Word to the makers of word games

Don’t censor your dictionaries. If you think it doesn’t look a hell of a lot like cheating when you allow your player to spell “pya”, but foul the human for spelling “piss”, you’re gravely mistaken.

The ebb and flow

I spend a fair part of the day trying to solve my problems with nVidia graphics and Oblivion. No luck.

I love the game. It’s wide, it’s deep, and it’s graphically compelling. The sound effects are good and, by some miracle of brilliant design, even the music doesn’t get irritating after a few thousand hours. That’s rare in a game. Civ III tends to make me homicidal, that way.

Once upon a time, I even bought a new computer so as to be able to play Oblivion… but the game is no longer novel, and I no longer have cash to spare.

The planes in Spain get hijacked to Bahrain

Thunderstorms in Phoenix, tonight. Unusual. I hope they help bring the temperature back down. Too soon for air conditioning, too soon!

Tomorrow, perhaps, we talk about sprouts.  It’s wonderful what you can grow in no more than a week, using simple equipment. Sprouting tends to greatly improve the food value of various seeds, grains and beans, while reducing (or eliminating) cooking time and increasing the volume. Sprouts go to eleven.

The bounty of internationalism: food

I was bobbling about the blogs, the other day, as I sometimes do. It takes a little work to run across something actually worth reading. So often, an interesting blog comes up and, then, you realize that the blogger quit writing two years ago, or has an entertaining way of writing about absolutely nothing, or is just a raving compulsive on one or two issues, and will be repeating himself to the end of time.

It was the latter kind of blog that piqued my interest, most recently. A blog of quite a curious woman, with unusual ideas of her own and, unfortunately, rather a lot of foolish, commonplace ideas that she somehow had taken a lust for.

Crash, boom, bang…

Major crash outside my apartment, just now. Didn’t see it, but it was too loud to ignore. Threw on some clothes and grabbed a phone and hustled outdoors.

Small car squashed up, improbably, on the sidewalk, behind the lamppost. No idea of how it got there, but it annihilated an oak tree, mashed and spun around a parked car, knocked an SUV around, and blew the top off the lamppost.

Adventures in Drinks: Cisco Blue Raspberry

Some adventures, scary and hideous though they may be at the time, make for wonderful stories to recount later.

Others are simply foolish and embarrassing.

With any luck, this one is both.

dating disasters

There’s a long thread, over on fark.com, about dating disasters. It’s kind of interesting, in a creepy way. You often get the sense that some of the horrible dates were just doing their best to get away from the guys (and gals) who are telling the stories.

I’ve got to admit, I haven’t had any dating disasters. Probably, I’m just not as eager to hook up with random connections as some. I like people, but I’m very comfortable with being alone. My dates have never gone comically wrong. So sorry. I’m sure it would make for a good story.

search service: the odd things that find us

“why a car eat it own battery”

Hmm. Well, car batteries often need a bit of care. The usual ones dry up, after a while. You can add distilled water, if they’re running low. Some batteries are sealed, and don’t need water. All of them tend to fade out after five years or so. All of them need some recharging, which is usually taken care of by your car, but that takes time.

Games of our lives: Planescape: Torment

On the whole, I think Planescape: Torment was the most significant computer game ever created. Like many works of art, in its time, it didn’t sell very well, although it has a considerable cult following. You may find a copy on eBay.

Torment confused many people, I think. It was built on a role-playing Dungeons and Dragons model but… although you could play it as a traditional hack’n’slash game, it was really designed as an interactive story.

Adventures in Food et al

Chex Mix Jalapeño Cheddar. I can’t resist something new and different, even if I ought to know better. Oddly enough, for an American product, it’s actually very spicy. The base mix is still a bland bit of different shapes with identical textures but, if you like it hot, this will definitely hold your interest. I cooled it down a bit with peanut M&Ms, which was a bit depraved, but worked surprisingly well.