In this case, "game" and "play".

See, I* won a bunch of workplace contests by which I obtain access to free games of choice. These tend to be so-called AAA titles, and in this summer of releases have been some things I typically wouldn't get - and admittedly some I definitely would. I knew Just Cause 2 and Crackdown 2 would be winners, but Lost Planet 2 and Transformers most likely not. So far I've been right every time.

But here's the thing - the PC gaming scene is just so much more vibrant and interesting that I keep getting distracted by utter randomness.

Current obsession: Minecraft (see below). It's a first person ... uh. We don't have a genre yet for this, I suppose. A constructer? FPC? Heh. Anyway, it's in its early stages yet, but I really like the cubetastic approach and barebones aesthetics. I just hope the developer can really focus on the mode *I* like (survival) and make it into the nethack/lego hybrid that I want Well, it just seems so well suited to the lone, fragile demigod (turn wood into planks with your bare hands, crush boulders likewise! - and yet, 3 hits from a zombie and you die) sandbox, I find it difficult to find the game in the multiplayer mode. Screens below of my very very early (like, first 10 minutes, 8 of which is spent finding a decent spot to start, and 1 spent panicking because the sun is setting, then 1 frantically trying to build a hiding place).

The other is World of Tanks, which is in closed beta and I can't really talk about it. It's on this list though, isn't it.

Oh, and now this guy is making his next installment of freeform space sim. I can't keep up.

* actually my sister

Double Mountain Devil's Kriek 2010 (cask). Went to check this out at Belmont Station as one rarely gets to try a fresh Kriek on tap, much less cask since that noble tap method is still less used in this country. Reading the descriptions of lambics and krieks (a sour cherry lambic), I think that the only lambics I must have had were ... bad - vastly sweet, syrupy and cloying, with very little actual fruit. The Double Mountain is a textbook example of a kriek, being sour, beery, and cherry tasting, in that order. However, either I don't care for krieks or there was nothing special about this one - it simply didn't make me sit up and say "Wow!" like some others (say the Duchess of Bourgogne) do, but rather made me nod and say "Yep, that's a kriek." and move on to something else.

Upright Auld Reekie. This local brewer specializes in "farmhouse" style ales, which means very often their brews are rough and yeasty, which is cool if you like that sort of thing. I'm still undecided. However, for this special brew the brewmaster was inspired by an Alsatian peat-smoked amber and decided to duplicate the flavor as it is reminiscent of scotch - another weakness of mine. Long story short, huge success in emulating that flavor, and a surprisingly tasty brew as a result. It is indeed a nice amber with tones of smoky peat lingering in the back of your mouth, I recommend it if you can find it (doubtful)!

If you had any interest in Dwarf Fortress, check out Minecraft; it's a first person dwarf fortress in 3D! It's utterly charming and quite deep. And cheap.

Matilda by Goose Island - malty ale with just a hint of yeast. If it sat in a barrel somewhere for a couple of years it'd probably be great, but as it is there's just not too much to it. Go for their Sofie instead, surprising complexity there.

Spotless by Full Sail - a double IPA that's disappointingly straightforward. Lots of hops and little else - I prefer the hops to be delivered at the end, with some flowery citrus up front; this offers hops up front and hops at the end, and that's it. One of the few Full Sail brews that I would recommend against.

Heater Allen IsarWeizen - a hefeweizen with some character, little notes of tangy fruit amongst the natural sweetness. Great summer sipping beer. I'm not a fan of hefeweizens at all, but this one is more than acceptable.

Lily is starting to roll over by herself a lot. Problem is, she's not sure what to do once there!

So I took another gander at the map since yesterday's route proved less than optimal and contained entirely too much SHEER TERROR.

Turns out that I can take Salmon nearly all the way to the river. Then I cleverly followed a lady who seemed like she knew where she was going and sure enough, ended up right on the east bank esplanade (view below). That took me neatly right out of traffic, all the way north to Steel Bridge, across it, and then I snuck in the back way ending up right on Glisan. 2 more blocks and that was it!

Now to see if I can retrace it this evening ...

Apparently 2 days + 2 hours = 3 days.

What math is that? I just want to know what higher math degree is needed to make that happen. Because let me tell ya ... that's not math. That's some sort of .... being an evil bastard, is what it is.

Anyway.

Neat camera for peeping at Icelanders. I think that's the bestest web cam I've ever seen.

So it seems at least *this* part of setting up my server didn't fail. I see I still need to fix the toast (it'll be on .net rather than .com since I lost the domain and some squatter set up shop), but hopefully that's it. Having issues with the squeezebox again, but once that and the Toast are done, server migration will be complete. Yay!

Aaand Toast is back up. As is my audio player. All done

The Secret of Monkey Island:SE powered by InstantAction

And hopefully, this is just the start of something big.

Some press

Rock Paper Shotgun

Shacknews

GamaSutra

1Up

Kotaku

Joystiq

I'll make them into purty links later, now I have launch bugfixes to attend to.