livingtech

Last night I discovered Puzzle Pirates courtesy of my friend kris (who said he hasn’t played it yet). Puzzle pirates is new game territory–a massively multiplayer game where instead of RPG-style hack-n-slash, (whether it be turn based or real time,) the method of advancement is all puzzle-based. You can choose several different tasks aboard any given pirate ship, and each of those tasks is associated with a puzzle game. Getting better at each game type obviously earns you more rewards, whether they’re gold or some other thing.

There are a couple of different multiplayer puzzles… only two player, as far as I could tell, but I only played the one of them that is suppose to be sword fighting. I think that one was by far the most fun, but the gameplay was straight out of super puzzle fighter.

They only have about 6 or 7 puzzles implemented so far (with promises of more), but those that I played were all a little sad. Mostly I was disappointed by the lack of innovation. The puzzle types are all pretty recognizable. I’m surprised I didn’t see a Tetris knockoff; then again, I think I only played 3 or 4 of the puzzle styles.

The only puzzle I played that was interesting and unique (at least to me) was the one where you repair the ship’s damages. Basically, you have randomly shaped “holes” in the hull that you have to fill with randomly shaped pieces of wood. (Think very f’d up tetris pieces ala Mickey’s Magical Tetris or something similar.) Anyway, you can overlap pieces, but you get penalized for doing so. Obviously, the faster you patch, the better. I never did that well.

Oh, and another thing that was frustrating were the controls. I didn’t delve into the keyboard shortcuts (although some games you don’t have a choice) but those games where you could use the mouse were definitely harder than those where you used standard arrow keys and the like. The client is java… and I think the limiting factor here was java gui slowness.

All in all, the premise is definitely intriguing. Initially, I was so excited at the thought of it that I rushed home yesterday after unicycling and played it for a good two hours before I realized that nothing I’d done had been all that exciting.

I’m very much hoping for some more unique puzzles, as the whole concept (improving your character, buying stuff, based on puzzle skill and/or tenacity) is one I wholeheartedly endorse.

BTW, for some good innovative action-style puzzle games, check out yahoo games. The last time I was there I was exceptionally pleased to discover that they had a lot of new (to me) puzzle games. (I just noticed, however, that they have a disclaimer beneath the games themselves (at least a few of them) that says “Note: GAME_TITLE is not compatible with Unix or Macintosh computers.” I wonder if there’s some weird java incompatibility. I go back and forth about whether java is just a steaming pile of shit, or whether it serves some purpose. I guess most of the web-based games out there are java applets, so in that respect, I’ve got to love it.

I lamed out on the Thursday night low concert. I basically decided I’d go on Friday instead of seeing the Umbrella Sequence. There were numerous advantages to this proposition, one of which was that I wouldn’t be spending any money until payday.

Of course, then Friday night came around, and I decided I’d rather see Umbrella Sequence anyway. I’ve seen low before, and while I know it’s a good show, I’ve also been meaning to see Umbrella Sequence for a while now. And they were not disappointing. It was at the Uptown Bar, and I’d never been there before either. Remind me not to eat there again though. It was not bad, but overpriced, and greasy.

Saturday I basically lounged about the whole day, and finally got up off my butt to go see Junior Senior around 7:30. I got to the theater as the doors were opening, but there were signs everywhere that said the show was sold out. So I walked over to let it be, and bought myself a few Cds to commiserate. I’d been meaning to pick up the new Her Space Holiday CD, the young machines and it’s awesome. I also picked up the new Fluke album, puppy (import only, this bastard cost me $25), but it is an excellent album as well. Then, of course, while I’m in the store, they’re playing something I’ve never heard of before, that I absolutely must have… an album by Ulrich Schnauss, called A Strangely Isolated Place. Also damn good.

Sunday, Laura and I went shopping downtown. I meant to spend a gift certificate that’s been sitting in my backpack for months now… $50 at Eddie Bower. You can see how often I get into that store. Anyway, we ran out of time between Target and Marshal Fields (Laura gets a discount at both), so it just wasn’t in the cards. I ended up buying Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, and Majestic Chess, a PC chess game with an “adventure” mode I wanted to try out. It’s pretty fun so far. You basically have to go around and beat chess puzzles and quizzes to acquire your chess set. (You don’t play full games till the end of each level, when you usually have your full set–at least, that’s how it’s worked so far.)

My only qualm about the weekend was that I didn’t get to play enough Morrowind. I’m hoping to make up for that either tonight or tomorrow.

In more web-related news… I read Eric Meyer when I think of it, but just today I noticed his “presentation” links on the right hand side of the page. Pretty sweet stuff, that. I love the Matrix theme. I sent this link to my friend xomina, and he pointed me to a page with pure css menus. Pretty mind boggling CSS. Man, why can’t I do more of this kind of shit at my job?

Wow, ok, so here’s a crazy series of discoveriesÂ… I’d known since Monday that Low is not actually playing on Saturday, but instead is playing Thursday and Friday (ie, if I want to see Umbrella Sequence, I have to see them tonight.) This isn’t so bad, seeing as how tonight is the 21+ show, and I’d rather see that one anyway. (mostly because they’re generally less crowded.)

So I’m not sure why, but I’m randomly surfing the TCASL again, and find out that this Saturday, Junior Senior is playing at the 7th St. Entry. Fuck yeah! I don’t even have to miss any of the other concerts I was planning for this weekend!

OK, but here’s where it starts to go Bizzzaro. I’ve never heard of the headlining actÂ… Electric Six. Maybe I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never heard them. (Update, turns out I’ve heard a few songs,) anyway, I surf to their website, and find that they’ve got a blog of sorts, and the third entry is talking about David Blaine’s latest stunt. How weird is it that I hear about it there first? On this blog I’ve never been to before by some band I’m going to see on Saturday by coincidence.

Point is, he’s locked himself up in a clear plastic cage suspended above the ground for 40 days and 40 nights. (Maybe 44 days?) I guess he’s had quite a few protestors and people throwing eggs at him and stuff. There was even a guy who possibly commited suicide within site of the box. As usual with David Blaine, it’s all very strange and mysterious.

What with cake for today’s monthly birthday celebration, cookies with weirdly empowering slogans on them that one of the higher-ups deemed himself too good for, and the candy bars I bought myself at the gas station this morning–I am feeling excessively sugared today. This is not necessarily a good thing, as my stomach is doing the ADD-dance.

(Man, you should have seen the cookies. They’re all shaped like cartoon conversation bubbles, and came sticking out of a basket on sticks, wrapped in some kind of plastic over the whole thing. They said things like “You’re the one!” and “Go get ’em tiger!” I ate the one that said “Master of the Universe”.)

I discovered over at me-fi this morning that Margaret Cho has taken up blogging. Her entries are long and, as you’d imagine, intelligent and interesting.

This led me on a hunt for other comedian-slash-bloggers. I remembered that Maria Bamford had updates on her site the last time I was there, but it took me a while to hunt her down again as I couldn’t remember her name right away. I could have sworn I blogged about her before, as I thought I had mentioned the hilarity of her anecdotes about her pug named Blossom, but I guess not.

It feels like surfing for comedians who also blog could be a full time job. Some part of me would like to actually click through all the comedians in Comedy Central’s list. I found Doug Stanhope’s blog that way, but it could get pretty tedious.

Eventually, I asked myself the question “Does Dave Barry count?” He’s a comedic writer, so no, I don’t think he does. That means we’re really looking for stand-up comics who also have blogs.

So while surfing for lists of celebrity blog links, I found Neil Gaiman has had a blog since 2001 (he started the month before I did). I haven’t read much of it yet, as it didn’t seem that exciting, but it sort of softens the blow that was left when I found out William Gibson decided to close up shop at his blog.

Mortgage due on the first, no late fees if paid by the fifteenth. I was one hour late for work today after spending an extra ten dollars to pay it online. I got there at eleven. That means I work till seven. Tonight I’ll probably stay up till one in the morning, when Laura gets home, playing Morrowind. Nate bought the second matrix movie yesterday, maybe I’ll watch that with Travis when he calls me around eight, which is only one hour from now.

Found out today I’ve only used eight of my ten vacation days this year. I should have had fifteen with the old company, but I guess I’m not complaining. I still have two left!

I’m feeling a bit sick again. If I am, that’ll be the third time in four weeks. Maybe it’s because I french kissed at least five people at Jason’s party, four nights ago (last Saturday). We were playing Tru-Dare, this weird adult-themed chutes and ladders type game. I played it at least four times that I remember, and I was up till six–thirty in the morning. This left me with only about two and a half hours to sleep. Still, I think it was a good time, and I’d give it four stars, or two thumbs up.

Well, I tried to no avail to install Storage.pl into my home directory. I did the make/install stuff just fine, and everything lookedÂ… well, indecipherable, but otherwise just fine. I am no perl guru, that’s for sure. So I guess I will just have to wait to install mt-blacklist until they’ve written a work-around for this particular requirement.

And in the meantimeÂ… *sigh* I may just go ahead and delete the 20 or so spam comments that have appeared on my site in the last week or so… by hand. I did at least go ahead and upgrade Movable Type to 2.64. I’ve been dreading it, but I should have known it was going to be easy.

I think today was the first time someone has link-spammed my blog–you know, posted a comment for the sole purpose of getting others to follow the URL they use. Movable type must do some cool filtering, because this person also tried to post an image linking to their porn site, and it just didn’t show up. Strange, because I would have thought it would. (I have HTML in comments turned on and all that.)

I also managed to delete an entry today. I’ve encountered this movable type bug before, where I’m editing someone’s comment, and save it, and then when it takes you back to the entry page the body of the entry is actually the same as the comment entry. I’m not sure how this happens. (And actually, it’s possible that it could be a safari bug� I was just editing comments again–in mozilla–and didn’t have the same thing happen.)

I found out there is a new Fluke album, but it doesn’t appear that it’s going to be released here. djnoise had good things to say about it, so I’ll be making an amazon.co.uk order soon, I think. (How is it possible that it’s substantially cheaper to buy something from amazon.co.uk than it is to buy it from amazon.com? Aren’t they the same f’in company?)

There are multiple concerts coming up that I want to go to. Dressy Bessy is on Monday at the 400 Bar. They had a really catchy tune in But I’m a Cheerleader. Then Friday the Umbrella Sequence is playing at the Uptown Bar. I’ve been wanting to see them ever since I found out they’re local (I think). At first I was upset because, Low is playing at the Triple Rock that same night, but then I found out they’re playing the next night too! So it’s going to be a concert filled weekend, because those are both shows I really don’t want to miss. I hope low isn’t going to sell out� maybe I should buy my tickets in advance.

Today I turned to google to tell me whether it’s “feed a cold, starve a fever,” or “feed a fever, starve a cold.” I was going to go on search results alone, but the first result was actually someone else wondering the same thing I wasÂ… so I clicked and found out the true answer is neither. Modern medicine says you should eat the sameÂ… and that over eating, and especially starving, is bad in both cases! I learned something new.

Unfortunately, while I’m sick, I usually don’t eat as much. I don’t think anybody does. It’s at least partly because you have this fear in the back of your head that you won’t be able to hold it down. And I often just don’t feel like eating. Oh, and another factorÂ… if your nose is stuffed up (which mine is) you can’t taste anything! So at least half the pleasure of eating is stripped from you.

I was thinking that I’d probably go home early today, but every time I’ve talked with my manager it’s been about timelines, and when I can have things done byÂ… and I haven’t had the heart/guts to tell her that I really just want to go home. Plus, I called in sick two days in a row like two weeks ago, and I’m sure the perception is that I’m just sick all the time. When in reality, I think it’s just that when I get sick I’m more susceptible to further illnesses. So maybe I am sick all the time, who knows? I guess that’s a small price to pay for working less. Except that when I was sick that other time I kept coming in even though I felt like shit. I hardly ever just disconnect from work entirely.

Anyway, I really hope I’m feeling better by Friday. Jason is having his post-fest party on Saturday (and a smaller movie viewing on Friday), and there are people I want to make out with who are going to be there! Laura is going to miss the whole thing, as she’s flying out to California to pick up a friend’s car and drive it back here. They’re stopping on the way back to see Zoomanity. I was very tempted to go with them, but I just can’t justify the expense right now. I will have to see it soon though; I’ve heard only good things about it.

PS, when you search for zoomanity on google, the first result is a site called metaplasm, a fascinating blog-style list of compound and (mis)created words and their definitions. Fun stuff!