Several new game reviews since the last announcement. The Dark Athena review is fresh off the press, while the Broken Sword reviews date back to February, but weren't announced here.
I've had an essay on why guaranteed health care for all Americans is a good idea kicking around for a long time. I've realized that if I don't just put something up, I'll never put it up. It will never be as perfect as I want. So in what will likely be permanent draft form "Guaranteed Health Care Is a Good Idea."
For as long as I could remember, I wanted cats. I thought that having cats would be awesome. Sometimes they would want to play. Sometimes they would want to cuddle. Sometimes they would be aloof. It would be awesome.
Sadly, I'm allergic to cats, so after have my doctor advise against it, I mostly didn't think about it. However, Eva had grown up with cats and really wanted cats again. So after much research we determined that the anecdotal evidence is true for us: Siberian cats are significantly cause less allergic reactions. (This observation has been confirmed repeatedly by allergic friends and family.) So we got two adorable little bundles of fluff.
So it's a year later. The kittens are now approaching full size. One had serious medical problems early on that necessitated expensive vet visits. I spent a while force feeding her. I spent about a week feeding her an antibiotic that caused her to spit up astonishing amounts of mucus and her to fight as though I was killing her. She was so hostile to it, and so desperate to spit out the mucus, that it would take two or three attempts each day to get the full dose into her. She also had diarrhea, and on several occasions I got to clean liquid poo out of her fur. Beyond that there is the litter box cleaning, more frequent cleaning to cut down on allergens, cat proofing our home, and more.
So it's a year later. And you know what? Sometimes they would want to play. Sometimes they would want to cuddle. Sometimes they would be aloof. Having cats is awesome.
Over the holidays, Eva and I played the first seven games in the King's Quest series. Turns out, they're not very good. For the curious, here are my reviews. The title links to the full review.
While reading the Dungeon Master's Guide, I noticed that the numbers for the environmental dangers rules seemed likely to cause some weird behavior, with higher level characters actually doing worse than low level characters. I ran the numbers and confirmed that the system, while functional, has some wonkiness.
Sorry for the long time with no updates. Here is some of what is new here in the last year:
An alternate version of the announcement can be found here.
(2008-06-14 addition) A friend chronicled our engagement. It features pirates, ninjas, monkeys, and robots!
Today I put up my salsa reviews. I'll be adding more as I try more, but there are twelve different salsa reviewed right now.
For the gaming geeks interested in Spirit of the Century, I calculated the chance of an explosive going off based on the the fuse length in Spirit of the Century.
Planning on attending Gen Con Indy 2007? The official online event listings can be a bit slow, they don't support a terribly powerful set of search options, and the only option for browsing the listings is to download a spreadsheet. I've created a website that searchable and browsable Gen Con Indy 2007 event listings.
There is a thread for discussing this at the official Gen Con site if you're interested.
