Your Vote Won't Count

Greenpeace has adopted a whale, and you can vote for it's name. You'll know what to do.

Desktop Tower Defense

Guys, guys; you know there's this, right? Play it here, record your high score with the name "piecesofthings". Let's have a contest where the winner wins!

Where I got my "Strong Moral Center"

I was over at my parents' home for Thanksgiving, and was trying to get my son Turbo to take a nap. I took him up to my old room, which was up in the attic (it has since been converted into an actual attic). There, looking for a story to read him (a book on UFOs, or Ann Nocenti and John Romita, Jr.'s sweet run on Daredevil, maybe) I stumbled upon my old Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar disks. This game taught me a lot, brothers and sisters. In the game, you're not fighting to kill some fat evil boss or anything like that. Instead, you're trying to reach this weird state of moral perfection, by behaving 'properly' in all of eight virtues: Honesty, Valor, Justice, Honor, Spirituality, Compassion, Sacrifice, and Humility (of those, I had to look up Sacrifice and Humility). Reach a certain level in one virtue, and you get the equivalent of a trivial pursuit pie wedge for that virtue. You lose the wedge if you blow it later on, like if you lie to get out of getting beaten up or something, your honesty points go down, and your wedge goes pop.

There's more to the game than this. It's a bad world, and dudes are always trying to beat you up, so you fight a lot, and gain experience and weapons and gold, all of which make you stronger and huger. This might be a flaw in the central message of the game, actually, since it's really a whole lot easier to be a centered person guided by morality when you're really freaking powerful.

All that notwithstanding, I consider this game to be one of my formative experiences, up there with Benjamin Parker's power and responsibility thing and Paul Atreides' "A storm is coming" speech. Astute readers will notice that I played with a pirated copy of the game.

Oh, apparently, you can download Ultima IV here.

Star Wars Risk, Game One of Ten Thousand

Guys, I'm with you. I felt that even the four hours we took to learn the game (while drinking ourselves under the table with Ferucio's savory mohitos and V.'s doomScotch) was ever so slightly epic, if I do say so myself. And while the tacking-on-of-licenses-to-existing-classic-board-games is getting pretty tiresome, I think we'll all agree that this one was written by a true, true, ridiculous fan; someone who's read everything from Han Solo at Star's End to Tag and Bink are Dead, and considers it all pretty much canon--the kind of dude we can all get behind. I'll bet the guy (or lady) has been to a good number of risk parties, too. The kind with sandwiches, maybe.

What I really liked was the dramatic structure of the thing--how the game opens with the Empire (Fugu and V.) completely raping the Rebellion (galspanic and myself). We really had to scratch our way to a place where we could even make a dent in their totally superior forces. I think it's set up so that we (the Rebel Alliance) feel cool playing the game for the same reason Mon Mothma feels cool when planning a raid on an Imperial outpost. Pretty sure I saw a gleam in Fugu's eye similar to the one Grand Moff Tarkin gets when fucking telling the fucking Death Star what planet to fucking destroy.

As long-time players of Regular Risk will note, however, being at a tactical disadvantage does not necessarily put you at a general disadvantage--it merely reduces your choices, which has its own strategic benefits. Risk-players also note: Star Wars Risk has no Australia equivalent, and the cards have stuff on them that can make things happen. Wild, change-your-life stuff. You don't just sit there, when you're playing this.

I'm not sure if I've played enough of this to give it all three thumbs up, but the thing shows promise. The rules are pretty tricky, but if any of you off-worlders are planning a visit, let me know ahead of time and I'll send you scans of the rules so you can take the 5+hour plane ride to maybe skim them. Next time, we have to play with Active Hutts. And we should probably make sure no one has to work in the morning, and anyone new, like I said, gets the rules to study in advance.

So yeah; so yes, I'll play again.

We Want More

Shall we have at it? My mentally ill friend here and I would like a try at that Risk thing again.

Plus, happy AfterThanksgiving.

Plus, this place has been awfully quiet recently.

And Hey! Good luck with the football game tonight!!!! Go Fucking Bows and all that shit!

My Beloved Wife

I adore Mrs. Pony, and here is proof.

I know this is accurate in my heart, but also because this love meter was fairly accurate on some other points.

A reason to watch footbawl

N E R D S ! ! !

The Results of a Poll

Okay, dudes, the results of the poll are in, and the results is this! You guys miss the smileys. I miss them too. I miss combining them most of all. There was that thing you could do where you could blow your own brains out in a cloud of blood. That totally surprised me when I first saw it, and I never got tired of it. Okay. I will see what the hell I can do about this.

Also more team members. I thought I'd invite you guys first, because the tone of the Old Forum rules because of you guys. Tone is important, probably. Other important team members to follow. God, this is all so important. Again, I will see what the hell I can do about this.

Other: You guys have admin powers. Please feel free to mess with this blong. Add widgets, if you like. There are some neat freaking widgets out there. There's a chat thing I added. Scroll down. As long as you're moving us in the right direction, no one will mind. When Fugu was all "I moved the thing up because I didn't know it was there," I was all "YESS!!" That's the spirit. Add links to the Links thing. Use labels in your posts. Tell stories.

Or, you know; don't. You are all my brothers. I will love you forever if you do exactly none of these things.