Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is sure that some of you out there are wondering “Hey! When will my Maximum Leader post something?” Well, all your dreams are coming true right now… New content on Naked Villainy…

Your Maximum Leader had lots of stuff he was going to try and post last night, but he did not blog because of a powerful thunderstorm. Call him crazy, but after losing a TV to a lightining-related power surge (through a surge protector by the way) he doesn’t turn on the computer during bad thunderstorms. (In fact, he unplugs TVs and computers from the wall… Interesting tidbit there…)

Anyho…

Your Maximum Leader does appreciate what the good people at UVA are doing to help our understanding of what ancient Rome looked like. Perhaps you saw the piece which went in part:

“Rome Reborn” was unveiled on Monday in a first release showing the city at its peak in 320 AD, under the Emperor Constantine when it had grown to a million inhabitants.

Brainchild of the University of Virginia’s Bernard Frischer, Rome Reborn (www.romereborn.virginia.edu) will eventually show its evolution from Bronze Age hut settlements to the Sack of Rome in the 5th century AD and the devastating Gothic Wars.

Reproduced for tourists on satellite-guided handsets and 3-D orientation movies in a theatre to be opened near the Colosseum, Frischer says his model “will prepare them for their visit to the Colosseum, the Forum, the imperial palaces on the Palatine, so that they can understand the ruins a lot better.”

“We can take people under the Colosseum and show them how the elevators worked to bring the animals up from underground chambers for the animal hunts they held,” he said, referring to the great Roman amphitheatre inaugurated by Titus in 80 AD.

Your Maximum Leader has looked over some of the images. Very cool. The navigation interface on the website could use a little work, but all in all it is very interesting.

Now if only they could add a “sounds and smells” track to the virtural tour to give people a real flavor of what ancient Rome was like…

Carry on.