In anticipation of the descending hordes expected for Double XP Rewards Weekend in City Of Heroes, NCSoft released a patch containing a number of fixes. (One wonders at the use of the term “corrected,” however. Looks like a euphemism to me.)
Not to be outdone, another organization seems to have patched their operations somewhat as well. I’m sure there’ll be an outcry about nerfs and balance-breaking changes, but we’ll see how it plays out…
It looks like MGK got his website back after it was completely obliterated during the linkfest he spawned by skewering a number of sacred cows beloved SF and Fantasy novels. (Yes, this means that the links in this old post work again!) Turns out that he went back for a third round… check it out, won’t you?
Recently I Twittered (tweeted, whatever) about the sudden disappearance of the JamesBurkeFan collection of videos on YouTube containing the entirety of “Connections” (1, 2 and 3) as well as “The Day The Universe Changed,” my favorite educational series of all time. Turned out that YouTube pulled the videos at the request of the publisher of the upcoming new boxed set of “Universe Changed.”
Oh, by the way? My birthday is coming up…
Alan Carre, the man behind the JamesBurkeFan collection, stopped by a couple of days ago to let me know that he’s back on YouTube. Awfully nice for a guy to follow me back here from Twitter, I think! Check out his page, say something nice, and patronize the folks offering the boxed sets if you can. I particularly recommend the original “Connections” and, of course, “The Day The Universe Changed.”
Holy guacamole. I first posted to a journal on the greyduck.net domain seven years ago today.
Time flies when you’re having fun. And by “having fun” I mean posting memes, silly links, pictures, videos, rants, raves, ramblings, memories of youth, memories of my kids’ youth, trials, tribulations, triumphs, and tripe.
Here’s to much more of the same, friends. Thanks for reading.
I’m reasonably certain that even the “invisible man in the sky” believers among my (tiny, tiny) readership will find this webcomic entry worth a chuckle or two.
(Tip of the hat to Jack Cluth for the find.)
Granted, I’m not sure that all of these games are actually brand new, but I’d not played them before… and after last weekend there’s one I won’t ever play again either. So here’s how Sunday night went down:
Formula D – I’m glad we started with this. Sure, I don’t drive. Sure, I have generally terrible luck with die rolls. I don’t care: The Beginner and Advanced rules renditions of the game we played were a complete hoot. The game board is a circuit track (one of two selections, flip the huge two-piece board over for the other track) with two or three lanes of car-piece-sized rectangles marked along, and red-lined corners that you’re required to stop within a certain number of times or face penalties. Too many of those penalties and you’re out of the race. The skill comes in when you decide carefully which gear, each corresponding to an X-sided die with a limited range of numbers, you want to shift into at every turn (pun intended). Fun, fun, fun. I want to play it again.
Modern Art – The goal here is to both sell and buy pieces from a limited number of paintings by five different artists in such a fashion that you end up with the most money at the end. Usually the trick is to have the most valuable paintings at the end of each of the four rounds of play, but you can win by being the person who sold someone else those paintings at a high enough price. I tend to detest “bidding” games, but this one’s a pleasant surprise. I recommend it as an occasional bit of fun. The rules aren’t too complex, though the concept takes a few minutes to grasp.
Acquire – Take the worst elements of Monopoly and Scrabble, combine them in such a way that you have to be able to track a half dozen or more metrics in your head to stay competitive, and season with a bit of “luck of the draw.” Bonus points if you end up competing against a known card-counter, but I can’t imagine this game being fun even among purely casual gamers. Hated it. Lots.
