At the end of most days, I play a computer game called Massive Assault to calm my nerves. It may or may not sound like something I would do, commanding tanks and armored cars across a countryside teeming with the Enemy, but it takes my mind off things. I like it because it reminds me of chess, where every piece can move a certain way and do a certain thing each turn. Unlike actual war, it is structured and tidy. There are guerrilla soldiers that appear when a country is invaded . . . but guess what, they don’t appear unless a country is invaded. If you want to invade a country, you make sure you do so with enough firepower to destroy the guerrillas within a turn or two, then it’s easy to take the city. Because invading a neutral country automatically pushes it into the enemy camp and creates guerrillas in your enemy’s colors, this is not a decision to be undertaken lightly. To get the support you need, you might create false pretenses or bully your Congress into passing a bogus and sweeping authorization of force. And even when you are losing badly, you can issue pompous speeches about staying the course and being right all along.
Oh dear, another mindless pastime evaporates into the atmosphere.
My second favorite downtime activity is walking Goblin around the neighborhood and trying to decide whether she would more likely affiliate herself with the Kazon Ogla or the Kazon Nistrim. She seems to feel as if the Nistrim have better technology to conquer the squirrels, but given the Ogla’s superior numbers, it may be six of one.
