Ebenezer

We got out this little puzzle toy not long ago. It was always fun when the kids were young. We started looking online and can't find anything about it. It doesn't seem to be available at all now. What a shame.

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Morrowind

In my search for non-competitive solitary games I was pointed to Morrowind by The Younger Son. I had tried Journey, but you do have to defeat an enemy to make it all the way through the game. I had tried Walden: a Game, but you have to complete set tasks within a set time period or all the color goes out of the world. I am particularly interested in a game where you can wander aimlessly without fulfilling set goals or performing timed tasks. The Younger Son tells me there are enemies in Morrowind but that you can avoid them and that there are tasks to do but that you don't have to do them and that you can wander through the environment as you wish.

Here's the game's trailer:

I have fond memories wash over me when I hear the music and voices and see the graphics in this game, because I remember when the game first came out and my son discovered it in 2002. I enjoyed watching him play. As I picked a name and a character and was given my first task I remembered my son doing those same things, but I'm ignoring the task. He always played the game as it's supposed to be played, following the directions and meeting all the challenges, so I've never seen the game explored in the way I intend to do.

I found some images online at Jason's Flickr account labeled for non-commercial re-use:

We'll see as I wander if this game will be enjoyable for me. Maybe what I want doesn't really exist in the gaming world and what I need to do is figure out how Second Life works.

Walden, a Game

image from the screenshot gallery at the WaldenGame website

I don't have a competitive bone in my body, so games and organized group activities have always been an interesting experience for me. They so often seem to have winners and losers. People have even turned children's Halloween parties into events where costumes are judged and winners announced. I've been surprised to see that the art/craft challenges on the internet sometimes have prizes for judged winners. Video games are usually no different, with most of the games I see being heavy on the competition components.

I stay on the look-out for video games that don't have contests, races, timed puzzles to solve, and ranked participants -more exploration-based and cooperative games. That's how I found Walden, a Game. From their website:

Walden, a game is an exploratory narrative and open world simulation of the life of American philosopher Henry David Thoreau during his experiment in self-reliant living at Walden Pond. The game begins in the summer of 1845 when Thoreau moved to the Pond and built his cabin there.

Players follow in his footsteps, surviving in the woods by finding food and fuel and maintaining their shelter and clothing. At the same time, players are surrounded by the beauty of the woods and the Pond, which hold a promise of a sublime life beyond these basic needs. The game follows the loose narrative of Thoreau’s first year in the woods, with each season holding its own challenges for survival and possibilities for inspiration.

The audience for the game is broad: from experimental game players to lovers of Thoreau and Transcendental literature. As such, the game offers more opportunities for reflective play than strategic challenge. The piece has a subtle narrative arc, in homage to the original text, which is not an adventure of the body pitted against nature, but of the mind and soul living in nature over the course of a New England year.

Wikipedia has an article which describes the praise the game has received.

Here's the trailer:

Smithsonian Magazine has an article, as does NPR.

I keep forgetting to play, being out of the habit of video games, but I'm thoroughly enjoying it. To be honest, I wish it were even less structured and had fewer timed activities, but nothing's perfect.

I never play a video game (or any game, for that matter), watch a movie or TV show, or read a book without having a cuppa close at hand. Today mine is coffee:

and I share it to join in the T Stands for Tuesday blogger gathering hosted by Bleubeard and Elizabeth. The pansy mug is one I only use during the winter when pansies are everywhere, especially in commercial and professionally landscaped residential beds.

I even made a pecan pie, and if I cut pieces small enough I think there'll be plenty for everybody:

That's one-eighth of a pie, and I could do fine with half that much. Join me?

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I have a few ATCs to share today. The first few were inspired by both the Geometric Shapes challenge and the Squares theme.

For this one I used a crossword puzzle for the background -lots of squares there. I filled in one word and added a definition from a dictionary that isn't complete enough to use for its intended purpose. Then I made a ribbon crossing, where the crossing is a square.

No matter how much I played with GIMP I couldn't get the horizontal ribbon's pattern/texture to show up at all. At this point I've uninstalled GIMP and am looking into some other free and easy options. The next image was scanned but not edited.

In it, I cut out a part of a window from a magazine and tried to make an interior scene using only squares:

The picture on the wall was cut from a Christmas card. The vase was cut from a piece of newsprint and then dabbed with square-shaped watercolor touches. The flower stems were pieces of metallic edging and the flower was cut from ribbon.

Having installed Paint.net. I'll try it and see if I like it well enough or if I want to try Fotor or Photoscape. Those get good reviews, too. This next ATC is made of squares. I watercolored a base card and let it dry. Then I painted lines to make squares to cover the card. At the top left of the card I layered square pieces in diminishing sizes of  (bottom to top) a Christmas card, an index card, felt, a one-inch square of card divided into four squares with watercolors, and a square button hand-sewn on. I marked off a two-inch square with silver edging.

The button kept the card from being in focus, and I sharpened the focus in the Paint.net program. This was easy to use. So far so good.

Another "Squares" card:

is a throw-back to many a fond game of Four Square I enjoyed as an elementary school-aged child. The background was cut from a magazine, and the gray squares from another ATC background. I hadn't realized how much the wrinkles in the gray pieces would show up, but you live and learn, right? The playground ball is made from tissue paper glued to card and then to an accordion-folded piece meant to give the ball some lift.

Because it had been such a long time since I last did any coloring, I decided the Squares theme would be a good place to see if I could still color inside the lines:

I made a background with graph paper and colored squares on it with Prismacolor colored pencils. I like these pencils, but I think there may be some other tools out there that might also be fun to try. I could've gotten better coverage, I'm sure, but somehow I was done with this one.

The next ATC:

is in response to a landscape/cityscape idea I saw here. The card base is cut from a magazine. I added ribbons and elastic on the left and then added hand-sewn "windows" in white thread to the top ribbon to turn them into skyscrapers. The moon and star were in a bag of bits I have in a cabinet. The word "BLUES" came from some Memphis promotional material. I sharpened the focus in the new Paint.net program.

I did two landscapes, the first with one of those old school supply watercolor sets:

I wish I could do more with watercolors, and I'll be looking for some short Youtube tutorials sometime.

and another by cutting flowing shapes and layering them:

and then I added some "trees" to the foreground using sticks from the patio. I do not actually enter any of these challenges but just use them for inspiration. I don't like contests or competitions or awards or any of that, but who can complain that I use the challenges as personal inspiration.

I am thoroughly enjoying making these ATCs and am already thinking about how to do more. I'm saving the card images in a folder on my computer and the originals are in a notebook in trading card storage pages. Happy T Tuesday, and thank you for introducing me to this doable little art form.

Collecting

Gizmodo has a page of "9 Extraordinary Collections of Totally Ordinary Objects", including "A History of the World in 100 Objects" and a Smithsonian exhibit called "Souvenir Nation: Relics, Keepsakes, and Curios." I enjoy viewing collections both in person and online. People collect all kinds of fascinating things, and I've known folks who collected shells, buttons, Barbie dolls, teapots, marbles, keys, books, fountain pens, bird sightings, stamps, quilts, Star Wars memorabilia, owls, coins, autographs, bells.... The objects one can collect are as numerous as people who collect them. There seems no end to it.

I don't collect anything, although I still have the rock collection I began as a project for a Girl Scout badge. I do have a few conglomerations of like objects I just somehow ended up with along the way. For example I have a shelf with bells:

I have a few elephants:

I'm gradually getting rid of many items that don't bring me joy, as recommended by Marie Kondo, but the elephants and the bells remain. I don't add more, and I don't consider them a collection, but that's as close as I get.

Having a formal collection, researched as some are, isn't something I have any interest in, but I like looking at what other people are interested in. Just look at these beautiful marbles, the largest private collection of movie cameras, a collection of 1,400 automobiles, this woman's teapot collection, these collections of Pez dispensers, a button museum, an online video collection of obsolete objects, Paul Johnson's collection of 3,479 pencil sharpeners (no duplicates), and this collection of historical maps. Fascinating!

Pokémon Go

Pokémon Go! Yes, I'm playing, and yes I'm a fan. The Daughter plays, and she got me started on this. I think it's great fun. I've met neighbors I've never seen before, and it's definitely increasing the amount of time I spend walking every day.

I'm at level 11 but have no current interest in joining a team. I'm going to see how far I get on my own.

Happy Tabletop Day!

Tabletop Day is here! I know I still have my Trophy of Awesome around here somewhere, but if I can't find it I can print off another one.

I kinda looked around last year but found no local events. This year I see there's an all day International Tabletop Day celebration at the University of Memphis. This event is co-sponsored by the Memphis Role Playing Association and the Mid-South Board Gaming Club. We'll probably just play at home since the site warns about limited space and a first-come first-served policy that makes me think it'll be too crowded to suit me.

Here's the flyer for the local event:

The main board games I remember playing as a child were Yahtzee, Monopoly, Checkers, Tic-Tac-Toe, Chinese Checkers, Clue, and Parcheesi. I liked cards so much, Daddy taught me solitaire when I was fairly young so I could play cards when he got tired of it. When my kids were growing up, they enjoyed the same games, and we added some new ones along the way. We don't play games much any more. I'm not sure why that is, but TableTop is a good influence on me. I've discovered some new games through them.

Tabletop Day!

Happy Tabletop Day! We got the cool stand-ups online: one of the Trophy of Awesome and one of Wil Wheaton. The Daughter, The Younger Son, The Husband and I were here for the fun. I enjoyed having Wil Wheaton smiling over our gaming endeavor. We forgot to award the Trophy of Awesome.

We played Pandemic, a game we learned about from Tabletop but had never played. We picked it up from Target (Tabletop's sponsor) for today's event. We like the game. We lost the first one, but won the second.

After that, we played a card game called Target that we've had for a long time but haven't played in ages.

And now I look forward to many a Tabletop Day observance in the future!

Home Alone with TableTop

It was a Friday night. The Husband had an event to go to. The Younger Son had plans. I was home alone. I thought about the possibilities. I decided to go to a local Chinese restaurant. I was going to have veggie fried rice and hot tea. But it was dark and cold -very cold- and damp. I ditched that plan.

I stayed in and had cheese toast, kosher dill spears and apple.

And I had a marathon TableTop-watching fest. I had heard about the web video series before it ever started and had subscribed to the Youtube channel and bookmarked them, but I had just never gotten around to actually watching the videos. That night was the night.

Here's one of the videos:



It takes you through a playing of the award-winning game Ticket to Ride, which I've decided would be nice to have.

You see, game-playing can be complicated at our house. There are some games I'm no longer allowed to play because the rest of the family claims I hold supernatural powers of some sort which enable me to win them always. For example, in Clue and Gin I sometimes win before game play has gone around the board twice. I am one with the game. They say it's downright eerie -cue spooky music. In other games (Monopoly and Scrabble, for example), I tend not to take the rules seriously, which they find just a wee bit annoying. So, we've added new games through the years, but as the kids got older and developed more outside interests we seemed to play less and less. I became more and more out of touch with the gaming world and had no idea what was out there.

Enter TableTop, in which Wil Wheaton and guests demonstrate a fun game on video. They have a blog, so their updates show up nicely without me having to remember to look for them. There's a Seen On Tabletop tumbler and a Geek and Sundry Facebook page.

Now that I've seen all the previous episodes, I'll watch each new one as it comes out. We can pick up a new game every once in a while. I'd love to have some games that are playable for just 2 players in addition to being fun for 4 or 5.

This is a real find for me. Being able to actually watch the game played is priceless.

The Cootie Catcher

I remember these from my elementary school days, and The Kids made them when they were little, but I hadn't thought of them at all until I ran across instructions for making them. We used to use the cootie catcher as a kind of fortune teller when I was in elementary school. WikiHow has clear instructions with step-by-step photo illustrations. PBS Kids also has instructions. Here are video instructions:



We always colored the outside flaps, numbered the inside flaps, and wrote answers to yes/no questions underneath the inside flaps (yes, no, maybe, be careful what you ask for, dreams can make it so, clear your mind and ask again, you'd better hope not, don't ask, why do you want to know and similar answers). Google Images has great ideas for decorating them.

Such a simple little toy, and yet what fun we had!

Pelham Puppets

I don't know what put me in mind of my old Pelham puppet. I got it when I was a child and I always loved that sweet thing. Such a happy, pleasant expression:

Top 10 Toy Crazes

Time has a list of their top 10 toy crazes, "the most baffling toy trends of years past":

1. Silly Bandz
2. Bratz Dolls
3. Furby
4. Tamagotchi
5. Tickle Me Elmo
6. Beanie Babies
7. POGs
8. Cabbage Patch Kids
9. Rubik's Cube
10. Pet Rock

I remember these, some more fondly than others. My favorite among them is the Pet Rock. Daddy said he would never spend so much for a pet rock but said that he had found a stray and adopted it. He put it on an end table, and it made a delightful pet. Long-lived, too. That rock is still around.

I found the photo at this site.

Cthulhu Bobblehead

You, too, can have your very own:


Pre-order one now for $12.99 for delivery in September.

From the sunken city of R'lyeh to your home, the terrifying beast known as Cthulhu is one of the Great Old Ones...and he wants a place on your shelf! Stands approximately 6-inches tall. Order yours today!

I want to put him in my car where bobble heads belong.

HT: Horror Squad

What American Accent Do You Have?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast   Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

But, but, but... I'm a Southern girl, born and bred! I can see I need to practice my magnolia drip a bit, so as not to embarrass folks in public soundin' like a furriner.

HT: Alpha Patriot

Should You Kill the Fat Man?

The Philosophers' Magazine has a quiz that presumes to judge the consistency of my morality. I wouldn't mind that much -really- if only their own responses didn't seem a bit inconsistent. At one point it notes my answer as being interesting but not contradictory while later noting that same answer as inconsistent. Apparently, to be consistent, I'm supposed to agree to let 5 people die on the track rather than 1 if I have control of where the train goes. That one alteration gets me a 100% score on consistency. I just see a difference between steering the train towards 1 rather than 5 and pushing the 1 in front of the train to save the 5. Even though the resulting number of deaths is the same either way. What I want to do is argue with the quiz and with the way the questions are phrased and with the assumptions they make, but I can't argue with a quiz. Well, I can argue with the quiz, but in taking both sides of that argument I'm not sure the quiz is getting a fair shake.

And what does "sum total of human happiness" mean, anyway?

They have other quizzes here.

Mouse Tracking

I haven't tried this yet, but it looks so cool. Anatoly Zenkov has a program that you can use to track your mouse movements over time. It yields beautiful pictures, such as the one above, which came from miss yasmina's Flickr page.

HT: Theology & Geometry

Super Bowl 44

I had family members on both sides of this game, so I'll just say The Who were boring (Chicago Sun Times: "the saddest, most tired musical spectacle yet: the band that pretends to be the Who"), and this is my favorite commercial of the night:



Sumo! Yes!

Facebook games

I had always thought Facebook games would be just a pointless waste of time, and I had no interest in working my way up the Mafia Wars ladder, but I kept having pleas for help show up... So, I started playing Cafe World. And Farmville. And My Zoo. And I can speak from experience now. They are a pointless waste of time.

I'm still playing them, but they are a pointless waste of time.

Tantrix

When I went downstairs for tea tonight I discovered The Daughter and The Younger Son playing Tantrix. I watched that round, and they let me in on the next one. I was Green. We've had this game for several years and pretty much obey the stated rules. You can play a solitaire version online here.

There's a Facebook page.

The photo above is from Joff Hopkins' Flickr stream.

The Game of Go

Going downstairs last night didn't get me invited to play a game, as The Daughter and The Younger Son were engrossed in Go. The Younger Son is especially intrigued with this game and has found a local group that gathers weekly to play.

There is a 3-video series covering a championship game here:

part 2, part 3

The Majestic Game of Go:

provides pictures of settings, game sets, people playing...

Rummikub

Going down to get another cup of hot tea, my timing was once again perfect to get in on the start of a game with The Daughter and The Younger Son. It was Rummikub this time, always a favorite of mine since we discovered it years ago. It's quick and easy and fun. When the kids were little it was great for practicing math and logic skills. Our game has yellow tiles instead of the orange ones I think come with it now.

The photo at the top of the post is from Sidewalk Flying's Flickr photostream.