The Canadian Lynx is an interesting predator. It lives almost solely on the snowshoe hare – and is very effective at catching, killing, and eating them. While that is not particularly interesting in itself (a cat predator eating a bunny for dinner) what is fascinating is the lifecycle the Canadian Lynx is doomed to repeat.…
All posts in General
Les Miserables
No, the headline isn’t even a half ass metaphor for the emotional state of the typical MMO veteran player right now. It’s about the movie/musical/video game (wait – what?) Les Miserables is one of those instances where I really am reminded how little I know, and how uncultured I am. The movie is the first…
Adventures in Tech Support
Chat Script with a recent ‘chat with a representative now’. It was with a bank. ——————————————— Anne M. Chris, I’m just going to check with our Technical Department. Anne M. Can you hold on a moment please? Chris ok great – thanks! Anne M. thanks for your patience Christ. Anne M. Oh my gosh.. I’m…
2008, 184 Posts, 18 months of (mostly) silence, and missing you!
I can’t believe I started this blog in 2008. Yes, it only has 184 (often misguided) posts, and no, I haven’t really checked in in a year and a half. And yes, I do miss you. ‘You’ having two contexts, of course. One, is writing. I think critically all the time for work, and write…
Tuesday Ramblings.
I don’t post nearly as much when I am playing. One of those funny things – when I play a lot, I don’t post. When I’m not playing a lot, I post. With limited gaming/personal time, it just works out that way. I am in, and there is, a SWTOR beta. That’s all I am…
I Hate Mila!
Mild mannered bloggers over at Are We New At This? and High Latency Life are tackling an important issue in blognation. Why all the hate on WoW? I mean, it has eleventy (.2) billion subscribers! Something must be going right over at ActiBlizzEnron. It is a curious (and good) question in many ways. Chris Cavelle…
Feast or Famine
Going to a new blogging style. The exciting ‘when I can/feel like it’. When I blogged regularly I blogged pretty hard, 3+ posts a week, keeping on top of current events and all the “excitement”. I took an extended break once, and in the same breadth kept lurking and reading my favorites without posting. I…
How Not to Blog
Sorry, Peter Moore, your “blog” is a pretty big embarrassment. I was surfing EA sites to find anyplace to complain that they stopped their major sports title development for the PC. Yes, I have complained about it a couple times already. I really want to play some football. 1) Most of the comments on that…
Film Fund
Fun thing about being ‘successful’ and making contacts – I was asked, and agreed to, sit on a board of directors for a film fund. I just signed back the paperwork today. It sat on my desk for a week, and to be honest movies aren’t any more of my forte than games – I…
Premium Market Position
While our MMO companies battle for the mainstream dollar, I can’t help but wonder if any are forward thinking to the premium dollar customers – or if that market even exists in the gaming world. In the simplest of comparisons think Price Chopper vs Whole Foods. The first provides basic food at cut rate prices.…
More Proof of the Decline of Western Civilization
Stolen directly from Gregg Easterbrook of Tuesday Morning Quarterback (TMQ). The Zubon of the football world (meant as a compliment). And yes, it is game related. Not only did huge numbers of people buy the latest “Call of Duty” video game — which allows you to play the role of Richard Nixon killing zombies —…
Deferred Success
This title stems from educators wanting to remove kids from an ‘F’, or ‘Failing’ grade. No more failing – just deferred success! Clearly the change in terminology will make kids all become hugely successful. This Epic Defer is part of a longer list of deferrments by public offcials who manage powerful unionized employees (the same unions that…
Inventory Full
A friend and old guildmate of mine has jumped into blognation over at Inventory Full. I suppose technically he is a current guildmate from WoW (I am unsubbed, but details, details) and we always enjoyed parlaying in and out of game about games and other fun and relevant stuff. He only has a couple posts…
Vegas Baby
I’m in Vegas this week at a conference. I haven’t found the Lucky 38 yet, and not a Securitron in sight. Maybe I just need more to drink.
Minecraft Zen (for you, Tesh)
Tesh often waxes poetic about forms of Zen grinding, and I found it recently in Minecraft. I realized in game I am not a fancy builder – but hey, can I strip mine with the best of them! When a much needed work break opportunity appears, I make 12 stone pickaxes (saving the iron ore for…
Welcome To Our Preferred Customer Program
My son decided he wanted to be a Skeleton this year for Hallowe’en – a far cry from his normal big budget movie choices (Batman, Spiderman, Bumblebee) and wow, is it ever hard to find a basic skeleton costume these days. I ordered on online and had it priority shipped. It arrived in a day,…
time = money / money = pizza [therefore] time = pizza
Callan hits an interesting point in the comment section over at Tesh’s musings about the value of his time. I am in Tesh’s camp here, where my discretionary budget is at an all time high, and my time budget is at an all time low. Gamers often judge the value of a game based on how…
From Russia With Love
I have been getting an inordinate amount of spam from Russia, written in Russian. Anyone else noticing this? Sadly, I deleted them all before running a google translate, but I’ll be sure to remember to fix that when I get another stack.
Lack of Inspiration
Blargh, I tell you. Blargh! I find it extremely difficult to write about gaming when I am not gaming. It’s frustrating as I see all of you poking your noses in here to see what I’m writing about – and no doubt that comes with heavy dissapointment. Bored and Unispired Gameaholics Anonymous (BUGA) chatter, after…
A Survey request from EA/Bioware
I know a lot of people hate EA. I am in the small minority who have really enjoyed their products, and haven’t been dissappointed when purchasing their games. Of course I do a lot of research before buying games, and never buy a game by who it is from – but rather on the merits…
Lighter Topic
I am part of a WoW guild. I have spoken briefly about it in the past in a few topics, but nothing major (you know, the one I used to be GM of, yadda yadda). It’s going through a change right now, and the people that founded the guild are mostly gone. It was a…
Don’t Be a Hater!
The lawyer-in-training is coming out (heh, no pun intended) in me today. In law school, professors hammer into us the fact that “words matter.” A lot of time and effort is spent poring over words and their meanings; often disputes will turn upon a word that you and I think has a fairly settled definition.…
Forswearing Greed – Developers take Notice
This post is inspired by the article of the same title in the June 6th to 12th edition of the Economist. A group of Harvard Business MBA students have made attempts to turn management into a formal profession. Doctors have their oath, so do Lawyers. CEO’s have always had one too – except it isn’t…
Un-Expectations
I took my 4 year old son and my wife (or did they take me?) to the movie UP! over the weekend. First off, I am loving the glorious 3D action that is making it’s way back into theaters. It is good to see the industry figuring out that if you don’t enhance the experience, it’s…
Introducing (the) Pope
A friend of mine is going to start adding a post or two, here or there on this site. The thought came by in a discussion – he reads a lot of gaming blogs and wouldn’t mind sharing his thoughts. I thought it would be fun to give him an outlet. I have known Pope…