Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Instant Gratification


I've always loved Legos. As a kid, I'd always want some toy or other and I never felt like I had enough (even though I'm sure I did). The solution was always Legos. The same little blocks were my Transformers and the Ghostbusters and warring factions of animal-people, and whatever else I needed them to be.

Since I started being creative for a living, Legos have fallen by the wayside. They're expensive as hell, for one thing. And it just doesn't look sane to have a desk covered in tiny plastic bricks. But I still love the D.I.Y. philosophy behind the whole thing.

I recently discovered the Spore Creature Creator. I'm sure I don't need to advertise the game, since anyone with a computer's probably heard of it by now. Well, I can only hope that the game itself is as well structured and as fun as the Creature Creator. It's the best thing, in my opinion, since the invention of the Lego.

Work has been work lately, and the Creature Creator has been a sort of saving grace as far as my sanity's been concerned. There's just something so satisfying about being able to make something awesome without having to ask permission to do so. Plus, each of these bad boys only took a few minutes to put together.

It's a free download for the basic version. Definitely worth a peek if you're into building stuff or gaming.

**Update:
The ditors are still awesome. Well worth it for those alone, if you liked the Creature Creator. As a game... "meh". I have no doubt it'll get better with time, so I'd give it some before I'd buy this expecting decent gameplay. It's also mad buggy right now. I've gone and lost several dozen hours of unemployment time to the winds already due to a corrupt savegame.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Skeletons in the closet. And other junk.

Sometimes when the world is spinning violently out of control, you've got to create your own little piece of chaos. Something you've got control over. I think that's why, on top of everything else going on, I finally decided to have my master bathroom redone. I've been saving for it for years, but I've always been too busy or too lazy or too wrapped up in something else. But it's happening as we speak!

A lot of people have asked me for details about myself, especially on MySpace (yeah, I bumped off my MySpace account. What'cha gonna do about it? Write me here, I hope). I've always felt like you can tell a lot about people from their possessions. Mostly their clutter. So, since I'm normally pretty reserved with personal info, I thought I'd let you have a peek at a random assortment of crud from my bedroom that's been moved into another room in the house. Can you find evidence that I once stood 6'5"? Hints of a budding romance with Sgt. Frog? Artifacts from Billy & Mandy? Waldo?

Let's see the junk in your trunks, yo!

*P.S. - To anyone who's read the full Dark Tower series... what do I do!? I haven't read the last book yet and I'm a bit afraid to. I feel like it peaked with Wizard and Glass, which I think might be one of King's best stories ever. Mostly for the flashback story, and not so much the weird postmodern Wizard of Oz bits. Do I stop where King says I might want to? Or do I read through to the bitter end?