Micropayments
Went out to lunch with some colleagues, to some little place off Collins Street. Honey chicken, mixed vegetables and fried rice. And an orange juice. $8.90. Gave $20 to the girl, and she came back with change totalling $19.10. Something obviously went wrong there. Gave her a $5 note back, before realising later that I should have given her another $3.
At least unlike last time eating there, I managed to avoid getting pasta sauce on my tie, which set me back $6.50 at the dry-cleaners. Which seems like a lot. But what was I going to do — chuck out an otherwise good $45 luvverly silk tie? Ties may be the most useless piece of clothing ever invented for the male of the species, but they are decorative.
I’ve had a bunch of money sitting in my PayPal account for the past year or two, left over from eBay auctions. Rather than let it rot there, I’ve given it to WordPress instead. For a bunch of guys writing free software, they’re doing a great job, and the software has certainly made my life easier.
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Geek TV
Just watched Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. Historic geek TV goes prime time. It told of The Great Eastern, Brunel’s doomed gigantic ship. It was in the style of a dramatised documentary, with interviews of the major protagonists as the story unfolded, and didn’t shy away from mentioning the horrific toll of industrial accidents and child labour of the times. Very interesting. Next episode is about the Brooklyn Bridge — I’m looking forward to it.
5 out of 8 in the footy tipping. Could be worse/could be better.
Looked at a house today. Egads. Major renovation required to make it liveable. Starts with the outdoor toilet and just goes downhill from there. The kids came along with me, and all they could talk about for ten minutes afterwards was how appalling it was (especially the toilet — could be a history lesson in there). Explains why the advertising contains absolutely no pictures of the interior.
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Neighbourhood
Just another day in the (network) neighbourhood.
Thanks to Tony for the tip-off.
(Tattersalls building, Dandenong Road, Caulfield/East Malvern)
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SuperScrabble
I’ve been playing Scrabble a bit. The word that got me winning the last game was “zebra”, on a triple word score. 48 points, thank you very much… I think I had been trailing before that.
My sister is the demon Scrabble player from hell. Or so her reputation says. I don’t know if I’ve played Scrabble with her since she moved overseas, but I’m looking forward to a game or two when she comes back.
My mum and Peter have been practising for her return. They tell me she beat them hands-down when last they played, so they’re keen to increase their Scrabble skills in preparation for her return.
But they said they found the game a little dull. So they’ve beefed it up a bit. Presto… SuperScrabble. SuperScrabble involves using the letters from two sets (with appropriate removal of some of the more boring letters). And having two letter racks each, with a total of 14 letters. Which my mother tells me has allowed her to easily create longer words.
Such as “albatross”.
Presumably the next step would be to expand the board. It depends on where you stop, of course, but taken to its ultimate conclusion, Scrabble could be played on a massive board, and take days to complete.
Me, I’m happy with my “zebra”.
No the picture is not a real Scrabble game. Just me mucking about. And showing my lack of maturity, really…
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Gaming in the 21st century
Call me an old fuddy duddy if you like, but for the most part I still like the video and computer games of olde a bit better. Though graphics and sound have leapt forward over the past couple of decades, the quality of gameplay is the subject of some debate.
How playable is a game if you have to read the manual for ten minutes before you can figure out what you have to do? In the glory days of the arcade, it was as simple as: shoot the aliens; climb to the top of the girders; get the frog across the road and river. They needed to get you hooked in the first game, to keep you pumping those 20 cent coins in.
Nowadays they’re all so complicated. Video game pioneer Nolan Bushnell lamented that the designers came up with games that were so complicated they required all your concentration to play — when the reality is, in a bar or arcade, while you’re playing, you’re probably sipping on a drink and chatting to friends too.
He also points out that because striving for technological complexity has driven development costs through the roof, a lot of the innovation has vanished from the games industry, with most new ones being first-person shooting games or driving games.
…if you really look at the games that have been developed for the arcade business in the last five years, you see driving games and you see shooting games, and very little else. With the driving games, sometimes you’re driving a car, sometimes a bike, sometimes a truck, or a snowmobile, but they’re still damn driving games.
- Nolan Bushnell, Edge magazine’s retro gaming special 2002
The controls are more complex these days. Back in the olden days it was a single joystick and a button. Maybe two if pressed (Robotron excepted). The standard controller on the XBox has no less than three joysticks, and a multitude of buttons on it. This seems overly complex to me. What game would require me to go in three different directions at once anyway?
That said, the XBox is a heap of fun to play. Midtown Madness 3 is a lot of fun. Some spectacular graphics, and the freedom to cruise around like a maniac, or drive in races like a maniac. Hell, you can even do an Henri Paul and go zooming through the tunnels of Paris weaving around at a stupid rate of knots before hitting a wall, with the only result being some wobbles from the force feedback on the controller.
I’m rationing my game purchases to one per month, which gives me plenty of time to read the reviews and work out what’s good value for money. Next in the queue is Harry Potter/Chamber of Secrets, which looks good. I’ve thought about buying Elder Scrolls 3 (for myself, not the kids, since it’s M rated), but I’m hesitant because it looks rather too addictive, promising to suck away time I don’t have.
So far the only other release I’ve bought is Midway Arcade Treasures, 20 classic games on a disc. Thankfully Midway are happy just to be game authors; alas Nintendo want to be in the console market too, which means barring getting MAME running on it, I will never play Donkey Kong on my Xbox.
Arcade Treasures is something of a mixed bag, and it probably comes down to the fact that some of the games are suited to different types of controls. Robotron, Paperboy and Gauntlet work well. Marble Madness would be better with its original trackball. Joust is hopeless – you need a button you can continually whack to flap your bird’s wings without getting RSI.
But in the comfort of my own lounge room, it’s as good as it’s going to get for now.
…
Since Tony mentioned Elite, here’s my top ten games of yesteryear, in alphabetical order:
Donkey Kong Junior (arcade). The platform game after the one that started it all, with Mario turned badguy. The Game And Watch versions of these games were also great. Hands up who managed to get past 999 points and “clock” them.
Elite (BBC micro). The legendary space trading/flying/piracy/dogfight/exploration game. You have a Cobra Mk3 spacecraft, and eight galaxies to explore. Go do your own thing. Breaking the rules about simple controls, but the concept and freedom within the game was breathtaking. I never did reach Elite status, but I did get to Deadly both on the C64 and the superior (faster) Beeb version.
Gauntlet (arcade). A kind of dungeons and dragons-themed multiplayer game, best experienced (at least for me) in the Fun Factory with three mates, feeding in the 20 cent coins and co-ordinating our efforts battling the ghosts, wizards, Deaths and what appeared to be little kids lobbing rocks over the walls.
Gyruss (arcade). The circular movement of your spacecraft was obviously different, but the frenetic pace, great graphics and sound made this a winner. “3 warps to Neptune”. I managed to get through to Earth on the C64 version.
Impossible Mission (Commdore 64). “Stay a while! Stay… forever!” Brilliance in platform games. Some C64s (including mine) would generate the same map and puzzle every time on initial load, making it easy to finish the game.
Joust (arcade). Flying your buzzard around, jumping on the others. Perhaps the first and only game ever that didn’t have up/down directional controls, but a flap button instead.
Lode Runner (Apple II). Platform game with a massive number of screens, and instead of jumping over your enemies, you dug holes to trap them which magically filled up after a few seconds. And included a revolutionary idea: design your own levels, something later done on such games as Magic Mushrooms on the Beeb.
Monty Mole (Commdore 64). A very cutesy scrolling platform game, with Arthur Scargill and other Brit coalmining strike references. Another one of Tony Crowther’s masterpieces, and one I managed to finish. Other platform games worth of mention include Jumpman, Jumpman Junior, Blagger, Popeye and Thing on a Spring. Undoubtedly 2D platform games were my favourites.
Sim City (PC). The original city designer game, and though less complex and realistic than its sequels, seemed more addictive. Also inspired other related games such as Traffic Giant.
Ultima 4 (Commdore 64). There were many Ultima games, roleplaying obviously inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, but this one had me hooked for many weeks. Wandering around the countryside fighting monsters, finding sailing ships to explore the oceans, through towns and villages and castles trading and talking to people. I wasn’t so keen on the dungeon fighting, personally.
There have been many other brilliant games, of course, including many I’ve probably forgotten and will wish later I’d included.
What are your favourites of all time?
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Upgrading
Just upgrading to Wordpress 1.2. I see the comments have vanished. This will be fixed shortly.
(Well, after I’ve done the dishes.)
10:30pm. Okay seems to be working. Some of the trackbacks and other wierdo URLs aren’t working ‘cos I have to find time to fiddle the .htaccess file to cope with my old archives. Will get to it eventually.
The next morning. All seems to be working, though the trackbacks show up in comments instead. I’ll fix that. Also want to do some fiddling to make commenting expire on posts older than X days, to help prevent comment spam.
Overall, I’m very impressed with Wordpress 1.2. Was a super-easy upgrade from 1.0, and has a stack of new features I’ll explore. Well done to the WP team.
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Bouncy bouncy
Its arrival has been much anticipated, and finally it happened yesterday.
We got a trampoline.
It has been a long time coming. I have been looking around for trampolines for a while now. Just one element in a wide-ranging family exercise regime. We never had one growing up, but I recall visiting our friends the Otters (that was their surname, not their species) and playing on theirs. A lot of fun — so much so that to prevent arguments about whose turn it was, we would have a queuing system and use a stopwatch to ensure nobody went over their allotted time.
Over the past few months, various rumours claimed trampolines had been seen in places like K-Mart, but whenever I went looking I couldn’t find them. Until this week, when a well-informed source told me K-Mart not only had them advertised in their catalogue, but they were 25% off.
So I went snooping, and finally discovered that they don’t have them on display in the stores because they’re too damn big. No, you have to scour the sports equipment section and find a relatively small noticeboard, whereon are posted details of the various trampolines available. This baffling mystery solved, by some miracle I managed to find a genuine K-Mart customer service person and got the trampoline ordered. To be delivered on Tuesday.
Thus the countdown began.
It arrived on our doorstep in a very long box. With Peter’s help I put it together. Just as well he turned up (with his granddaughter Zoe), as it’s sufficiently big and awkward enough to be a two person job. The metal bits that you have to intertwine into the edge of the mat, in particular, are a bastard, and encountering this encumbrance is clearly a sign to stop, have a cup of tea and a Tim Tam and steel oneself for the task ahead.
An hour or so’s labour later, and it was ready. Soon the sounds of bouncing, excited yelps, and the occasional argument about whose turn it was could be heard.
I got to have a go myself eventually. It really is good fun.
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Red shields
Apparently this year’s Salvation Army Red Shield appeal fell short by around $2 million, with apartment block security doors and an increasingly cashless society cited as two major reasons. I think most would agree the Salvos do a good job, so if you had planned to give but couldn’t, now might be a good time to do the cashless thing and click through to their web site to donate online. Let’s show them that the wired age and the cashless society can still have a social conscience! (Ron and Jeff wouldn’t, of course.)
Did I mention I got 6 out of 8 in the footy tipping? Would have been 7 if I’d had enough faith to tip my own team.
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