• On Life and Love

    Tastee (del.icio.us) links!

    These are my links for April 26th through May 1st: Twenty Sided » Blog Archive » Do it again, stupid – I can't stand these DIAS types of games. I've dabbled in Tony Hawk, but only when I can beat levels on the first or second try, or when I can make my character fall in fun ways. Shamus perfectly explains why these games annoy the hell out of me. The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey – Page 7 | Cracked.com – Pretty good — and very funny — list of things video games need to be good and/or interesting. David Sirota: The Importance of Black Voters, and…

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    The dissolution of a game

    The Friday Shadowrun game WO ran was riddled with problems from the beginning. One of our players was very argumentative outside of game and a bit of a rules lawyer in game. He was always on time, though, and his mannerisms eventually grew on me. The other two players were never on time after the first week and couldn’t be bothered to notify anyone, much less WO-the-GM (game-master), when they were going to be late or not show up. Each of them had problems with money, to the point where one often didn’t have bus fare. $1.65. He could have called for a ride. WO, the regular player, an myself…

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    Not-a-review: A Very Hungry Girl

    I wrote yesterday that I was 39 pages into Jessica Weiner’s A Very Hungry Girl (beware: affiliate link!). I went ahead and finished it last night. I’ll admit that I was a little disappointed by the book, as it soon began to describe Weiner’s work in far more detail than her personal struggles. It became — to a certain degree — more about “stuff” than “people”, even though her work as a writer, director, and performer of motivational works is very much about people. But we went from a nitty-gritty view of her world and the people around her to a 1000-foot view of her work. Even the occasional mention…

  • On Life and Love

    Tastee (del.icio.us) links! (April 25th)

    Links for April 25th from 15:30 to 20:48: The Psychology of the $1000 Emergency Fund | I've Paid For This Twice Already… – A commenter's word choice really got me: "For people who have never had a comma in their savings account before, getting to that magic number can be a real encouragement to keep saving money." I've never had a comma in my savings account. Excellent read. Twenty Sided » Blog Archive » Serious Sam:The Mayhem Shooter – This description/review of Serious Sam is rather accurate. WO and I played SS 2 for an afternoon and loved getting to blow shit up. I enjoy mayhem games that require very…

  • On Life and Love

    Step 0, done

    Thanks to my NC and federal tax returns, I am now current on all credit cards and ready to “snowflake” my way to a starter emergency fund (with the help of my IN tax return and the economic stimulus check, yes). In the process, I paid off what remained of my tax debt from last year with no additional money out of pocket. Lingering headache aside, today is starting off very well. Windfalls are nice. Paying well over $900 toward my high-interest debts in a month is nice, too. Now I just need to get those interest rates lowered with some phone calls during lunch.