
 Another Alice Adventure                                A WindoWatch Feature:



                                    Multi-Alice

                           Copyright 1995 Peter Neuendorffer


 The UPS man arrived with a large package for Alice, the noted Broadway
 director and my friend.  She promised me that the next day we would try
 out the new multimedia software at dawn. She was staying with me at the
 ocean as part of her vacation to the Isles Of Shoals. Our cottage has a
 large picture window with a spectacular ocean view for sunrise, wave, and
 seagull watching.

 She got me up thirty minutes before dawn and began to set up her
 equipment as I dozed in front of the picture window. I was jarred by
 the sounds of a symphony orchestra suspended over the lighthouse, with a
 large mouse directing from a promontory. The clouds turned a ghastly day
 glo green, a surprising color. Alice was furiously clicking her computer
 mouse in the background. Suddenly there were two suns, one of which was
 making faces and sticking out it's tongue. A flock of orange seagulls
 alighted in red tidal pools and darted after singing fish. Lightning
 began to play upon the horizon of a now cloudless sky.

 "Multimedia Actual Reality!" screamed Alice with glee. I ran outside, to
 escape what was an obvious computer generated projection upon the plate
 glass window. But there were actually two suns, a symphony orchestra on
 the lighthouse, the green clouds, and singing fish. As in the famous Soap
 Opera last episode, I now awoke from my dream.

 Now that I was conscious, I realized it was still before dawn. The sun
 had not risen yet, and Alice was fiddling with her multimedia controls.

 "This will be multimedia actual reality," Alice whispered, and I settled
 down to wait for the sunrise, watching the now dimly-lit waves roll in
 and break upon the rocks. A giant blue heron perched on the bell buoy to
 wait as well. A sudden power outage cut short Alice's show, so we all had
 to settle for the real thing, which was pretty good all by itself.


 Peter Neuendorffer is a Windows programmer. You can download his work on
 the World Wide Web   http://www.channel1.com/users/petern"





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