Here at ArcStone, we only dream of the kind of corporate office angst that spawns entertainment like this:
^ ^ ^ Crazy and hilarious video compilation of corporate peons going postal to the tune of Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day.”
Five Minutes to Kill Yourself. A flash game where you have only five minutes to kill yourself before a mandatory meeting.
The USB Rocket Launcher. Nick has one of these and can testify to its usefulness in dispelling office tension. Now that he’s found the USB extension cable, he’s twice the threat.
Scott Adam’s Blog. Who better to get you through the day than the evil genius behind Dilbert? (I should mention that ArcStone has not one cubicle and nary a Dilbert comic pinned up on the wall.)
Corporate Gibberish Generator. In case you’re stumped for copy on your website. (Joking. You were tempted, weren’t you?)
Our family got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas and it has transformed our living room. Aside from a few broken glasses (we’ve only had one semi-serious injury with my seven year old flipping over an end table - don’t worry, he’s OK) we have had a blast gathering around the TV. All four of us standing, talking, and playing a variety of games. Even my wife likes it - after being dead set against any video gaming in our house, she is regularily initiating Wii activity (yeah!).
If you have never played the Wii - it is an amazing piece of tech. Tactile and responsive, it is a blast.
Our latest Wii adventure is Guitar Hero III - Legends of Rock. Now you have to understand that I have played guitar for 25 years. When I mentioned to a co-worker that I was planning on getting Guitar Hero he said, “Yeah it’s really fun, it’s addictive, but you already play guitar.”
With Guitar Hero they’re doing a ton of clever things - too many to run through here. The basic experience though is right on. Guitar hero lets you rock.
You can lose yourself in the song - totally immersed, concentrating, losing track of time and space you hear the music, sense the crowd. It is very close to truly rocking out - achieving a musical flow experience that normally takes years of practice to get a glimpse of. Music is about becoming one with your instrument, joining your voice with others - being able to suspend time and thought.
Guitar Hero spoon-feeds that “flow” experience - enabling you to rock immediately - insant rockification. I predict (hope) the current Guitar Hero frenzy will isnpire a new legion of dedicated real world rockers. Where will they go to get their gear? Guitar Center of course, that’s where you go in the game to buy fancy axes you pay for with your hard earned gig bucks (you can even click on the Guitar Center logo - clever, evil marketing folks).
Fortunately for me there does appear to be some overlap between real world guitar chops and Guitar Hero. This advantage inspires me to throw down - any ArcStonian who can outshred me gets a guppy named in their honor….
There are so many ways Google can be used beyond research, stalking, and finding the quickest route to the primaries. For example, Googlewhacking and Googlebombing.
Googlewhacking is a time sucking game where the goal is to find a two-word search term that returns only one result. It sounds easy, but is remarkably difficult. Thankfully, I seam to have an unnatural talent for it and can field this example to you.
Googlebombing is a little more sinister. In a Googlebomb the goal is to manipulate Google’s search results for fun or profit. The most famous bomb had the terms “miserable failure” linking to George W Bush’s biography.
Here is an interesting image Googlebomb I discovered. When searching for “Word” a seemingly official photo of the Word 2002 box appears. Upon closer examination however, it’s a clever parody.
A fellow word-lover of mine tipped me off to Scrabulous, the Scrabble-esque app for Facebook. You can play casual games with your friends over any span of time. (Name of opponent removed to protect the innocent.)
If you have been following the console wars you are surly aware of Nintendo’s success with the uniquely named, and marketed Wii. Although I don’t own one yet, my son and I stop at our local GameStop every chance we get to play.
Before we started doing these freeloading recreational excursions, my son had never played a video game. He immediately picked up the Wii, and was able to play games without instruction or frustration.
This got me thinking about how the Wii was different from other gaming systems. By making the game controls a natural extension of the user, Nintendo has tapped into a very powerful control mechanism: the human body.
Although my son had not yet mastered a mouse, keyboard, or complicated button combinations, he had already mastered his body, and therefore the Wii.
Here is a video of my four year old playing a racing game on the Wii:
In a short break in the midst of a lot of programming I have to do right now, I visited Slate, which I don’t do that often, but I came across a post about killing your avatar in various video games, especially a new one called “Pain”, a silly looking, cartoonish game which involves nothing more than flinging your character out of a slingshot to kill him. They put together a fascinating slideshow about video game death which is well worth watching–the Roller Coaster Tycoon video in particular is highly captivating. Read the rest of this entry »
I need to assuage my guilt by getting others to join my addiction.
Best time to play is early in the morning, when the competition isn’t so steep. I can get in the top ten if I play before 6 a.m. Apparently you can form teams that play on separate computers.
It’s good exercise for the brain and fingers, right??
