere to other people. Wow. Let me take this thought a little further - the world of the internet is not confined solely to my screen. It is being experienced by other sentient beings with . . . hold on, it'll come to me, the word's on the tip of my tongue . . . with emotions! That's it. Hey, I'm really growing as a person here!

Worth a try.

TIMEWASTER Click on a square; wait. Click on another. Build a nice chiming loop. Figure out chords and timing. It's as easy as possible, and quite satisfying, unless you're easily bored and still in a state of raw fury because Ragnaros-EU was hit by a neutron bomb.

HISTORY I swear this surfaces every year. I'd think they were new except for the second picture, the Emir of Bukhara. But everything is always new to someone, so: here's Czarist Russia - in living color!

Curious about the Emir, I googled around, and here's another page that shows the same setting - with different colors. Huh. Perhaps they've futzed with the original. You can achieve the same effect by changing the hue in Photoshop, but that makes the doors red. Anyway, who was this guy, really?

Did he manage to accomplish anything? Wikipedia says "Alim Khan's rule began with promise." Don't they all? I've yet to read a bio of a leader that says "Expectations, already low, were converted to bitter disappointment the very second the King settled his capacious rump onto the throne." Everyone always hopes the new guy will be better than the last.

Funny how power does that.

Well, there weren't any descendants to rule. The Bolshies came in and raised the Red flag, and that was it for local government.

Bonus fun fact: see that big guy up there? His daughter fled Afghanistan when the Soviets invaded, moved to the US, and was a broadcaster for the Voice of America for many years. Or, if you prefer to ignore THE LIES OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA, this:

Have you heard of the civil war and Socialist Sibera? That's in the Alternative history of the world.

GAMES On the off chance that you don't go to Buzzfeed sixteen times a day to see if there's new cat pictures or video of Lady Gaga barfing on stage, you may have missed this:

Nerdy Easter Eggs in movies. That's David Warner in the original "Tron" looking at Pac-Man. Just because.

Speaking of which: Tycho over at Penny Arcade has a piece on the latest attempt to revive Pac-Man, and the perils of nostalgia. (Warning: language.) (Not that it has some, but it has cuss words. If you care.) He links to four new character design.

Awful. I say let Lauren Faust redo them, and then they'll be cool again.