14 My first official UF writing credit. PJM

103 Moose has read some of the writings of the Minbari prophet Valen, though apparently not recently.

147 Well, not necessarily. Utena assumes that the colored roses used in the Lost Tournament were a product of the Tournament itself; as we will later learn, that isn't so.

197 A Swordmaster Adept magical invocation provided by Anne Cross. It increases Sky's movement speed.

216 Nall reacts to this spell because it calls on the elemental force with which he, like most white dragons, is mystically linked: cold.

295 A descendent of Atari's San Francisco RUSH, which may just have been the most fun racing game ever, and which Zoner and I spent many happy hours playing when we lived in California.

298 An oblique, rather snarky reference to the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie, in which, for no readily explicable reason, Utena is at one point turned into a car.

307 Every time a Street Fighter game appears in UF, it has a different subtitle.

310 PCHammer, of course.

312 And Eiko.

323 It's no surprise he's bored; that's an issue of Boring Germans in Space (excuse me, Legend of Galactic Heroes).

375 Bungicom's name is a reference to Bungie, the game studio that made the Marathon games. In the UF universe, Bungicom was a small programming house that was bought out by GENOM for its AI technology, which, as Edward notes, was later superseded by the parent company's own STACIS protocol.

412 Traxus IV is mentioned in the backstory of Marathon as an AI that survived Rampancy. There's a lot of speculation in the Marathon fan community that Durandal is Traxus. In the UF universe, this is demonstrably not true; Traxus still lurks somewhere in the vastness of the 25th-century Internet, one of its many legends and ghosts, and occasionally makes contact with hackers like Edward and Ein.

420 Canonical Bungie Rampancy has three phases, Melancholy, Anger, and Jealousy. Apparently in the UF universe, or at least in Edward's estimation, there are more; perhaps Childish precedes Melancholy.

447 Spring Wind is the converse of Falling Leaves.

640 Why Dorothy doesn't just have night-vision optics, I don't know. This is a feature used to good effect several times in the original Big O TV series.

707 Kalidor shares the name of one of the medals in the old LucasArts Star Wars: X-Wing space combat sim (the Kalidor Crescent); the connection was purely unconscious (I trawled my headspace for a random alien-sounding word and that was what I got). Only much later did I dust off an ancient X-Wing saved game and recall where I'd seen the word before.

724 Again, we see that Azalynn's tolerance only stretches so far.

763 Up to the 1992 destruction of Worcester, the history of this building is accurately depicted.

765 Note here that Worcester's second destruction has, indeed, been moved to 1994.

778 Here we see Professor Harris's Church of Man attitudes in action again; his church takes almost as dim a view of non-human sentients as it does of robots, though he belongs to one of the more moderate sects that at least acknowledges non-humans can be sentient.

788 Including Professor Harris's desk.

810 I have no idea what Skull Tomb really looks like on the inside, not having been a member of Skull.

826 She isn't, of course.

858 This is part of why Azalynn was able to recognize Kaitlyn's emotional wounds for what they were, in their unchronicled first year at WPI together.

979 The Worcester Artists Group, another WPI Elder Days reference, was a place where local bands could put on shows without having to deal with the bar scene.

989 Mental wounds not healing
Driving me insane
I'm going off the rails on a crazy train

993 Ozzy became infamous for doing this on stage many years ago, though he insists he didn't know the bird was real until he bit it.

1003 Of course, crab rangoons aren't deep-fried, but I liked the phrase "the ultimate deep-fried foodstuff" too much to let accuracy stand in my way.

1045 These guys are rather vicious parodies of all those religious groups that involve going door-to-door to spread the Word of Whoever, all of which irritate the crap out of me, but at the time I wrote it I was especially annoyed with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons), an "Elder" (who seemed to me to be in about the ninth grade) of which had stationed himself in my neighborhood in Waltham. He had the infuriating habit of intercepting me as I was on my way back from the comic shop up the street from my apartment, haranguing me about the godlessness of comics, and trying to follow me home to find out where I lived. I eventually had to get a beat cop to make him go away.

1186 Juniper must have heard this story at some point in her time with Kaitlyn, since she makes the same joke to Darth Vader in Blades.

1255 Er, not that Corwin would know anything about raids on the Aztechnology payroll database.

1313 Indeed, in the Revolutionary Girl Utena episode "Nanami's Egg", it is revealed that Juri has quite a collection of bowling balls, and knows how to use 'em. (Much to Nanami's confusion.) PJM

1322 WPI did, in fact, once have bowling lanes in the basement of the gym, and they were, indeed, too short. A few years after my time there, they were torn out as part of a wholesale renovation of the gym, along with the long-disused pistol range.

1459 Janice means she never saw anyone treat a robot like that since she left her homeworld. On Ragol, robots and androids make up a significant percentage of the free citizenry.

1470 In the 25th century, bishonen is a Standard word, and its Japanese origins are largely obscure (except to those who speak Japanese). See also lolicon, dojin.

1508 "Pink boy" is a mock insult taken from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

1560 Spoken in anger, but probably truer than she thinks.

1642 Well, Azalynn can, but she's not going to go into that right now.

1595 And so begins my first real text contribution to the Symphony, and UF as a whole. While heavily edited by Gryphon, the majority of the text (and some Juri/Azalynn bits before that) for the Chips and Salsa were written by me. PJM

1698 The real T-Sam's replaced a truly horrifying Mexican restaurant called the Acapulco, infamous at WPI as "the Acapukeo" when I was a student there. In UF it's relocated to the lot next door, which contained a Friendly's restaurant in my student days and is now occupied by a convenience store, because Phil Moyer, who wrote this scene, needed a restaurant with a very different internal setup than the real T-Sam's.

1716 The interior decoration of this rendition of Tortilla Sam's was heavily influenced by the "Chevy's Fresh Mex" chain of restaurants, several of which are in the DC area, and which was a common destination for celebration parties with my coworkers at the time. Excellent hot make-them-yourself fajitas, and more chips and salsa get consumed than any other side dish. PJM

1719 For example, the track playing when Juri and Azalynn arrive is that ancient Texan folk song, "All My Exes Live in Texas".

1745 Dantrovians are anatomically unusual in that they have both claws and fingernails, which is odd, since fingernails in most species are themselves vestigial claws.

1836 In "The One to Revolutionize the World" (the next-to-last episode of Revolutionary Girl Utena), Juri jokingly asked for a picture of Utena while the two were playing badminton before Utena's final duels (why they were playing badminton is beyond me). For the purposes of the Symphony, she did get that picture before it all went pear-shaped. PJM (For those unfamiliar with the source series, it should be noted that the previous picture in Juri's locket, which the picture of Utena replaced, was that of Shiori Takatsuki.)

1886 Juri refers here (and subsequently) to Ruka Tsuchiya, a terminally ill Ohtori Academy senior who monkey-wrenched the final phase of the Lost Tournament a bit as a sort of departing act of defiance (and in an attempt to rescue Juri from its doomed spiral).

1891 As seen in the RGU episodes "Whispers in the Dark"/"Azure Paler Than the Sky". Reflections on Ruka (and what they might have had, a pertinent issue of contention within the Utena fandom at the time) will continue to follow Juri for some time through the Symphony. However you may personally feel about Ruka's actions in RGU, you just have to give him bonus points for stealing Touga's "Ends of the World" speech in "Azure Paler Than the Sky". PJM

1992 Though Dorothy's teasing here, she's also lying to preserve appearances. Her dream was, in fact, what Corwin thinks it was, and started the train of thought that would eventually lead to her decision in Roses in Springtime.

2029 Ah, the Quick Chick, DĀKA's only edible item. How we rejoiced on the days when it appeared on the dining hall menu. They were better at Mini-DĀKA and available all the time, but you had to pay cash for them there, and even in regular DĀKA they were pretty decent.

2186 This entire incident is drawn from real life. It happened to Zoner and a friend of his, both of whom worked at Mini-DĀKA as part of their Financial Aid commitments.

2227 This part is true as well.

2265 First oblique reference to Celestial Pizza (Bill is the owner), which, unlike most of UF-Worcester's features, is not paralleled by a real-life establishment (though the Duelists' relationship with the place is similar to that of 1990s GweepCo with Tech Pizza).

2336 Amanda underestimates her father a little here.

2362 Reference to the music track always used to lead into the duel sequences on Revolutionary Girl Utena, "Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku" ("Absolute Destiny Apocalypse").

2591 The '62 Impala is one of my favorite cars. In fact, I have one, though it's not a Super Sport, nor a convertible (nor equipped with 25th-century forcefield technology, alas).

2603 "Pyroclastic lamination" is one of those high-tech-sounding phrases that, if you really think about it, can't mean what it says, but still. It's the magic coating that makes KITT bulletproof on the old Knight Rider TV show.

2710 Why is Daggerdisc's registry number given here as "ZCNA-1138" rather than "SAE-6650"? Because I'm a bozo, that's why.

2773 As more members of the Revolutionary Girl Utena supporting cast started making appearances, Phil - who had been a regular around the EPU online studio since its earliest days - found himself consulted more and more often due to the fact that, unlike me, he'd actually seen the entire RGU TV series at that point (and because of his participation in a rather convoluted series of online Amber Diceless Roleplaying Games which happened to feature the cast of RGU as the elder royal family). This story marked the point at which Phil ceased to be "Special Guest for Life" and became an actual contributor and advisor on the development of Juri Arisugawa (and general RGU aspects) in the Symphony.

I mostly remember Rush the Rock. Trippiest. Course. Ever.

>298 An oblique, rather snarky reference to the Revolutionary
>Girl Utena movie, in which, for no readily explicable reason,
>Utena is at one point turned into a car.

I've heard that the movie (and the series, in a less compact manner) is some kind of Buddhist metaphor, and even the car thing is part of that. Don't know the details though.

>323 It's no surprise he's bored; that's an issue of Boring
>Germans in Space (excuse me, Legend of Galactic Heroes).

That bad, huh?

>1003 Of course, crab rangoons aren't deep-fried, but I
>liked the phrase "the ultimate deep-fried foodstuff" too much to let
>accuracy stand in my way.

Might be worth a try.

>1508 "Pink boy" is a mock insult taken from Mystery Science
>Theater 3000.

I believe they in turn took it from the Church of the SubGenius.

>1560 Spoken in anger, but probably truer than she thinks.

I suspect that was the only iteration of the Tournament, UF- and/or original-canon, where most of the participants came out better people than when they went in...

>1745 Dantrovians are anatomically unusual in that they have
>both claws and fingernails, which is odd, since fingernails in
>most species are themselves vestigial claws.

Common to their world's biology, or a quirk of their individual evolutionary path? I'm trying to figure out why it would happen (best guess, the fingernails are a layer of protection for the claws' retraction mechanism).

>2186 This entire incident is drawn from real life. It happened
>to Zoner and a friend of his, both of whom worked at Mini-DĀKA as
>part of their Financial Aid commitments.
>
>2227 This part is true as well.

I hope the part about getting it all clean and not getting caught was as well...

>2591 The '62 Impala is one of my favorite cars. In fact, I
>have one, though it's not a Super Sport, nor a convertible (nor
>equipped with 25th-century forcefield technology, alas).

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.

--The Evil Midnight Lurker what Lurks at Midnight
"An object at rest--CANNOT BE STOPPED!!!"

Er, the ones that I like to eat are. At least as far as I can tell. Not battered, but you take a won-ton, fill it with yumminess, fold/seal it, and drop it in deep hot oil.

...And now I'm hungry again.

Dan B,
amateur foodie.

And while we do have a picture of Vlad, I was also able to find a video of his hardtoped cousin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7gqciIaCX0

Why a video? Well, lets just say that I have an image from Hogtown Rhapsody stuck in the Baka of my brain (yes, its a deliberate mispelling) again and its really bugging me to try and get it out... hell, actually it really should be two, one titled "Whats on the Radio in Rochester" and "Or Not..." and this video includes a 360 walkaround, which should help some of my visualization problems.