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Master of Orion 3 Released
Kintaro writes "The long awaited Master of Orion 3 is now in stores. The reviews so far have been unusually mixed, but rest assured the game is still complex - in fact that seems to be a recurring complaint among those that don't like it. And as an added bonus, the game actually runs on Linux right out of the box."
Never played MOO 2, but heard it was good.
Well there goes another bzillion hours of my time... sigh..
It's time for DukeNukem Forever now!
So how many games is that which "actually run on linux" out of the box? I guess it is quite a bonus, as the author put it.
I was afraid I might actually pass this year :-)
I have been waiting for years for this game!!! I loved moo2 and can't wait to play 3!!! I'm picking it up tonight on my way home :-)
Programming is simply the application of logic to creativity
That statement is rather misleading -- there is no native binary version available.
The guy who had it running under Mandrake 8.2 was using WineX. Is there a native Linux port or not?
I can stop wondering when it will come out, and finally have my wife deny letting me buy it.
our first preview. I'm done holding my breath now!
--------
Free your mind.
I played it a little bit, and from what I can tell, it's got the same problem that Civ 3 has. It dosent really add anything of value, and it tacks on a bunch of semi-thought-out variables that add very little. It's fun, but not enough to make me read the whole manual.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
The "strategy Guide" was out months before the actual game. It should really be called "The Game Manual You Have to Pay an Extra $30 For Because We Want to Rip You Off". I guess that is too long and honest though. Just another way to drain their customer's bank accounts. Oh how I long for the old Microprose Manuals. They seem like textbooks compared to the 20 page garbage included these days.
...that I've been anxiously awaiting...
:)
I got an EB giftcard back in October... that I've saved just for this game... not that I wasn't tempted by other games... but I really wanted this one... and I try to limit my game spending.
BlackNova Traders
But apparently soon. We shall see... that's what they said about Neverwinter Nights, too... and where is it?
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Does this game need Graphic acceleration? b/c right now my only computer is a laptop (PIII 750 w/128 mb ram) but with no graphic accelerator, and i really want to play that game!!!
Thanks a lot!
Everybody has a purpose in life, maybe mine is to lurk in slashdot.
I was 'fortunate' enough to be a beta tester for this game, and I was extremely disappointed with the game. Simply put, there are fundamental issues here.
I highly recommend that people read the review at http://www.quartertothree.com
From this tester's perspective, that review is the clearest picture of what I feel is wrong with MOO3.
I'm glad that it plays on linux right out of the box.
I'm noticing a small (Yet growing) trend in the amount of games that run linux out of the box, or are adding native linux support (ala Neverwinter Nights), and I personally think that's a Good Thing.
I am a filthy pirate.
Of course a game like this is going to get mixed reviews. First, the games feature list has changed numerous times, note that isnt necessarily a bad thing, but you say one thing will be in there, and then it isnt, well, thats not very good. Two, the release date got pushed back several times, which can have a negative effect on the reviewer. Third, its COMPLICATED... Pick up Diablo and you can play it in about 5 mins (if that) and after an hour or three you can have a pretty good feel of the game to review. MoO3 is long and complicated (Civ3 took me about 6-7 games before I started realizing how everything worked, and what I needed to do and when, which was about 25+ hours) and a reviewer with a deadline probably doesnt have that kind of time to sit with every game, so the ones that liked MoO2 probably got into it faster, and rated it better than the more casual gamer.
Of course, I am not a reviewer, but I was expecting (on my own personal scale) a 7.5/10 star game. The graphics arent that great, which weakens the rating, and if its like Civ, enduring long hours to play one game is not always a bonus, so it loses points there.
With that said, I cant wait to get my hands on it!
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
I noticed some of my favorite movies were like this. If it applies to this game, it is quite possible a very deep game.
From what I have read, however, the learning curve is really very high, which may be what is putting off many early adopters who havent had time to work through the curve.
I think the real test of this game will be the review it gets in one or two months, and then if it has enough to keep people playing it a few years from now, pushing it into "classic" statis. From what beta testers have said, however, it sounds like they may have a classic.
Hopefully the complexity will not prevent it from selling well.
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
Wow! Now that was fast.
Perhaps they aren't going down for the third time. Strange they should rest all their hopes in a game though.
Oh. Wait....
galactic conquest takes priority!
Least expensive: CompuExpert has it for $39.90 and BuyPCSoft has it for $39.85. Most expensive: Chumbo.com for $52.99 It looks like standard retail is $49.99
I don't think this really qualifies as running on Linux. I started using linux to get away from proprietary software and crash-prone dll libraries.
And now to play moo3, I'd need to install WineX, which if I'm not mistaken is a proprietary extension of Wine, and requires authentic windows dll files to run.
Requiring WineX does NOT count as 'out of the box,' especially considering how using WineX can require some serious tweaking before coming even close to Windows performance.
# apt-get install moo3
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package moo3
# apt-get install master-of-orion-3
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package master-of-orion-3
OK, so what's it called then?
The Avault review seemed to be okay with the complexity, but did complain about the poor manual which made it difficult to jump right in. Also cited was atrocious AI. Also, he didn't cite it as a negative, but the reviewer said it has real time space combat instead of the turn based from MOO2, which put me off immediately.
Note: Moo3 does not currently work for me with the latest version of WineX. Early on in the game, it seems to forget that I have a keyboard attached and also stops registering mouse clicks, though I can still move the mouse cursor around. I strongly suspect this will be an easy fix but at the moment, Master of Orion 3 does not work in Linux for me.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Some guy gets a pre-release or beta version (check the post dates, 2-16) to run on a certain version of Linux via Wine, and suddenly it's "runs on Linux right out of the box".
"If I read it on the Internet, it must be true!"
I managed to get hold of a copy yesterday. Granted I have only had about 5 hours of play time, so far it's not looking too good. First the game is locked at 800x600 resolution, that looks like crap on my laptop. The font chosen is quite blurry. As for gameplay, viceroys(AIs) manage EVERYTHING for you. It really comes down to just clicking turn and perhaps choosing who to attack. Blah, bring me Galactic Civilizations.
Here's an indication I need my morning coffee. I am reading all of your posts with Moo this and Moo that, and I think to myself, aren't they supposed to be talking about ..
Master
Of
Orion
Then it dawned upon me what was going on. At first I was thinking cows...perhaps it's because I live in the dairy state
It's unfortunate that I discovered A Tale in the Desert last week ... I was quite looking forward to MOO3, but I just don't have the time for two games. I'm sure MOO3 will be around for some time, but right now ATITD fills in all those psychological voids that society is otherwise unable to provide. ;)
...if you don't run Linux.
Yes, I'm one of the few who happily use Windows at work and at home, for fun and for software development (Java), and isn't afraid to say so on slashdot!
Just called my local EB. They say they don't have it yet due to a delay in shipping caused by winter storms!
Is there no end to the maddness?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
WineX runs on Linux. MOO3 runs on WineX. Ergo, MOO3 runs on Linux.
Did you miss transitivity in school?
And if you don't have WineX installed, you're SOL. MoO3 only runs "out of the box" if WineX is already installed.
And I had to learn about transitivity on my own; I did time at a public school.
Linux nerds, it's time to put your money where your mouth is. I for one am going to show my support for games such as MOO3 that support Linux by actually buying them. No, I won't "dl l33t w4r3Z". I'm gonna pay $50 or whatever it is at my local EB for a copy of this game. Actually, I might want two copies. One for playing at home, and one for playing on my Linux laptop.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
As is usual in these cases, it only "works" for sufficiently low values of "works."
Is someone going to start claiming that MS Office "works" on Linux, "right out of the box"?
It'll be news to a lot of people.
KFG
One of the things that hurt OS/2 was that once OS/2 got decent Windows emulation (well, the ability to run Windows as a task), developers lost all incentive to develop apps for OS/2. Why bother, when they could just get users to buy the Windows version? Of course, this meant fewer native OS/2 apps, which meant less reason to buy it in the first place.
Now Linux doesn't have quite the same problem, as there's a much larger application library out there for it, but if Wine runs lots of new games immediately, it does remove incentive for those game publishers to publish native versions.
(Of course, Loki's failure likely killed the idea anyway...the trouble is that lots of Linux users demanded games, but didn't actually buy them...oh well...can't say that I'm any better. I waited for all the Loki titles to start selling for firesale prices before buying.)
The cake is a pie
I have never understood the hoopla about MOO. If you compare it to the complexity and fun Stars! offers, it is blown right out of the water.
:-)
p here: news://rec.games.computer.stars
Also Stars! will work with your old copy of Windows-3.11 for Workgroups
Free demo here: http://crisium.com/stars/stars/demo.htm
Newsgrou
Moritz
I always went bankrupt on the third or fourth turn. Clearly there was something critical that I was unable to figure out. I always seemed to have an income of 1 at the beginning, and so building one building would make my income equal my expenses. Blah, it was just not as good as Alpha Centauri.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
About bloody time.
:(
DEATH TO THE SAKRA! VIVA LA ELERIAN HOTTIES!
C'mon, you'd do the Elerian scientist babe. She could overclock me any time, rowrl.
Okay, so that was Moo 2. They better have the Elerians in Moo 3.
Or I'll be forced to buy it and ruin my GPA anyway.
*snert* EverCrack my ass. The MOO games are what all the hardcore gamers get addicted to!
I've been watching progress on this game since I can't remember when. It feels like a longer wait that it was for M$ to release a stable os ;-)
I didn't know it ran on linux though. That's a marvellous bonus, I just hope this excellent example is followed more and more often...
--
Am I going to have to buy two copies if I want to play multiplayer on a LAN?
(At the risk of being offtopic: if anyone knows that answer to Civ 3 as well... If I have one copy of Civ 3 do I have to buy TWO copies of the Multiplayer expansion AND another copy of Civ 3 to play two players on a LAN?)
Now all we need is an X86 version of OS X and we'd be set.
Sig:
Television...
Anesthetizing the youth of America since 1928
Last time I checked, the minimum requirement for the game were a PII300 with 128 meg of RAM. This is pretty low, and I wonder if the game is really playable with this kind of system or if its another marketing trick to sell the game to the largest audience possible. Has anybody run the game with this kind of hardware configuration?
1 copy of civ 3. 2 copies of civ 3 ptw.
http://use.perl.org
... MOO & MOO2. However, MOO3 is pathetic. The AI for your side can't be turned off, it doesn't take your order, etc. The game was better when there was a graphical representation of numbers rather than this spreadsheet presentation. I was very disappointed. I hope one of the future patches correct this. /emote looks at his mothballed fleet of 1100 troop carriers he didn't request, want, or even potentially use.
Check out http://www.quartertothree.com for a good review.
Shadus
You know, I don't mean to sound like a troll, but I Really, Really wonder how GW Bush and other world leaders would do on this kind of empire simulator.
Think about it.
from what ive read the AI is horribly broken. and you are forced to use this AI to manage your colonies for you, and when this broken AI does something goofy and you try to rectify it, on the next turn it GOES BACK to the way it was... this is a problem folks. Between MOO3 and Freelancer, the modern day PC gaming industry has managed to collectively urinate on 2 of the greatest PC game brands. Not that i care for tradition or even cherished memories of the passed. It just stinks, and yea i suppose its like expecting your favorite band to re-write your favorite album over and over every time they put out a record. I just wish that if they couldnt live up to the legend then just let it go, and call your game something like "In 2 Years there wont be any difference between the PC and consoles cause thats what some marketroid fuckstick wants Space Combat Shooter" or "we taylor our games to the no-brained 14 year olds of this generation cause all the hardcore gamers got married and their wives dont let'em buy PC shit anymore Turn Based Strategy" So yea i guess ill just keep on blastin Nazi's in Battlefield 1942.
Not out at Fry's yet. Computer superstore my ass. ;)
if Linux users werent so cheap, maybe they'd get some decent games. But they want it all for free, so Loki goes under, and face it no VC is going to back another Loki b/c you cheap fucks won't pay for your software. So STFU losers and go play games on windoze.
BTW, X crashes all the time, you lying pricks.
My problem initially was that I had a second drive configured in my .transgaming/config to a directory that didn't exist - when moo3 probed for it it died.
try running
winex -debugmsg +err moo3.exe
to see what's going wrong.
Of course, I've still got other problems:
dariusMaster of Orion 3$ winex -debugmsg +err moo3.exe
err:win32:_EnterSysLevel (0x4084d998, level 2): Holding 0x408ed9c4, level 3. Expect deadlock!
fixme:ole:CoSetState (0x653b3758),stub!
fixme:file:SetFileAttributesA (C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SIntf16.dll):100 attribute(s) not implemented.
fixme:file:SetFileAttributesA (C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SIntf32.dll):100 attribute(s) not implemented.
fixme:file:SetFileAttributesA (C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SIntfNT.dll):100 attribute(s) not implemented.
fixme:aspi:TranslateASPI32Address (0xafef60, 0xb05104), stub !
fixme:aspi:SendASPI32Command ASPI: Partially implemented SC_HA_INQUIRY for adapter 0.
fixme:ole:CoSetState ((nil)),stub!
ideas anyone?
Disclaimer: I've only spent about an hour with this game, which obviously is not nearly enough for an in-depth analysis, but I have to say I'm pretty appalled with the offering so far.
It seems like all the life, colour, and magic has been taken out of the game. Let me give you an example... in prior MOO games, when you colonized a planet, you were treated to a nice full screen animation of a spacecraft landing on the planet's surface, and saw one of your colonists putting up a flag, and then it asked you to name your new world. (You could skip these sequences if desired, of course)
In MOO3, you get a log entry. That's it. Hooray. This "reduction to bare data" seems prevalent everywhere in the game. Yes, it's efficient, detailed, and deep. So is a spreadsheet. But is it fun??? The interface is also very bland... I mean.. flat shading everywhere??? This isn't 1989 anymore, how about some gradients or textures people!? And the few space battles I've seen so far have literally been single pixel ships wandering around on a 2D grid.
The first two MOO games grabbed me like a steel clamp and didn't let go. They had so much personality and polish. This one, I am finding myself having to force myself to try and get into it.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I picked up my copy of MoO3 earlier today, and I've been playing it ever since. The transition from MoO2 (which I was playing just last night) is rough, to say the least. Many, many things have changed. Not better, not worse, just very different. I don't know if I like it yet. Some things seem to be more complicated than they need to be... Others seem too simple... The in-game documentation is either well hidden, or missing. There isn't much of a tutorial. Numbers appear to be the preferred representation...rather than any kind of graphical charts or meters. And there's an awful lot of AI assistance available to keep things moving along. Visually, it's a disappointment. The graphics are very dated. The GUI is stark, dull, and cluttered. But... I'm still being drawn back to it, to play some more. We'll see.
If anyone is curious, I'll be posting my impressions to my blog.
yrs,
Ephemeriis
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Tycho over at Penny Arcade got a copy of the game in his grubby mitts about two weeks ago. His comments were positive, with the stipulation that information overload is a problem at first.
"All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell
is that people try to micromanage the game when they're really not supposed to. You manage the AIs and they'll take care of thing for you. If you don't manage the AIs by setting proper development plans, they'll appear to act eratically. Once you learn to macromanage the game, the AI works quite well.
Unfortuantely, the manual is pretty bad at explaining all of this and the strategy guide is next-to-useless. Hence the vertical learning cliff that many people are falling off of. If I hadn't been reading the official forums, I'd be screwed too.
Any really good complex game always gets trashed on by game reviewers because they don't have the time to really learn it before dropping it and starting on the next game. So if the learning curve is hard, they just throw their hands up and go, "oooh, it's too confusing." and give up. It's kind of like trying to get someone to review the C language who's only been doing it for a week, or a review of "vi" by someone who's only been trying it for a day. If a tool or game has good value *later* but bad value *at first*, it gets a bad review. If it has good value at first, but is limited so it doesn't have good re-use value, this doesn't get reported by the reviewer who hasn't had it that long.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
*bzzzt* wrong!
It's id
*whistles innocently*
magic is obscurity
I'm a big fan of this kind of game (MOO, Civ, SMAC). I've just tried MOO3, and, at priori, it's fun and everything, but I'm still trying to decide if it's a game or a spreadsheet with a graphical interface... =)
no, the recurring complaint is that it is boring and repetitive, and the only point of the game is to guess which combination of skills has the guaranteed advantage which ensures success. Masters of Orion was for people who though Trade Wars was too action packed, and Masters of Orion II was for those that couldn't handle the fast pace of Everquest.
If Moo3 doesnt run on linux out of the box because it needs Wine, how can you say that UT 2003 does when it needs SDL?!!?!?!??!!
"And as an added bonus, the game actually runs on Linux right out of the box"
Now I won't have to research the "Multiple OS" and "Open Source Movement" technology branches. Right on!
An online Starcraft RPG? Only at
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
I played MoO religiously, I loved it.
...
I played MoO2 seriously... I liked it... mixed bag. Improvements here and there, but a lot of micromanagement that just made the game go 'erf'.
I tried playing MoO3 for an hour.
Start -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Master of Orion 3 -> Remove
I'm not so upset that it cost me the 50 someodd dollars... I WANT MY HOUR BACK!
Did you not read the subject of the thread you replied to?
What part of "out of the box" do you not understand?
I pre-ordered a month ago at amazon and my order inquiry promises delivery estimate: March 7 - March 13. The status HAS changed from a release date of Feb. 25 to the delivery estimate. My guess is they are processing the first batch of pre-orders, but are already sold out of the first shipment.
THEN why not layer everything through some management/AI filter along with a robust system of multiple settings. (this can even be used for difficulty)
IF it seems that numbers overwhelm the interface and reporting data
THEN how about providing options of graphical representations as well as statistical consolidation?
IF people do not understand the difference between strategy (even in battle terms) and tactics
THEN perhaps they should stick to diablo and Mario brothers.
I hear people bitch about self labled strategy games not allowing unit level control and I just want to denounce myself as being part of the human race. I love action games, I love strategy games but communication in this sense is more than just a similar lexicon it is for classification (thus quick and easy formulations of expectations for a particular "genre") Perhaps the disease that has struck RPG for so long is finally rotting the core out of Strategy at last. So sad
I don't think your complaints really have much to do with Civ 3, or MOO3, do they?
Okay. They've kept it a big secret. And I thought the image I saw of them looked like someone's thumb. So, what is the secret of this Harvester race that is so compelling!!?!
are the editors really that dense or is this a conspiracy?
It runs on x86 ONLY with an "emulator".
I'm off. It's official - slashdot sucks.
I got moo3 today and other than it starting out really slow, it only runs in 800x600. Since I have a LCD screen, it doesn't look so sharp. Perhaps it looks ok on a CRT, but with LCDs becoming more and more common, developers need to think about letting apps run in the native resolution of the display.
The week, Transgaming (popular for allowing Linux users to play games normally meant for Windows) has annouced a new game inclusion to it's database: the long-anticipated Master of Orion 3. We talked with one of the transgaming developers. He said "Well, it was pretty tough getting this game to run, but after a few code tweaks, and a couple of changes to our latest veriosn, we were able to release the new version /just/ as many subscribers lost their three-month subscriptions... talk about timing!" The new version can be downloaded freely-- with your $15/per 3 month subscription. check outhttp://transgaming.com/who-the-hell-cares-about -GNU-lets-screw-the-bastards-who-we-got-the-code-f rom-and-not-return-code-back-to-the-non-X11-liscen ce-team.html for the details
As soon as more companies start making linux native binaries, then i'll start paying for games again. and hey, why not advertise it runs on linux (COUGH id COUGH)
... or was it w00t?
You can speed up animations a lot by pressing the shift key in civ 3. This is really handy when you want to watch some events, like your battleship battle, but not watch two enemies duke it out with 400 tanks.
The only problem I had here was the damn Windows StickyKeys program kept launching after pressing shift 5 times in a row, even after I told it to stay off.
I was able to buy the full game from a mall in Malaysia almost a week before this article, and only for 5 Ringgits (around 1.3 USD). I'm not a fan of piratism and I will buy the original game, but this still makes me wonder how well organized piratism is around here.
Just take a taxi to Imbi Plaza and there are tens of thousands of CDs and DVDs for sale.
Oh yeah, baby, there's been so few since that amazing manual. Granted it would have been nice to have all that spell and unit stat information in the regular manual, but then I would have had to print it out when I finally got a copy of the game in the "Play the Universe" collection.
:(
Still a pain to get it installed, since it needs revised autoexec.bat and config.sys files I've long since forgotten how to edit
The Uber-poster is right, though, way the heck too many games have the barest of manuals included while many strategy guides are now adding just the basic information which should have been included in the first place.
8-PP
It does indeed seem that Moo3 runs under linux. I had to tweak my Transgaming Winex installation(Shameless Plug), but here is a link to my install procedures: http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php ?s=&threadid=263319&highlight=linux
Not very many recent comments. I think I probably have a more seasoned outlook on this game at this point.
First, the game has bugs all over the place. For example, the enemy AI hardly, if ever, attacks (with a few exceptions). Playing on Impossible (difficulty level) can actually be incredibly easy! Many users report doing quite a lot for the first part of the game, then sitting back and hitting [NEXT TURN] 200 or so times and eventually winning the game. The brain-dead AI is a lot of it (attack strategy, and also negotiations where you have a constant war-peace-war-peace 3 turn cycle with your computerized opponents).
This isn't a joke. With a rare exception (being next to the Ithkul or something), it doesn't put up anything approaching a real fight.
The user interface is described by many as substandard. Both in terms of being a navigational hazard that has to be figured out, to being akward to do regular things, to not providing simple right-click information. Most users have to work to try to figure out how to do the most basic tasks, like colonize a planet. Back to the informational thing, you'll find that other races will chastise you for your actions. Of course, you have no idea what the action was that provoked them. Perhaps you just met them? Or they'll angrily threaten you to say that they're warming up to you.
The crowning achievement of all of this is the macromanagement concept. If the macromanagement AI doesn't work well, you're going to be micromanaging bits and pieces as you find them wrong. Worse, if the macromanagement AI works well, here are your following duties:
1. Move ships around for exploration and combat. (This _is_ micromanagement, but it is enjoyable. Glad the AI didn't take this over, and they still left it in the game.)
2. Perform diplomatic functions.
3. Perform HR functions (hire/fire leaders and spies)
4. Perform rare macromanagement functions with 2 screens of sliders and tables.
5. Hit the NEXT TURN button. Again. And Again.
Macromanagement was a horrible double-edge sword that QuickSilver cannot win with. Right now, people aren't complaining too badly about the concept. But then again, they're not really even being attacked. Wait until the pressure is on to develop better ships quickly and efficiently (defend the empire... attack others) and watch the MacroAI bust at the seams with inefficiency that the players are going to have to go and mop up.
This is a historic moment in strategy games, much like the Titanic was an historic moment in sea travel. The best good that can come of this is not to repeat it. Sometimes the purpose of your labor is to serve as a warning to others.
Too bad. I really wanted to play a MOO game.
Check out their their forum for a more up-to-date view.
Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to ...
pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber,
hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say "shop for," as
opposed to "obtain." This is the major drawback of home centers: they are
always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center
employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy
applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail
and screw -- in the entire store
Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the
broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a
replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside
of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way
that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic
calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime
around the middle of next week."
-- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"
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