fun puzzle 2007

There's some game I can't think of the name of at the moment where you try to get people to guess the word you're thinking of by giving words that are paired with it. Might be something I picked up from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me on NPR.

Anyhow, these clues are fun

head

corn

Boston

clam

when the answer is "chowder".

Not According To Plan 2004

It's a beautiful day and perfect for the activity I'd intended to do - a motorcycle ride with a friend, a little shopping, and then in the evening, a potluck and party. And such a party too, with a theme of Drag, it's bound to be a good time. Hard to go wrong with a room full of giggling boys in dresses and girls with false moustaches.

Alas, it is not to be. Wednesday evening I came down with a head cold and it's been plaguing me since. Achy muscles and head, sneezing, coughing, just general snorkiness all through. So I'm resting, drinking the first of many cups of hot herbal tea, and gazing wistfully at the lovely weather outside.

To distract myself I thought "what better than a big time-consuming game?" and I have a couple for the PC which I haven't played for years, having made the switch to Mac. I thought "well, they're old games, not 3-D shooters or anything, surely they wouldn't be that taxing to the system..." and so laid down my $220+ for VirtualPC. Alas, though they run, they don't run well. Pharoah is terribly slow to respond to mouse-clicks and Grim Fandango has stuttering sound, which is a damned shame because the sound is the best part of the game. I think I probably would need a faster CPU to handle this (I have a 700 MHz PowerPC G4), though maybe more than my 512MB of memory would help too. Can the Mac be made into a decent gaming machine?

Freewriting for 11/9 done 11/13 1982

I would like to teach a course on role-playing games. I have taught this course twice already and I have always found it enjoyable despite it being a lot of work. I have dealt with Tunnels and Trolls, Dungeons and Dragons, and Bunnies and Burrows. I would like to do more research into these 3 and perhaps add one or two more. I could spend the first week talking about my experiences with role-playing and working with the students to decide what we want to do with this class. For the next 5 or 6 weeks we could spend one week on each game, discussing various aspects of it in relation to the player, the dungeonmaster and the purchaser. The last 2 or 3 weeks the students would give their presentations. I would require each student to give an oral presentation and a demonstration of a role-playing game. More credit would be given if they presented a game not covered by me in the course. The objective of the class would be to increase players' knowledge of gaming and role-playing and to help them find the right game (or games) for them. I would enjoy having teachers as members of the class. I think they would find it to be a harder and more serious class than they expected.

Brush with a vague sort of fame 1979

Went to M.V.T. [Multiversal Trading Company] and found out that the proprieter [sic] is David Hargrave himself. He autographed "Welcome to Skull Tower" for me.

G'night.