28Nov2012 0930: Fuzz

Big thanks to the Penny Arcade Report for cluing me in to this amazing text shadow property of CSS. It now graces all links on the Monthenorium, a tasteful neon glow without any of the standard-but-ugly underlining.

My meat grinder has already made three batches of fantastic meats, but none of them have quite been the Italian sausage I'm looking for. I think I've zeroed in on the spices, so the last factor is to stop using pure pork loin and get some fatty pork butt sausage-grade meat. That's right, I'm actually making ground meat that's too pure to be good sausage. I have no idea what I can do to top this level of decadence. Maybe hand out caviar for Christmas?

The holidays mean one thing: simple laptop-friendly games that can be played without an Internet connection. Turns out that the "suburbs" of Alexandria, MN don't exactly have Google fiber. Anyway, over Thanksgiving I burned through my backlog of Splice (good but frustrating), Vertigo (good but short), and Sugar Cube: Bittersweet Factory (good but easy). I was left staring at a barren list of Steam games and another day to kill in front of football.

It is damning that I feel I have to include so much setup just to state that I played some Nancy Drew: The Haunted Carousel. It is...not terrible? Look guys, it's not terrible. Sure, it's populated entirely by nightmarish Poser models. Sure, the interface was ten years out of date when the game was released ten years ago. Sure, the developers seem to poop out these games every six months. But! These games are from an alternate dimension! These games exist in a world where Sierra didn't self-destruct, a world with yearly Full Throttle sequels, a world where developers license more SCUMM then Unreal.

As a game meant for ages 10 and up, it is above all charming. A charming collection of quirks, puzzles that are adventure gamey but not too much so, and B-quality voice acting. It is...competent? In an age where merely "competent" mid-tier games can sink a company, the continued existence of Nancy Drew warms my heart. Slightly. I'm only going to buy them on super-sale as gag gifts, but I am also going to finish Haunted Carousel over Christmas. Is that a recommendation? Only if you need the nostalgia of a janky mid-90s adventure game. There's plenty of room for B-games, paralleling the market for B-movies.

14Nov2012 1730: Gelatinous Asshole Simulator

No reviews of music lately? True, true, I haven't even bothered to download the latest November "hot beatz". My music consumption lately has come in a live format, from Peelander Z in October to m'in-f'in METRIC this weekend. My first concert in a stadium! It's going to be impersonal!

So without my musical tastes to guide you, whatever will you do for new media? Well, it's not quite free, but this week it seems that all the Prototypes are on super-sale for PC. $10 gets you a Steam code for the amazing first game, its carbon-copy sequel, and some sort of DLC I dunno it's Prototype who cares! Buy this beloved classic for 90% off unless you hate fun!

07Nov2012 2000: Decision Time

So America has survived another election cycle intact. Hooray for America? While the domestic news is crapping all over itself over whose team won the Super Vote, I had to have Brits tell me the most important piece of news: Puerto Rico finally settled the case of Shit v. Get Off Pot. A fifty-first state! In my lifetime! All my geography knowledge is useless.

Washington and Colorado settled a very similar vote, and in my dichotomy I believe their choice would also fall under "shit". Although in this case that would be short for "that dank shit". I'm trying to come up with an untouchable scheme to meet their sudden demand under the new North Dakota "Fuck You We're Farmers" Amendment. I think that as long as my hydroponics bay was the newest and most technological of agricultural technology, ND couldn't touch me.

Oh, haven't you heard about the "Fuck You We're Farmers" amendment? Allow me to enlighten you. That is literally the full legal text of the amendment. This is now in our state constitution, right under "gay marriage is icky." You know what's not in the North Dakota state constitution? Anything about murder. I'm not saying that farmers are planning to chop up humans for fertilizer; I'm just saying that we can't outlaw chopping up humans for fertilizer. I also didn't see any definition of "farmer" or "rancher" in the constitution, so... y'know. It's time to class e-cigarettes as agricultural technology.

In lighter, non-soylent, news: if farmers won't get you, tool-using animals will. I am personally fascinated by tool-using birds and cephalopods. The ante is constantly being upped in this regard.

Segueing into our last topic, my meat grinder has arrived and is sitting in all its glory on my kitchen counter. It is figuratively killing me that I won't have time to use it before Lobstergiving.

01Nov2012 1900: Down the Nerd Hole

Well, I double don't have anything to say this week. Nothing I could say would beat this story by Drew Scanlon, the Most Interesting Cameraman in the World. It's about ten hours into a podcast marathon so all the other guys are kind of punchy assholes, but Drew. Man. Enjoy this trip deep into a nerd hole.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go check out my fresh new copy of Hinduball Z.