Cable has Shark Week. Qt3 has Dead Island Week. Until science discovers a way to combine them, we devote a fair amount of this week’s podcast to the latter.
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Iced Wind is a cute adventure level where you scoot around in ice caves collecting bubbles. It certainly doesn’t have the personality of last week’s Toy Story level, but it’s a good little platformer I played last week. I actually meant to go back to a level I found too difficult to finish and try to figure out why it had given me such problems, but my PS3 pulled this updating scam on me where it insisted I had to download a 568MB update for LBP2 before I could play it. I freaking hate that forced-update scheme, but what’re they gonna do? They know that left to my own devices I’d put that off forever. Oh well. I’ve only got to wait 267 more minutes until it’s updated.
I wish there were a way I could be warned about those things. A little bell that would cause me to salivate and automatically know I had a wait ahead of me. Or a warning sent to my iPhone so I could schedule the update for when I’m cooking dinner and getting my kid to bed. Something. Instead I it takes me by surprise in that tiny window of time I have for gaming and annoys the hell out of me. I suppose there’s no way to train someone to expect this.
Because I don’t mind training. If it’s good. In point of fact, I love it.
After the jump: good for you, good for me, mmm good Continue reading →
There’s a particular genre of book, military history book specifically, called the “unit history”. It may have a desultory title like “The History of the 1st Infantry Division in World War II” or a slightly jazzier name like “The Big Red One: Crusade in Europe”. It’s usually a catalog of where a unit was on each day of a campaign, what it did, and a lot of name-checking and shout-outs to people who served in that unit, along with photos and other memorabilia. It’s both a historical and personal record, meant to preserve the unit’s memory and standing, and take due (or undue) credit along the way.
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this, except that as an outsider I don’t have any attachment to any particular military organization or unit, so there’s nothing to grab my attention. I’m not a “fan” of any tank division in the same way that I am a fan of — for example — the Detroit Red Wings. I generally find this kind of stuff boring, despite my interest in military history. Someone once gave me, as a gift, a copy of Comrades to the End: The 4th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment “Der Fuhrer” 1938-1945. I’m not sure what kind of comment that is on him or me, and I probably shouldn’t think about it too much. It’s on my bookshelf somewhere, but I don’t particularly care what a bunch of Nazis did on, say, 14 October 1943, or any day before or after that, unless they died, in which case I’m good with the outcome.
So it’s weird that I just spent thirty bucks plus shipping on a copy of Messerschmitt Bf-110 Bombsights Over England: Erprobungsgruppe 210 in the Battle of Britain.
After the jump, eat your heart out, Detroit Red Wings Continue reading →
Also, Svetlana, can you please move a little to your left before I accept the quest?
