games

Now this is just plain nifty marketing. From a post at meryl.net comes twenty movie scenes recreated using only office stationery It’s a game and you have to guess each one. I nabbed fifteen of them and am kicking myself for not getting four of the five I missed. Give it a go and let me know how you did.

Are you as surprised as me that this is not on ESPN right after the poker and billiards championships? Apparently there is a new “sport” sweeping the country by storm: Cup Stacking, in which teams attempt to stack — and unstack (maybe that’s the “sport” part?) — specially designed plastic cups.

File under: Decline of Western Civilization

Amazing! According to this test I am an English Genius. It was not a surprise to see that I scored a perfect 100%, actually, on the advanced sections. What was shocking was that I scored in the embarrassingly-low 80s on what were supposed to be the simple sections. That, and the fact that I could perform under 90% on any section and still be considered a “genius” by this test. I wonder if that’s because I did so well or because so many others have done so poorly.

(I don’t know that “English Genius” is how I would describe someone with good skillz in the ol’ vocab department, though. Doesn’t that phrase just make you think that I’m a genius from Merrye Olde England?)

All that time spent in Model United Nations in high school did not go completely to waste. It only took me about two minutes to complete this map of the Middle East game. Bahrain and Armenia threw me for a while there, but I got them eventually. This is really a great teaching tool. I’d be interested in learning how long it would take the average 20-something in the U.S. to complete a game like this of the 50 states.

I love the design at The Official Rock Paper Scissors Society. This is quite a handy resource if you employ this mode of decision-making often. There are tutorials here for beginners, as well as more detailed, complicated gambits for the professional RPS strategist. They have their own membership cards! And swag, swag, swag … I may have to join.
link via TwistyPants

If you have a few minutes to spare this morning, take a look at this mind-boggling Flash artwork. It’s hypnotizing and beautiful and entirely captivating. Move the mouse. Try not to fall into the monitor. (Flash required, obviously.)

[click to continue...]

Remember when Val Kilmer was sitting in the lecture when the guys first got to Miramar in Top Gun? He kept walking his pen through his fingers and right away you just knew he was a jerk. If you ever wanted to learn how to look so brooding / arrogant / dextrous, there’s a web site devoted to teaching you The Art of Pen Spinning.

If it’s possible to fall head-over-heels in love with a meme, I’ve done it.

Googlewhacking: The Search for The One

It took me a few tries. I’ll admit I sat staring at the screen for a bit. Google found thousands and thousands of what I considered to be incredibly strange juxtapositions.

• esoteric amplitude? 2,250 hits
• escalator mustard? 766 hits
• amphibian euthanasia? 680 hits
• angina astrophysics? 147 hits
• tumescence draconian? 15 hits

Until … finally …
I present you with my personal Googlewhack:
kleptomaniac ovulating! 1 hit!
[click to continue...]

“PimpWar.com, the only place online where you can put on your leopard print hat and get your pimp on. PimpWar is a browser based game where you play the part of a ruthless pimp on a quest for power and money. You will become a master at the art of pimping your hoes, commanding your thugs and battling your enemies to protect what you have and to help your empire grow. This game is NOT for whiners. PimpWar players have 5000 ways to call you a bitch ass. So if you think you can handle it we suggest you get a couple friends together so you are not alone in this bad bad place and then your bring yo bad self.”

I can’t remember where I found this link, but here are my personal AD&D statistics:
Str: 13, Int: 13, Wis: 17, Dex: 13, Con: 14, Chr: 17

I never really played AD&D but for a little while when I was an early teenager I bought a bunch of the books and created games and maps and all the additional little bits. I could never find anyone that wanted to play with me, and, to be honest, I never actually wanted to “play” the game. I was just fascinated by the design of the systems. The little foray into the world of D&D was probably what started me on the convoluted path to being a computer programmer. Am I really a “computer programmer” though? I don’t know. It’s what I do right now, but I don’t think it’s what I am, if that makes any sense.

mycathatesyou.com
Shakespearean Insults
I Found a Duck.com

I got to play Scrabble with my mom at games.com tonight. She’s been telling me about it for a few weeks now and for one reason or another I just haven’t had the chance to play. I finally managed to steal an hour or so and had a great time. She beat the *#%(@ out of me in the first game and was well on the way to torching me in the second game when my connection died. She has quite the vocabulary!

I remember I used to play backgammon with my dad on Microsoft’s Gaming Zone when that first hit the ‘net. Playing games with them has always been a tremendous amount of fun. My mom and dad are the two smartest people I know. I should force myself to play games with them more often.