Monthly Naomi Picture
Naomi has figured out that she needs popcorn before she can watch a movie. Smart girl!
New PS2 Gameplay
While I’m waiting for the PS3 prices to drop (and, honestly, waiting for the system to have more than two games that interest me – Ratchet & Clank and Prince of Persia aren’t enough to justify the expense), the prices of PS2 games are dropping steadily. Time to think about picking some up to round out the library – even games that I wouldn’t ordinarily consider. No now, obviously, but eventually.
Feel free to chime in with any suggestions.
Platformers: The Jak and Daxter series is a surefire bet. I love Ratchet and Sly, so one more platformer/shooter game (even one with a grotesque difficulty curve in the second installment) seems a likely sale.
Action: God of War. I’m not sixteen, so the gore and the bewbs aren’t the selling points for me, but at the right price, I’ll check out the combat. I’d also buy a used copy of Rise of the Kasai again, even though it’s a flawed game, just to recomplete the collection (and no, the gore for the disarm-kills isn’t the selling point – but it’s an interesting contradiction on my part).
Super-hero: The Superman game would be worth a second look. The first rental didn’t go well, but the game seems worth exploring.
Sandbox: It would take an awful lot of arm-twisting to get me to care about GTA. Maybe there’s something else in the genre that isn’t Spider-Man 2 that’s worth a look.
Music: Guitar Hero is never going to be cheap. It’s the cash cow of the used game industry.
RPGs: Baldur’s Gate deserves another chance. Sure, there’s little replay value compared to Norrath, but sometimes you want to fight authentic Gelatinous Cubes, and will accept no substitute. Strangely enough, I don’t feel the urge to get Norrath again – the sequel has all the same characters and enhanced gameplay enough for me.
Other: I’ll always keep my eyes open for Ico, because my used disc has a scratch that makes the last act unplayable. How does Ico get out of that cage? (I read the spoiler, but I want to see it for myself)
FPS/Squads/Sports: Don’t play ‘em, and you can’t make me!
Ticking Clock…
…I have a 5$ coupon for Indigo Books sitting in my wallet, ready to expire on Monday. The problem – when am I going to have a chance to get to the bookstore?
This isn’t a problem I used to have!
Graphic Expansion
This is a good problem to have – in anticipation of picking up a couple of new trade paperbacks with my weekly comics order, I’ve had to rearrange my comics shelves to make more space…which meant removing the Guy Gavriel Kay novels occupying the top shelf…which meant removing other books from the bookcase to make room for GGK. Once the space was cleared, the next trick is sort the books in some logical fashion. it’s not obvious, but i’ve got a system. No really, I do.
Telling Tales
At last, the long-anticipated Tales of Zobeck / Zobeck Gazetteer project has been released! Patrons have been calling for this project pretty much since the initial release of Steam & Brass
As you can tell, the project contains two volumes: exclusive adventures that were pitched and created by the patrons and overseen by Wolfgang, and a non-exclusive, introductory gazetteer to Zobeck, Wolfgang’s Eastern European campaign setting. Together, both volumes make up the largest Open Design project to date – outweighing the previous champ (Empire of the Ghouls) by 10 pages and 5.5K words.
Zobeck has been developed over the course of every Open Design project and every issue of Kobold Quarterly, and it’s proven to be quite popular. I’m looking forward to seeing the setting released to a wider audience.
Ben’s Absurdist Humour
Ever since Ben discovered the Backyardigans, his favourite joke of all time has been a knock kock joke:
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Banana
Banana who?
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Banana
Banana who?
Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Orange
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?
A couple of days ago, Ben told me that he had a new joke. It goes something like this.
Chop Chop
Who’s there?
Popcorn
Popcorn who?
Chop Chop
Who’s there?
Popcorn
Popcorn who?
Chop Chop
Who’s there?
Grapes?
Grapes who?
Grapes you glad I didn’t say popcorn?
We laughed and laughed, for different reasons.
New Themes!
One of the advantages of having to reinstall WordPress is having access to the kewl nu themes. Ben and Naomi’s sites have never looked better! And my professional site is looking pretty sharp, too.
As for this old thing? Well, I like it just the way it is. (for now)
The Upgrade is Not Perfect…
…but I’ll fight with it later. I’ve got too much work to do!
Pardon the Interruption
My site was the target of a script attack yesterday. Some ne’er-do-well installed a malicious php script on my site and started firing off thousands of database requests.
I called Netfirms, removed the script, and waited until the problem sorted itself out.
Today, I’m upgrading to the latest version of WordPress (2.6.5) on all my blogs right away. That should remove the vulnerability exploited by the script-monkey.
Not So Genius
I’ve been using the Genius function from iTunes to put together driving mixes. It’s a pretty good system – pick a song as a seed, and then iTunes figures out what songs in your collection best match that song based on data collected from other iTunes users who have that song. It’s highly personalized long-tail marketing, which is cool.
I noticed something weird, though. All three Genius mixes I created feature “Chasing Pavements” by Adele, an iTunes Free Single of the Week from a few months back. That’s awfully coincidental!
I wonder what the fourth mix will turn up.