Thank God for the things that I do not own.
An Aside: In Teaching the Universe of Discourse, James Moffett describes human discourse as a party at which you show up late, find ongoing conversations all around you, listen until you feel you have something to add, get caught up in a discussion, and eventually have to leave although the party goes on—though perhaps shaped by the arguments you made.
Here’s a link to an MSN page where you can type in your ZIP code and find a list of gas prices around your town.
I was surprised to find a 20 cent per gallon difference near my own home. That’s at least a couple of bucks on a fill up.
Most people using the Web for social networking can pick one or two hangouts—MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, LiveJournal, some Harry Potter fanfic site, or whatever—and devote their energies there, communing with like minds. And that’s cool.
“There are only four types of officer. First, there are the lazy stupid ones. Leave them alone, they do no harm. Second, there are the hard-working intelligent ones. They make excellent staff officers, ensuring that every detail is properly considered. Third, there are the hard-working, stupid ones. These people are a menace and must be fired at once. They create irrelevant work for everyone. Finally, there are the intelligent lazy ones. They are suited for the highest office.” (Read the article)
This one’s from a couple of years back. It’s loosely based on H. P. Lovecraft’s tale, “Herbert West—Reanimator.” The game has a pleasantly creepy ambiance: Those silhouettes of bare trees against the different background colors, the whistling wind, and the endless, shambling creatures make it nerve-wracking enough to keep you tense, while the play is engaging enough to keep you shooting to the bitter end. (Watch for the various different ways you can die.)
Don Perrin pointed me to this one. Be prepared to lose hours with this addictive little game in which you build defensive towers along a path to destroy wave after wave of invading creatures.
(Note: Because the game is wider than the main column of this page, I’ve set it to open in its own window. —Les)
Every year in January, for several years now, I’ve been traveling down to Kentucky to hang out with 50 or 60 old colleagues from TSR at KenCon—named after my buddy Ken Whitman. This year, I was introduced to two items of particular satisfaction. The first was the “Irish Car Bomb,” a drink consisting of Guinness draft beer, Jameson’s Irish whiskey, and Bailey’s Irish Cream. The second was the Rock Band video game. (Just to be clear, the drink and the game were on separate nights, so you can trust my judgment about both.)
Last night my spouse and I sat down to watch some TV before bed and stumbled across Crank in our “ShowTime On Demand” listings. Although one of my daughters had warned against the film, saying, “It’s worse than Transporter 2,” (and I pretty much hated Transporter 2), we gave it a try.
Movies made from old TV series often leave me cold. (Remember the first Star Trek film? We waited 10 years for that turd?) All too often, the director or producers or writers are too young to appreciate the original—or worse, they feel the need to prove themselves better than the originators, and in failing to accomplish that, they ruin the project.
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