I worked with a guy who once said, “No man ever went to his grave saying ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.'” Who knows what regrets any person might have when they finally shuffle off the mortal coil?

So this big conflict kicked off in Iran, and apparently someone got some intel that the leaders of the Ayatollah regime were going to be at some leadership meeting. So the meeting was bombed, and a lot of the shot-callers were taken out all at once.

Did this have a crippling, destabilizing effect? No, not really; the Ayatollah was 86 years old and had cancer, so he wasn’t starting any George R.R. Martin books any time soon. They knew he was approaching life’s shower drain, and on top of that the regime has been expecting some sort of violent clash with the West since 1979, so they had plans for succession ready.

Still, even at 86, I’m sure he had some final things he’d wished to do before going to see what, if anything, was really there on the other side of it all. Like everyone else, he’s probably cheesed that Grand Theft Auto 6 didn’t hit the shelves before experiencing that last great rug-pull into the darkness.

That said, some of us old folks have perspective; some still remember the great promise of Duke Nukem 3D that –like fusion power– is always “just one last breakthrough away from reality”.