The Tuesday after a long weekend is never easy, and the people of Japan get to deal with this today as many of us head back to work for the first time in over 80 hours. For the budding entrepreneur, however, there is no such thing as time off. For the last three days I've been hard at work on several projects, several of which have actually been shipped and are now solving problems. That said, this sort of habit is not sustainable and shouldn't be done for longer than necessary.

How Does Someone Who's Always 'On' Unwind?

One of my long-standing pastimes is to play a game called Galaxy on Fire 2. This game was beaten long ago, but I continue to make the rounds around my corner of the galaxy to keep the peace, earn cash, and rid star systems of illegal cargo. When I'm not ferrying passengers from one place to another, I might just stop by the local asteroid belt to mine some ore.

That's my Vossk battle cruiser right there, and I typically carry enough firepower to wipe out several war ships, several dozen support ships, and even a complete space station. If I'm going into an area that is particularly dangerous, I stock up even more. This may take a lot of fun out of the game, as there's less chance that I'll meet an untimely death, but it's a wonderful way to make the trek from one side of the known galaxy to the other without resorting to a Kador Drive.

I'm really looking forward to the next expansion pack, Supernova, which is said to be coming some time in the third quarter this year. Hopefully it'll add a few more star systems, a new enemy, and maybe an insurmountable challenge ...

The Impossible Boss

One thing that I sort of miss from my youthful gaming days is the possibility of an impossible boss. This would be a character that has so many advantages going for them that it is almost impossible to defeat them. It would be possible, of course, provided that the player has a lot of patience and resources, but the level of skill would be so high that only the most die hard of players would even consider attempting it.

Here's how I see the ultimate boss situation playing out:

• the boss would start taking over star systems, with each annexed star system having several heavily-armed battle cruisers in orbit of the planets
• the space stations in the annexed star systems would not allow us to dock (similar to the space stations in systems overrun with pirates)
• the boss would have its own star system ... perhaps in Void space
• the boss would be on a heavily-armed space station surrounded by heavily-armed battle cruisers and a plethora of smaller attack vessels
• the boss vessels would have crazy shielding, and a new weapon that acts like a solar flare ... affecting a large area of space (meaning cloaked vessels would be seriously affected if they're too close)
• Jumpgates can be destroyed (to slow the advance of the Impossible Boss fleets, but not prevent them)
• battle cruisers can be "recalled" and jump back into the home star system to provide support to the boss

This is the sort of game that would be infuriating in a good way. It's the sort of thing that would make people use a great deal of strategy and quick reflexes to simply survive a skirmish. Hiding behind a cloak would not be enough. Fast maneuverability would not be enough. A stupid number of high-yield weapons would not be enough. Instead, people would need a combination of everything in order to even get close to the boss, let alone take them out.

This probably won't happen, but I'd love to see something like it. Not sure the iPod Touch's screen would be able to survive the endless playing, though ...