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NCN Network turned 13 today!

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I’m still here

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Lots of things happened this year. I think we could all take a breath and move forward now.

Jorm Lucca

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Five Years

NCN Network celebrates five years of reporting newsworthy stories. Today marks our fifth year. Watch for increased activity during this election season.

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The First Steps

There isn’t much I remember about life before Pokemon: bits and pieces of preschool, a circus-themed birthday party, and my old dog Bailey. I remember waking up early one Saturday morning with nothing to do and bothering the heck out of my sleeping mother. Groggily, she turned on the television to the first cartoon she could find before rushing back to her bedroom.

I didn’t understand why there were plant dinosaurs joining their voices in song on a moonlit night, but it all seemed too fantastic for words. I waited a full week until the next Saturday morning, and I watched the show again. And again. And every Saturday morning for the next five years.

I recently looked up the date of this monumental occasion. It was April 3, 1999. I was four years old. Bill Clinton was the president. Cher’s Believe was at the top of the charts. None of that stuff mattered to me more than this Bulbasaur evolution ritual.

And while I didn’t get my hands on the game until over a year later, something in me changed. The world was no longer about going to school and coming home. Now there were other places to go. Now there was adventure to be had.

I grabbed my bug-catching net and vest and creeped about the house, pretending there were Pokemon hiding in every room. (It did not surprise me to learn years later that Satoshi Tajiri’s idea for Pokemon came out of a passion for bug catching.) My adventure companion was, of course, a giant stuffed Pikachu. His origins are lost to my memory, but he proved to be the most faithful and trustworthy of friends. When it was late and I couldn’t get to sleep, he would stay up just for me, and we’d go off exploring, meeting all different kinds of Pokemon. Most of the time these were just reenactments of the last episode I’d seen. Sometimes Pikachu would fall in love with a wild young forest-dweller and consider giving up the raucous life of the adventurer, and I’d perform all sides of the gripping, heart-wrenching dialogue right there, in my bed, with all my other stuffed animals to watch.

The thought that you are somewhere else where anything can happen is a powerfully addictive thought. When Oak told me that “a world of dreams and adventures with Pokemon awaits,” I took it very seriously, and I am ready to seize another one of those adventures for myself now.

So today, I start my very first Pokemon Journey all over again. At Oak’s lab, I chose Squirtle because that’s the starter I’ve used the least in all my times playing. I named him Cooper. You can learn more about Cooper and all the Pokemon I’ve obtained by accessing Someone’s PC.

Turning it on, the game didn’t feel different like I thought it would. It’s still the same old Pallet Town, same old neighbors who don’t know my name despite the fact that I live in one of the only three buildings in the entire town, same old Samuel Oak projecting his failed dreams and aspirations onto me. As someone who grew up in a small town (albeit not quite as small), it feels like home. 

Probably my favorite part about Pallet Town is that there’s really only one place to go: up.

Pallet is the only town in Kanto that has only one way in or out on foot, and you don’t get to explore the seas to the south until you’ve already gotten your adventuring credentials. That makes it a perfect place to leave from, start an adventure, and capture Pokemon. Nowhere to go but forward, fearlessly, forever. (Never mind that the power of this is lost when the game forces you to return to Pallet to deliver Oak’s parcel immediately after reaching Viridian for the first time)

But that exit also serves as an entrance, and I don’t doubt that was a huge factor in Oak choosing a spot for his lab. Pallet isn’t exactly a place people stumble upon on their way to somewhere else. While Viridian may get lots of through traffic from the Indigo Plateau, and the Viridian-Celadon-Saffron area is just one gigantic hub of activity, Pallet is removed from all of that. A perfect place to settle down, start a family, and research Pokemon. Oak certainly has the life. No wonder he’s trying to get me to do his work for him!

It’s a good thing I don’t mind. Pallet was structured to draw you out of it. The game relies on your desire to enter the tall grass to have Oak stop you and push the narrative forward. Red’s mom even tells him before he goes, “All boys leave home someday. It said so on TV.” The kid was born and bred to be a Pokemon master, and with my help (and Cooper’s water gun) he’s gonna get there.

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It's not just about inoculation.

http://thesandpaper.villagesoup.com/p/inoculation-indoctrination-campaign-maligns-those-with-legitimate-concerns/1302443

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The next peace will be hard earned, not granted for a wish.

Jorm Lucca 9/12/01

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A survey of 10,000 developers by Developer Economics shows that two percent of app developers take in over $100,000 per month.

The data also shows nine percent of developers getting $10,000-$100,000 per month, and 88% of developers on under $10,000 per month.

The study chose a...

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Take time to see this.

The Eagle Has Landed, The Flight of Apollo 11, 1969

Through television, motion picture and still photography, this film provides an “eye-witness” perspective of the Apollo 11 mission that put a human on the moon in July 1969. Read about the moon landing and all the activity surrounding Apollo’s mission with an article from Prologue’s archives: http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2003/summer/20-july-1969.html

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Funerals are a pain in the crack

Morris Moss

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baseball

Here's a blast from the past that needs to be aired out-

I love Baseball. Yankees, Redsox and all fans of the game, lend me your ears.

July 8, 2009 at 8:26pm

There was a time. There was a time when everything fit, everything made sense. A time when everything was everything. There was a summer time. A Grandfather's backyard on Lockwood Street on a hot Sunday afterchurch. It smelled like fresh cut grass and charcoal lighter fluid. Grampa smoked Luckys. The garage door was open, the car parked outside, and the folding webbed lawnchairs were set around a small iron table that held the best part of the day. A small AM transistor radio tuned to 1080. The girls stayed inside, this was for the men, and even though I was 7 or 8, I was one of them. Gramps, UncleTony, and Joey were Redsox fans. Me and Dad, and Peter and David, we loved the Yankees. For 3 hours it was us against them, bitter rivals, enemies.  The simple perfection of an afternoon game called by the Great Mel Allen for the Yankees or Mel Parnell for the Sox. In those days the games were called and plays were seldom missed and yet, there was always time for the announcer to not say a word.Those golden moments when the beautiful noise of the crowd at The Stadium, or at Fenway magically transported us.That was the time for the fan who was listening at home to absorb the drama of the game and to put himself there, maybe holding a hotdog and yelling at the umpire. Yes, there was that wonderful time.  One true fact of life that I have learned in my 50 years is, If something is really good, somebody is waiting, willing and able to louse it up. SUZYN WALDMAN Please Shut UP! The End

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One of the iconic moments of John F. Kennedy’s Presidency comes from a speech he gave at the Rathaus Schöneberg in West Berlin, Germany on June 26, 1963. When the President declared “Ich bin ein Berliner!” to a cheering crowd, he preserved the German phrase in history. But the speech has been...

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This was as close to shoving a knitting needle in my ear as I ever want to get.

September Love (Daft Punk x Earth Wind & Fire)

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I WANNA GO!!!

Registration is now open for the next #ArchivesSleepover! Join us for “History, Heroes, and Treasures: Explorers Night” on August 2 at the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC. Campers will journey to the Arctic, visit Outer Space, and discover the American West as they explore the National Archives Museum’s treasured records, before turning in to sleep in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom, next to the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. For more information or to register, go to archivesfoundation.org/sleepover

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http://www.offthegridnews.com/2010/10/08/is-free-thinking-a-mental-illness/

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Happy 75th Birthday, Batman!

On March 30, 1939, Detective Comics #27 hit newsstands, introducing evil-doers and comic book lovers everywhere to the Caped Crusader.

Batman Comic Book,No. 1 Spring Issue, 1940

From the series: Series : Civil Case Files, compiled 1938 - 1983, Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685 - 2009.

From the scope & content note: This comic book was an exhibit in the case titled Fox Publications Inc. v. Detective Comics Inc., Independent News Co. Inc. and Interborough News Co.