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Category Archives: games

But I Regress, pt. 2

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Where were we? Oh, I was telling you about how with the responsibility of owning a home I have suddenly regressed to being a teenager.

Last time I detailed my overwhelming love for comic books, and how it was vanquished by the great expanse of the internet.

To this day I marvel at how mercenary I was about my decision. When it came down to $40 a month on comics or on internet access I phoned up the comic store and canceled my orders without a second thought.

How could I?

Comics were a world I could dive into and experience alone, but the internet was a world I could lose myself in along with millions of other people.

To put it in today’s terms, comics weren’t social.

I wanted them to be. I’d skulk at the comic shop … beg my mother to let me find a pen pal at the back of The Maxx. I would read the letters page in X-Men and imagine being able to talk all day with people as obsessed with the characters as I was.

The internet had all of that, available 24/7. Within days I was on a Dungeons & Dragons listserve and in a Final Fantasy fanfic club. After years of being a pretty insular only child, I found out I had things in common with people. Lots of things!

And, while building my first website became a top priority, so did Warcraft II.

I have never been much of a PC gamer, so was completely unfamiliar with the concept of real-time strategy war games. When my friend Lucas made me download the WCII demo over my 14.4k modem I was floored – it was like Risk crossed with Dungeons & Dragons, but with none of the plastic pieces or dice rolls.

(I was the kind of kid that, when bored, would set up elaborate six-person games of Risk between my GI Joes and play each side against each other for hours. Actually, I still do that a few times a year with my LOTR Risk, just sans the GI Joes.)

(My wife finds this fascinating)

All it took was one modem game of Warcraft II on the single demo map and I was hooked. I had an army of orcs to do my bidding, and friends to trade taunts with all night. And sea turtles!

I had no interest in quick, decisive battles. When we both bought the full game I’d make maps packed with endless gold mines so we could entrench and battle for hours on end.

Much as my comic obsession stayed mostly contained to X-Men, my RTS urge was isolated to Blizzard games. Even after buying my first guitar put the whammy on many of my other adolescent hobbies (say goodbye, fanfic!), I remained a devoted late-night WCII addict.

The addiction was made worse senior year when one of my friends slipped me their extra copy of Starcraft. It was Warcraft . . . in space!

I think that – and how it relates to my current predicament – is a story for next time.

The impetus for this whole tale is my recently-launched Guide to Collecting X-Men in TPBs, which is meant to aid former adolescent addicts such as myself in catching up on what they’ve missed.

Also filed in comics, high school | | Comments (0)

Tuesday Tech Links

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Here’s the techier side of the links I re-remaindered out of last night’s remainders post.

Why did Duke Nukem’ Forever take forever? I’ve read some great articles on this vaporware legend (my fav example of which I cannot seem to track down), but none with a line so succinct and close-to-home as this one:

t’s a dilemma all artists confront, of course. When do you stop creating and send your work out to face the public? Plenty of Hollywood directors have delayed for months, dithering in the editing room. But in videogames, the problem is particularly acute, because the longer you delay, the more genuinely antiquated your product begins to look — and the more likely it is that you’ll need to rip things down and start again.

Substitute “pop music” for “video games” and you have the story of Chinese Democracy, or my long-promised LP. (Via Daring Fireball).

.

Indie acousta-rocker Scott Andrew got tired of trying to sync his blog to MySpace, so he wrote an app for that.

I’ve been seeing little boxes from LaLa on just about every blog albums-of-the-year/decade list, proffering handy audio samples. Apparently Apple just bought the La^2, and in the process scuttled a longstanding CD swap service. This is notable because they backed out of it in (what I considered to be) an apologetic, helpful fashion. Take note, MySpace/iMeem.

Via Contentious: An E-Book Buyer’s Guide to Privacy charts what personal info different eBook services can track. This chart should be combined with “An E-Book Buyer’s Rights” guide that talks about what privileges can be rescinded by each service. For example, if you replace your Kindle it will not reload your purchased periodicals.

(For the record, I am anti-eBook – if I wanted to read something I don’t own from a screen I’d just keep sitting in front of my laptop.)

Also via the same Contenious post: Backupify to back up your Twitter, FaceBook, and Gmail … for free. That is, sign up for it now, get a grandfathered freebie account even when the service switches over to a paid model. Quote from Backupify president: “[S]torage is cheap while customer acquisition is very expensive.”

Smart guy.

In a similar vein: Download videos from YouTube with Gazzump I come and go on the usefulness of this service. I used to want to sit on my own personal archive of everything. While I still feel that way about my audio collection, I think I’ve sacrificed video to the cloud. Still, handy.

Finally, not strictly a tech link, but: The Flag of Earth.

Also filed in linkylove | | Comments (0)

Play at playing with The Beatles. Or, just play with The Beatles.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The pair of surviving Beatles recently appeared at E3 to hype the impending The Beatles: Rock Band, out on September 9. It represents a remarkable milestone – mass licensing of Beatles songs to a third party, cooperation of all four Beatles estates on new intellectual property, release of new studio chatter from the band, and creating multi-tracked masters of songs originally recorded live in mono or stereo. (see the full fact sheet)

In the game, you and your friends can take the Beatles from the Cavern Club days all the way to the rooftop in your own living room, not mention traipsing through their imagined acid trips. You’ll start out with 45 Beatles songs in-game, but many more will available as downloadable content – starting with the complete Abbey Road.

Assuming you already have a plethora of plastic video game instruments lying around the house, the a la carte game will cost you $100. If you need all of the plastic instruments to go with it, you’ll be dropping $250 for the full kit.

Seems like a bargain to play along with 45 of your favorite Beatles tunes, right?

Not really. Because, if you have an actual instrument lying around the house, you can buy The Beatles: Complete Scores hardcover tome for half the price of the a la carte game and learn how to play the actual music to every single Beatles song.

If you need an actual instrument to go with it, you can pick up a starter guitar or bass package plus the book for about $250 – yes, even including a replica Hoffner bass! (The scores plus drums will run you a bit more – $300-$500).

Herein lies your dilemma. Do you want to have a primary experience with the music you love, or a secondary experience?

If you’re a non-musician, you might argue, “I don’t really have a choice,” but I think you do.

You might argue, “I don’t read music,” yet you’re willing to learn an arcane method of notation in Rock Band that’s not too different from reading guitar tab, which is included in the score book.

You might argue, “I don’t have nimble fingers, a sense of pitch or rhythm, or a decent voice,” yet if you expect to surpass even easy mode on Rock Band you’ll need to hone some or all of those skills just as you would playing actual music. In fact, Rock Band is much less forgiving of mistakes with drumming and vocals than a jam with friends would be.

You might argue, “I don’t have time to practice music enough for it to be worthwhile,” yet you have time to play Rock Band two or three hours a week. That same time would serve you equally well training on an actual instrument. You could probably learn how to play “I Want To Hold You Hand” on guitar in the same time it takes you to reach your first save point.

Convinced yet?

Other Rock Band titles offer the allure of collecting disparate, virtuosically-difficult music into a video game – much of which is impossible to track down as printed music. None of that is true this time around – the music comes from a single source, the virtuouosity is in the ease of playing, and it’s all collected in a single, relatively cheap book. It’s a completely level playing field for anyone – novice to expert.

You can’t say that about any other Rock Band game or for any other artist in the history of music.

Essentially, you have no argument to buy The Beatles: Rock Band other than perhaps, “I already know how to play all 213 originally released Beatles songs, and now I’m bored.”

The game does have some redeeming features in the areas of drumming and singing – the two bits of Beatles that are the hardest to master on your own. Designers worked closely with Ringo to make the game a tutorial for his unique drumming style. Also, the game features a harmony training mode, which will allow you to voice any part in the band’s remarkable multi-part harmonies.

Based on that, if you’re a Beatles-loving singer or drummer starting from scratch I can appreciate wanting to purchase the game for some guidance. If only the game also allowed you to plug in an actual midi-guitar in to test your chops against the recordings … then I’d buy it in an insant!

Otherwise, if you’re a Beatles-lover who wants to experience playing their music yourself, my advice would be to actually play it yourself.

Also filed in beatles, essays, guitar | | Comments (5)

I so did not violate any confidentiality agreements by writing this post.

Monday, August 27, 2007

How to write this post and not get fired? It’ll be tricky.

You all know by now I work in communications for a major Philadelphia company, and I love it. I get paid to do things I would probably be doing at home by myself anyway, as frightening as that concept is.

What you might not know (because I haven’t mentioned it in about seven years) is that I had a childhood obsession with the Price Is Right. I loved the One Bid, I loved the Showcase Showdown.

But, I loved nothing more than I loved Plinko.

I was obsessed with the way the penny slid into the board and plunked back and forth and to and fro down the pegs before it finally wound up in a prize slot.

You might not understand how those two facts are connected to each other. Here’s a hint:

Right now, somewhere in Philadelphia, there is a fully functional Plinko board.

I can’t tell you why there is a Plinko board, or where the Plinko board is, because it’s … well, it might be a trade secret? Like, if I were to reveal the purpose and location of the Plinko board, the reason behind my termination would be “dissemination of trade secrets on the internet.” I think.

What I can reveal is that within the last month my co-workers’ “duties as assigned” meant they had to acquire said Plinko board, and that when I walked one of said co-workers to the parking lot today I came within one hot second of climbing onto the roof of her mini-van like a fucking ninja and riding that sucker through rush hour to the location of the Plinko board.

I have been promised photos, and possibly even a video demo, of the Plinko board in action. Yet, pester, plead, and outright beg as I might I could not obtain permission to play, touch, or even view the Plinko board at its secret location. And, after tomorrow, it will be gone, whisked away by the cruel whims of fate (and/or the decrepit liver-spotted claws of nigh unknown game show dieties).

However, though I may be barred from visiting the Plinko mecca, or enlisting you to help me gain entry to it by some nefarious means, I have taken away one important thing from this experience:

I now know that there is a life-sized, fully-functional Plinko board that can be delivered to the Philadelphia metro area.

And, I’m pretty sure I have a high enough credit limit to rent it for the weekend…

Also filed in Philly, Year 08, corporate, only childness, stories, teevee | | Comments (1)

In Which I Confess to Lazing

Friday, April 6, 2007

If we define me by being musical and active and despising passive expenditures of time, then I think it’s safe to say that I went through a bit of an Anti-Me month in February.

Mostly due to video games.

Let me back up a step. In 2004 I gave up network television as a concept; it figuratively and literally doesn’t exist to me anymore, the latter because we haven’t had a vestige of television reception for going on three years.

Since 2004, 95% of the television I have watched (intentionally or not) has been Eagles games. And, because we don’t have reception of our own, most of my Eagles-watching is done with friends.

This season the group of friends happens to also be a group of depraved video-game maniacs, and when we decided to get together for one post-playoffs hurrah we did nothing but play video games.

I haven’t given up video games in the way that I gave up television, but they do make me wary … mostly because I spent a year and a half of my life doing nothing but playing City of Heroes. Sure, there are a handful of site updates and new songs to prove I was alive, and also I was apparently maintaining a relationship at the time, but I was also putting in 40+ hour weeks in at work and on the game.

Well, after our little party I decided that owning a video game system wouldn’t be the end of the world. It wouldn’t be connected to the internet, so it couldn’t suck me in the same degree as City of Heroes. And, much in the way we selectively view TVDs of good shows to replace our lack of television, I would only buy and play games that were compelling. It would be a social and intellectual pursuit.

Right. And then I bought We Love Katamari and a month of my life disappeared.

It’s not that I played video games for the entire month, so much as that video games were emblematic of my lack of energy for creative pursuits. Not lack of inspiration, mind you, but lack of energy.

Merrily, I was right – a non-networked PlayStation doesn’t have the kind of grip on my immortal soul as an internet world full of unique superheroes. This iteration of gaming in my life is merely a distraction, not an addiction.

But then I think – how much blogging could I have done while I was thumbing a joystick? How many songs could I have recorded? Et cetera, et cetera?

Who knows. Life doesn’t work like a metric conversion scale. Could I have recorded an awesome album, or did I simply not have anything to say creatively?

A retrospective answer is meaningless; it’s a question you and I need to ask ourselves each time we pick up a remote or a controller.

This week my answer is “you have plenty to say – start talking.”

Also filed in betterment, gina, parties, thoughts | | Comments (0)

What I’ve Been Doing for the Past 14 Hours

Sunday, July 2, 2006

A great, simple, javascript chess page that works in Firefox. Allows you to play either side w/three opponent settings. Also, fantastic chess resource Chessville. Taking up chess is one of the summer hobbies i currently have under consideration (as if i need more ways to spend my time).

Chess tends to make me think of X-Men, maybe because Magneto has a board in his plastic cell in the movies. Any mention of X-Men merits a link to the best X-Men site on the face of the internet, UncannyXmen.net. Note that they have issue summaries of the vast majority of a wide-range of X-Men-related comics, and an accompanying character archive for when you encounter someone unfamiliar. Great for detering me from filling in the ten years of X-Men that i’ve missed buying, and also for reading on lunchbreak.

In other superhero news, my co-worker just called to say he won’t be able to see Superman with me today. If you’ve already seen it, or if know the big plot-twist already, you may appreciate Larry Niven’s classic essay Man of Steel, Women of Kleenex.

Also filed in comics, day in the life, weblinks | | Comments (0)

The Bitch is Back

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

Jett Superior, one of my all-time favorite peddlers of snark, is back online with an astounding new layout. While she was on her extended hiatus, she asked her readers to put an old set of her lyrics to music, promising to post them upon her return. She hasn’t yet, but here’s my version.

Here at CK we don’t go on hiatus, we graduate, take long naps, try to buy cell phones that take pretty little pictures that we can display while not on an aforementioned non-existent hiatus, and play City of Heroes until 4am (thus necessitating longer naps). We pretty much being me, along with my omnipresent sidekick slash new roommate slash built-in fanclub Elise.

She finally met my dad the other week, he who owns a gun shop and a flock of plastic lawn flamingos, and makes “boop boop” noises when he pulls a U-ee in the middle of Market street. She has not met my cousin Cary, age seven, but the lass is nonetheless intrigued by the concept that my partner/roomie/stalker has “Chinese Eyes.” My aunt claims that this, though perhaps verging on offensive, is a reflection of unspeakable jealous curiosity, as said eyes are a particularly fashionable favorite of my cousin’s. In the car on the way back from the el Cary politely enquired if “Have you kissssssed her?,” to which i responded “Oh, a few times.”

Otherwise, life is similar to how life was last time i mentioned life, except for the piece of parchment with the shiny Magna Cum Laude sticker sitting on my mantel and what seems like eleventy-thousand people trying to make me feel anxious about whether or not i really have a job (don’t worry, it’s not working). I think Elise is appalled at how much time i spend a) listening to music, b) doing nothing but looking productive, & c) being so frighteningly productive that i cannot stop talking or moving, sometimes all at once. Still, things are fine, especially now that i unpacked my Ani DiFranco mugs.

Transmissions from the planet Peter.

Also filed in Year 04, college, demos, elise, family, linkylove | | Comments (0)

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Not shockingly, i play Sims much like i play life: I’m out the door for work at the last possible minute, i eat just enough to subsist (which occasionally leads to some large meals to make up for the difference), i indulge in any practicing activity too much (guitar, sit ups, playing sims ect), i maintain my friendships only as much as i have to, and i never get enough sleep unless i miss the proverbial car pool.

Of course, my sim always turns out happy and successful, so, go figure.

Also filed in self-aware | | Comments (0)

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

It occasionally comes up, between Elise and I, that we might eventually live with one another. It isn’t such a strange and alien topic: we’ve dated for a year and a half, enjoy roughly similar means of entertainment and standards of cleanliness, and both of our current leases end sometime next summer. However, similar standards do not a happy household make. And, so, I have discovered the next best way (after the Ikea catalog) to proactively predict and resolve the problems associated with co-habitation while evaluating the important similarities and differences in our styles of living.

I am, of course, speak of The Sims. It has been running on the computer-shaped-debt for more than 72-hours straight, courtesy of Karen. We each created our own pair of us as our test-pilot families, each surfed meticulously for the right clothes and balance of traits for our virtual avatars. And, without any argument, we arrived at the unspoken agreement that our collective goal was to become both rich and famous.

Our paths to have been slightly divergent. In my version of events, Elise is a successful computer programmer by night, while by day she practices in the mirror until her big break arrives. In her reality, Elise is a up-and-coming star who goes to photo shoots and hob-nobs with celebrities. Interestingly, both of our Peter’s have the same job as a lobbyist, and are currently stuck in the same mid-level position because they/we/I do not have enough networking connections (ie: Friends) to climb higher up the corporate ladder.

Our pairs mingle: the Peters are not fond of each other, but my Peter enjoys the company of her Elise — the two of them are both incredibly charismatic — funny how we focused on that trait in our own characters. My Elise is typically in need of social contact because she is busy practicing her skills, while their family has a huge nest-egg saved from my daily work and her occasional print ads. My house has been ruthlessly arranged and rearranged to maximize mood and efficiency, while hers is more aesthetically pleasing. And, notably, neither of us have had me quit my moderately-paid job to attempt to become famous.

It is at once amusing and very telling. I suspect that I only have a few more days of playing in me; only for so long can modeling my virtual life hold my attention captive from my real one. The appeal lies in the ability to see our separate ideals co-existing in the same virtual neighborhood, complete with subtle differences and less obvious similarities. However our experiment in collective house-keeping turns out, rest assured that the major points have been taken, with the chief amongst them being: No matter what you hope, wish, plan, or virtually model, you only have one chance to get it right; don’t waste it.

Also filed in elise | | Comments (1)

Friday, August 16, 2002

Bloated from eating the majority of a loaf of cinnamon bread and considerably bleary from hours of repeatedly dying and re-leveling as Circe, i messaged Benjy in hopes that he could provide some entertainment. Sadly, all he had to offer me was Ernie’s new webgame, where he is a contestant.

This new game is actually a Best-Of romp featuring contestants from all of Ernie’s previous ventures, including a few of my personal favourites. The one player who i wasn’t familiar with was Rusty, who was not a player but a commenter on Ernie’s most recent venture. His claim to fame, apparently, is running some sort of website called Kuro5hin. I had heard the name before, but never clicked through to it as it contained a 5 instead of an S, which is either the indication of someone being pretty stupid or pretty geeky. Or both. But, i was bored, so click i did.

Apparently, Kuroshin is a less blog-like more-wordy Metafilter, where posters are expected to research and edit their own intelligent articles instead of merely linking to them for fun and profit. Most of the articles on the main page were either too sharply divided or entirely too technical for my taste, but after browsing around the categories for a while i found this interesting article on the effect of small presses on music sales.

I was especially engaged in the article because Record Kingdom owns tens of thousands of such small press vinyl, thousands of which i’ve personally handled. That article was apparently a response of sorts to one which laid out many of the (obvious) flaws in signing a record deal. The article was the work of Mark Taw, whose websight features a wealth of articles on topics spanning from basic composition to avoiding spam. A commenter on his article pointed out a similar piece by Janis Ian, who would probably know about the industry even better than Mark would.

And, through all of that i only managed to level up twice. Sad. Meanwhile, if those links don’t keep you busy for a little while then… um… start a character.

Also filed in day in the life, food, linkylove, rk.com, weblinks | | Comments (0)

Saturday, August 10, 2002

You can definitely blame today’s lack of blog on my girlfriend, and specifically on the game where she serves as staff. And, if you’ll excuse me, i’m off to kill a giant green norwegian parrot.

Also filed in elise | | Comments (0)

Sunday, May 26, 2002

When we finally descended the stairs in search of PB&J and evening activities we had been lounging around since 10am, having only interrupted our reclining to go downstairs to make omelettes for breakfast followed by a short engagement with Classic NES. As we each finished our third half-sandwich our eyes locked across the table, neither of us blinking or moving an inch.


“So, Elise, some more Nintendo?”


“Well, Peter, i might be convinced to thoroughly whup you at Super Mario Bros. 3.”


“If by severely whup you mean ‘attempt to take advantage of a poor only child who never had friends to test his vicious head-to-head Mario Bros. skills against each and every day after school’ but – eventually – ‘fail in the face of he who is brave at heart and fleet of thumb’ … then, yeah, i’m up for a game or two.”

” … Boys are such dorks.”

Suffice to say that what was “a game or two” at 6pm somewhere around 10pm turned into “i’m going to go home for a change of clothes so that i can come back to beat the Piranha Plant World that you claim to hate so much.”

And then, of course, came 1am, when it was something to the effect of “See, if you time your jump to match exactly with the beginning of his parabolic arc you very nearly stand a chance of landing on his back and then boost-jumping onto the musical note box (which, lamentably, possesses no musical qualities whatsoever), which will bring us one level closer to ending the evil reign of the despotic ruler that is Bowser.”

Right. Not to mention 2:15am, which went a little something like “OH MY GOD, HE’S COMING THIS WAY! DEAR SWEET LORD PRESS THE FUCKING JUMP BUTTON OHGODOHGODOHGOD.”

Suffice it to say, i had my ass thoroughly whupped, and i got to beat Mario Bros. 3 level for level without a single warp flute nearly a decade and a half after it’s release. Oh, and, had an amazing day just sitting around in my gym shorts with Elise.

Perfect. Just… perfect.

Also filed in Year 02, elise, memories, stories | | Comments (0)

Wednesday, May 22, 2002

Sometimes i forget how excited i was last summer when Erika and Lindsay agreed to have me as their roommate, and sometimes i find myself squeezed onto the couch with them stuck on level 8-3 of Mario Brothers trying to get past those hammer tossing fuckers. I mean, who knew Lindsay had memorized where every secret block was in all of the first Mario game? It’s not like i interviewed her that extensively before moving in with her…

Also filed in erika, lindsay | | Comments (0)

Sunday, March 17, 2002

“What are you doing?”

“Hooking up Super Nintendo?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s what i do when i’m sick.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

“Do you know how to play Secret of Mana?”

Also filed in Year 02, elise | | Comments (1)

Saturday, February 23, 2002

There is acting, and then there is playing a role. Acting is straightforward … based on material given to you ahead of time, and meant to be consistent and the same every time. Role playing is something entirely different … slipping into the mind of the character you portray to make decisions and reach conclusions for them. It’s the difference between a movie-star shooting a single film and a soap opera star who has played the same character for decades; with the latter, we expect them to occasionally stray from their normal portrayals, if only because we’ve had a chance to ascertain what normal really constitutes. One is not harder than the other. In fact, to consistently act and to act consistently are two different concepts entirely.

Okay, so, what i’m trying to say is that i didn’t get cast in Fiddler, but in my ever-loving geekdom i started a role-playing campaign of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons tonight with other assorted Drexel Players. We sat around in an attic bedroom for more than three hours, talking to each other as who we were portraying rather than as ourselves imitating a character. Eyes were shifty, and stories were inconsistent. We began to establish the baseline of how we would act from there on out. Stories were told around campfires, relative lack of wisdom was played with Keanu-like naivete, and secrets were kept.

We’re going to meet again next Thursday. Most of the other people have rehearsal most of the nights between now and then, but i don’t. And, really, it’s not a problem.

Also filed in college, lindsay, theatre | | Comments (0)

Sunday, January 13, 2002

Six college students sitting around on a Sunday afternoon after a late brunch. You might imagine us taking part in an enlightened conversation, going outside to get some exercise, or even making plans to see a movie or go shopping.


You would be wrong. Try again. Whoops, wrong again. Here, let me just tell you what we did.

The six of use opened up a collection of Millers, WineCoolers, and CiderJacks, and whipped out the Sorry! board. Now, being an only child with a significantly less-than-average amount of friends, i apparently didn’t get to experience the entire broad horizon of board games. However, i think i can safely say that Sorry! is the meanest game i could ever inflict upon a child. It’s similar to Parcheesi in that your two main purposes are to get your piece “home,” and to fuck over everyone else. And, trust me, four slightly buzzed college students with a cheering faction of two is pretty good at fucking.


We played Sorry for two hours, during which i might have been threatened with physical removal from the game area if i didn’t “shut up and sit the hell down.” Yes, this means i won the first game and that everyone was pissed — can i help it if i am a blood-thirsty player and not a sore loser? (Apparently pointing that out directly after doing one’s victory dance is considered bragging. Did i mention that we were drinking?) After my stunning come-from-behind victory (two pieces landed home in two turns) we invented a drinking game and a turbo version.


I knew that higher education was good for something…

Also filed in alchohol, college, only childness | | Comments (0)

Tuesday, December 18, 2001

How did it get to be midnight? I guess this is what happens when you stay up until dawn alternately playing StarCraft with your hostees and trucking through the 600′s of Infinite Jest. I deserved it though, if not for getting an A in Philosophy then for my all-day cleaning binge. And, so, up i stayed, mindlessly click-clicking on my Hatchery to “build more zerglings, goddamnit!”

In one of those between-game intervals i happened to glance out of my back window to find that my oft-spied-on neighbor had his lights on. I idly kept my eye on his window as i delved through page-long paragraphs in Jest until i saw a bit of movement and perked up — to find him taking a naked post-shower stroll through his room. The whole seeing him naked bit is rather anti-climactic after all this time (but, really, who the hell gets dressed before they get back to their room after a shower?), but i suppose he forgot that i had been spying on him after i left him alone for a while. Now he seems fond of sitting directly in his window with a huge drawing-board; i can’t imagine why he draws there … it’s not as though there’s any natural light. Could that be his convenient way of spying back at me? He has such an easy bead on my computer from there that he easily catches me turning around to glance at him before i can even see him in my peripheral vision.

Or maybe he just likes to draw. I wonder if he does nudes.

Also filed in books, college, neighbors | | Comments (1)

Monday, June 11, 2001

As if i wasn’t distracted enough at work already, now i have a new toy. I’ve always been really horrible with vector-related games like this because i naturally bring my mouse way in back of the vector to get finer leveraged control of it, but here that’s the equivalent of shooting a golf ball out of a cannon. Via the ever-distracting and much-loved Meg.

Update: I was only one over par on my second try, but i feel as though playing against other real players will scare me and i’ll be awful. For such an incredibly straightforward and simple game, MiniGolf has too many damn subtlies!

Also filed in weblinks | | Comments (0)

Sunday, April 15, 2001

Things with which you can stay awake at night: Atomica, from the crack addled brains that brought you Bejeweled and Alchemy or Sitcom Character or Dictator … the name pretty much says it all. I’m several repetitions into the Reckoning and Revelling and my teeth feel tired and typing is not quite so easy as it should be, so i’m contemplating sleep. But first i must rise above the ranking of 5000 in Atomica!

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Tuesday, January 2, 2001

I’m having one of those “small cog in an infinite universe” kind of days. I remember when i was younger i fancied the Earth as a single cell in a body, with all of us reduced to that stuff that floats around the nucleus – and we could barely even comprehend the sum total of our own cell let alone the entirety of our body or beyond. Of course, i eventually learned what all that stuff around the nucleus was called. As my plane came in from Florida i glanced out of the window and saw the entirety of Philadelphia laid out all in the yellow glow of street lamps and the tiny winking brake lights of hundreds of cars. It felt as though i could snap a photo of it all and load it into SimCity… replacing my apartment building with a lush condominium and widening all of the streets in South Philly so there would be room to park.


I’m nothing but a single Sim in my city. I never played any of the newer versions of SimCity, but i remember the original clearly from way-back. Imagine just a single person in that city. Would they visit every building? On any given day would they even waste a thought on the outlying suburbs or the densely packed inner-city streets? My range within Philadelphia is so very limited, and as the plane descended and i could make out distinctive landmarks it was as if my daily path was highlighted especially in the wash of all of those orangey street lamps, and it was as tiny and restricted as those country roads that i claim to despise so much. Maybe what i like about the city is the illusion of options, and not the option themselves. Or maybe i should go to sleep on long plane rides. Any thoughts?

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