Tag: oneaday

#oneaday, Day 344: Bullshit Filters

One of the biggest challenges in creative writing is overcoming your own personal bullshit filters—those parts of your brain that point out what you're writing is complete worthless nonsense and garbage that no-one in their right mind would ever want to read.

My own tolerance for nonsense is pretty high, as my enjoyment of JRPGs and love of Bayonetta will attest. But even when I'm writing creative stuff myself, I end up picturing some variant on Comic Book Guy reading what I've written and saying "BUT THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!" I guess I have bullshit filters by proxy, as if I were writing stuff purely for myself, it could make as little sense as I please.

One simple way to overcome your own bullshit filters (whether or not they're proxies like mine), though, is to watch some movies or read some books. When you see how much nonsense other people—published people who actually get paid for their bullshit—put out, you'll feel a lot better.

Let's take Tron: Legacy for a moment, which I went to see the other night. This is a movie built almost entirely on nonsensical premises. Why are the programs in the computer personified as humans? Why do they behave in a human way? Why do they need vehicles? And given that the main distinguishing feature of one group in the movie is that they act "more human", what, in fact, is the difference between them and those who are already acting pretty human? How does a virtual projection of an aircraft stall at altitude in a virtual environment which presumably has no air? THAT WOULD NEVER HA—

Stop. Tron: Legacy isn't a bad movie despite the fact that all of the above issues are clearly nonsensical plot holes which spectacularly fail to be resolved by the end of the movie. I enjoyed it very much and intend going to see it again. In fact, Tron: Legacy is a movie which actually benefits from you specifically not trying to read too much into it. The reason the programs act human? Because it's relatable. The reason they drive vehicles? So there can be awesome action sequences. The reason a virtual aircraft stalls at altitude? Because it's exciting. Nothing more than that.

So it is when you're writing. Not everything has to be laced with hidden meanings, metaphors and commentary on the human condition. In fact, some of the best "hidden meanings" come about completely unintentionally, as an unconscious communication on the part of the author, an unconscious expression of something deep-seated in their mind that comes out in the things that they are writing. A window onto their soul, if you will.

Of course, some people can transcend that kind of writing and deliberately do clever things. But then they probably get labelled as "pretentious" and don't get appreciated in their own lifetime. And everyone wants to be appreciated in their own lifetime, right?

So, the next time you're writing something, take care that it makes sense, sure. But if you want to write something which initially appears to be "stupid", think about the rest of what you're writing too. Does it make sense in context, however "unrealistic" it might be when compared to reality? If so, then there absolutely is no reason that the Blood Sausage of Agamemnon can't turn into a semi truck at the push of a button when combined with the Amulet of Lindor under a full moon.

And if you still feel what you're writing is ridiculous, go watch Tron: Legacy.

#oneaday, Day 343: Boxing Day

Christmas is over for another year, and so here we are on Boxing Day (or actually the day after if you're operating on UK time)—a day which apparently isn't particularly well-known in the US. In all honesty, it's not particularly well-known in the UK, either, aside from the name. It's just "the day after Christmas".

There's plenty of things that can be done on Boxing Day, and they tend to vary according to your age.

If you're a young kid, Boxing Day is a day to spend playing with all the presents you got and suffering from some pretty severe analysis paralysis while you work out what to do next. When you have the amount of choice most kids get these days after receiving a veritable truckload of presents, it's easy to see how they might get overwhelmed with things to choose from.

If you're a bit older, Boxing Day is probably a day for a hangover, whether it be caused by excess of alcohol, excess of food or, more likely, both. It also marks the beginning of The Great Leftovers Season, by the end of which you will never, ever want to see turkey ever again, whether it's on a plate with potatoes and gravy, stuffed into a sandwich, made into a curry or whatever vaguely inventive ways you've come up with to use turkey. Turkey is, of course, a meat which barely gets eaten throughout the rest of the year. Is this because it's just like an enormous dry chicken? Or is it because we eat so much of it throughout the holiday season that no-one can bear the thought of eating it again at any point in the rest of the year?

It's a pretty universal constant whatever your age, though, that the day after Christmas is for resting, sleeping, lolling on the couch (the original meaning of lolling, not the Internet meaning) and watching the DVDs that were inevitably in your Christmas stockings.

There's an exception, though: households which got a Wii or Kinect for Christmas. The Wii and Kinect get people up and about a little bit more than they would otherwise be, since they're popular gifts with kids and adults alike, and they require that you get off your turkey-filled ass and jump around. Quite literally in the case of Kinect.

Incidentally, if you are still a Kinect doubter, I defy you not to at least find the damn thing clever as hell. Yesterday we were trying it out and didn't have enough space to play with two people on Kinect Adventures, so we moved the couch back a bit. By the time we'd turned back to the screen, the game was asking if we'd like to play two-player mode. Without us telling it. Witchcraft and sorcery!

Hope you've all had a suitably festive festive season and have some appropriately awesome plans for the new year. 2011 better not suck as much as 2010, though I recall saying something very similar at the end of 2009 so I'm not going to hold my breath until something actually awesome happens!

#oneaday, Day 342: Family Games: The Addendum

Merry Christmas from California, everyone. Having spent the day playing a selection of games that various members of my family purchased for various other members of my family, I feel I should add a few picks to yesterday's post.

First up is Apples to Apples, which is an entertaining, silly game that could easily descend into drunken arguments between consenting adults. For the unfamiliar, the game tasks players with picking a card from their hand which is "most like" a card with an adjective on it that is placed in the middle of the table. Players take it in turns to be the "judge" of what is the best fit—and can be persuaded by other players—and the first person to "win" four hands wins.

It's very simple, not very strategic and silly enough for kids to join in with. Good stuff.

Next up is Fluxx, which is a card game that people who haven't really got into the board game hobby probably won't have heard of. But the beauty of Fluxx is that it is simple to understand and full of random stupidity.

The reason it's simple to understand is the fact that there are only two rules to remember—draw a card, then play a card. Everything else comes out of the cards played. New rules, victory conditions, limitations on how many cards players can have in their hand, how many cards can be laid in front of them, the works.

It may appear to be light on strategy, but once a few rule cards have been played allowing people to draw and play more cards at once, picking the right order to use the cards becomes increasingly important. It's also very easy (and satisfying) to screw over your opponents throughout the course of the game.

Most importantly for family games suitable for holiday consumption, though, games never last longer than half an hour and more typically last around the 10-minute mark. Because it's so heavily (though not completely) based on chance, everyone has a shot at winning, and it's difficult to figure out exactly how to be "good" at it. This certainly keeps things interesting, and prevents my Agricola situation, where I like the game but get tired of playing it because I can pretty much guarantee I will never win. I know, boohoo, right?

Anyway. Today has been a pretty nice day all told. I got a nice watch, a nice shirt and some nice chocolates. Niceness. As I said a few days back, I kind of miss the days when Christmas was exciting rather than exhausting, but at least I'm old enough to drink myself into a stupor in the corner if it all gets a bit too much now. And there's always iPhone and PC games to jump into and hide if necessary.

Later tonight, I will finally be seeing Inception, which I have somehow managed to avoid all spoilers about, even though the statute of limitations appears to be up. Looking forward to it, as it's a movie I've been meaning to see for ages and never got around to. I also saw Tron: Subtitle I've Forgotten the other night, too, which is worthy of an entry all of its own, I feel.

For now, merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. Enjoy your hangovers.

#oneaday, Day 341: The Five Best and Worst Holiday Board Games to Teach Your Family

As the Coca-Cola advert says, holidays are comin'. (To go off on the earliest tangent I've ever gone off on, the word "Coca-Cola" is seemingly indecipherable to Americans when pronounced with a British accent, as I discovered at the cinema the other night.) In fact, holidays are pretty much here, what with it being Christmas Eve and all. Actually, by the time you UK types read this, it is Christmas Day. Happy holidayweenukkahmas. Fuck it. Happy Christmas.

Anyway. You may be currently locked in a house with the rest of your family, in which case it will at some point become necessary to devise some form of entertainment in order to prevent you all from killing each other. It is probably a little late to recommend things to go out and buy right now, but you'll know for next time. In the spirit of List Season, which always seems to coincide with holiday season, here are the five best and worst board games to break out during a lull in the conversation and/or turkey consumption. Well, maybe not the "best" and "worst". But five good ones and five less appropriate (though still good) ones, in the order that I thought of them.

The Best

Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is a relatively simple game. The basic goal is to collect sets of coloured cards in order to claim train routes on a board representing America, Europe, Scandinavia or one of the many other variants out there. Bonus points can be attained for claiming the longest continuous unbroken route as well as completing specific "point-to-point" routes between two cities across the board via any line. It all seems very simple until near the end of the game, when a lot of blocking each other's routes comes into play. It's simple enough for kids as young as 7 to understand and enjoy, yet there's enough strategic play in there for the adults to appreciate, too.

Carcassonne

Carcassonne is a game about laying tiles on the table to build up a map of a geographical region featuring cities, roads and fields. Points are scored by claiming these regions with little wooden people commonly referred to as "meeples". It's another simple game that is expandable with about a bajillion optional expansion packs. There's only one rule—the "farmers" rule—that is a little difficult to explain to everyone. The rest is very simple. There's also a great iPhone and iPad version for those lucky enough to have Apple products under their tree, and there's a similarly great version on Xbox LIVE Arcade, too.

Settlers of Catan

Catan is a game about building and trading. There is lots of interaction between players as you attempt to collect combinations of resources for building roads, settlements and cities. There's also an element of luck thanks to a roll of two dice determining which resources are "produced" each turn, though the luck factor never overwhelms the strategy element. Catan is perhaps a bit complex for young kids, but is a lot of fun for older kids and adults. It's also expandable with several additional packs, though not quite as many as Carcassonne.

Robo Rally

Robo Rally tasks players with racing through a series of checkpoints using their robots. Robots can be programmed using "instruction cards", which allow the 'bot to do things like turn 90 degrees left or right, move forward a certain number of spaces and a few other things. Each turn, players can give 5 instructions to their 'bots from a pool of cards in their hand. It becomes a game about planning where you'll end up and making the best of the options available to you. It's simple to play, with lots of different variations and tracks included in the box.

Space Alert

Space Alert is a thoroughly silly game where you start by listening to a CD filled with sci-fi alerts telling you where threats are appearing around your spacecraft. Using hands of "order cards" (a bit like Robo Rally's instruction cards) players plan in advance how they're going to take care of all the threats and keep the ship running smoothly. The twist is the amount of time they have to plan all this is determined by the length of the track on the CD. If they dawdle too much, jobs won't get done, normally with disastrous consequences. Said potentially disastrous consequences are revealed after the CD has finished, when the orders laid down are revealed and resolved on a turn-by-turn basis. It's genuinely horrifying to see a well-laid plan screwed up and resolve itself in turn-by-turn slow motion, but it's hilarious.

The Worst

Arkham Horror

Arkham Horror is a brilliant co-operative game set slap bang in the middle of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. However, its shortest variant takes three hours to play, with more difficult opponents taking four or five hours to take down and usually ending with the players' defeat. It also has a bajillion rules to learn, which are easy enough to remember once you've played a game or two, but nightmarish to explain to newbies. Save this one for gaming nights with plenty of time to spare.

Power Grid

Power Grid is an in-depth simulation of competing electric corporations attempting to supply power to cities in either Germany or America. It has a few elements in common with Ticket to Ride but also has an in-depth simulation of supply and demand in its resource market, as well as a requirement to be good at both maths and forward planning. It's quite heavy going for newbies and is rather depressing for people who don't do well with numbers.

Monopoly

When was the last time you finished a game of Monopoly? Exactly. The simple reason for this is that people always forget two things: firstly, that the "you can take all the tax money if you land on Free Parking" rule is complete bollocks and was never in the game in the first place, and secondly, if you don't buy a property when you land on it, it's supposed to be auctioned off. Following these rules (which no-one ever remembers to) makes games a lot quicker. Alternatively, you could download the Board Game Remix Kit and make Monopoly worth playing again.

Warhammer Quest

Warhammer Quest is awesome, but has a big-ass rulebook, hundreds of bits of cardboard, cards, counters, miniatures and all manner of other things to deal with. While it makes an awesome Christmas present, it's best saved for a night you can devote to it with a group interested in taking part in a full campaign.

Agricola

Agricola is a great game (that is a lot more interesting than its concept—"a game about 13th century German agriculture"—sounds) but takes approximately a thousand years to set up thanks to its hundreds of little wooden bits, thousands of cards and board that comes in far too many pieces for its own good. I also hate it because I never win and that means it's bullshit.

So there you go. All of the above are worth spending some Christmas money on. Not all are worth trying to explain to your grandma, unless she has a particular interest in trying to take down Cthulhu.

#oneaday, Day 340: Blogrollin', Like They Do In Canada

I was going to write this post yesterday but then I got all wrapped up in the whole next-year thing, which you should read about if you're interested. It's the entry before this one. Which means it's after this one on the page. Which… oh, be quiet.

Anyway. To the point. I reorganised my blogroll yesterday. No, that doesn't mean I hung the toilet paper with the sheets hanging down the other way to normal, it means I sorted out the links in the sidebar. I nuked the lot and started again, because there were a bunch of defunct places that some people hadn't updated for ages and a few sites that just didn't exist any more.

Then I put out the call on Twitter for anyone who wanted to be included. I figured it'd be a good opportunity for me to have a chance to check out some other people's work, too. When you're writing a blog for yourself (particularly if it's a daily one) it's very easy to focus entirely on your own work and never pay any attention to what anyone else is writing. So, let's rectify that right now, shall we? Here's a bunch of the links I added yesterday and what they're all about.

First up, the fellow #oneaday survivors, who are well on their way to finishing their first year on the "job". You should check out all of 'em, since they've all got a veritable plethora of content for you to read and enjoy now. Like this dusty little corner of the Internet, all their blogs have evolved and changed over time, and hopefully they've all got something out of the experience, whether or not they intend on joining us next year.

So, in no particular order, then:

  • Game Design Scrapbook—Krystian Majewski's account of the trials and tribulations of developing an actual proper game that you'll be able to actually play and everything.
  • Halycopter—The daily blog of Jen Allen, editor of the slick and awesome Resolution Magazine, featuring candid thoughts on all manner of subjects.
  • Mat Murray—The man with the fastest Retweet finger in the West. He got married a short while ago and also takes nice photographs.
  • Mr. Writer—The #oneaday blog of Ian Richardson, veteran of Staffordshire (we salute you), motorsports enthusiast and aspiring journalist.
  • The Mirrorball—Daily blog of Mike Grant, Bristol-based writer and novelist.
  • Worthless Prattle Makes the World Go Round—Play Magazine's Ian Dransfield sets the world to rights with a variety of amusing posts and a classic Gran Turismo 5 tutorial video.

Next up, here's some of my friends, many of whom are members of the Squadron of Shame.

  • 4X.Scope—Alex "Unmannedpylondronecommandsomethinglikethat" Connolly's blog, which hasn't been updated for a while but since he and his wife have been busy having a kid, I think we can excuse. Alex writes detailed, in-depth commentary on a variety of interesting games that you probably haven't heard of, and also draws rather well.
  • Alternate Course—Chris "RocGaude" Whittington's site, which he promises will provide a veritable cornucopia of audio-visual-textual entertainment in the coming year. Oh yes indeedy.
  • Cerebral Pop—As the name implies, this is a site that covers the more cerebral side of pop culture, run by a wide variety of delicious-smelling gentlemen, many of whom also frequent Bitmob (which I think I've been capitalising incorrectly for time immemorial).
  • First Time Flowing—Andre Monserrat's blog, deserving special mention for buying me a copy of Baldur's Gate today along with being a formidable opponent at Carcassonne.
  • Nice Guy Gamer—Cody Winn is the nicest person on the Internet. He likes video games, knit caps and kittens and writes about them here. Pay him a visit.
  • Press The Buttons—Matt Green is another ex-Kombo refugee and runs this gaming site with podcasting contributions from the sexygorgeous Brad Hilderbrand and Joey Davidson. Check in for some well-written commentary on games and the industry.
  • Rhymes With Chaos—Jesse Bowline's blog covers all manner of arty, musicy, gamey, geeky thoughts and opinions and is well worth your time. But what rhymes with "Chaos"?
  • Starfuckers, Inc.—The online home of Ashton Raze, formidable writer-about-games, man-about-town, hat-wearer, champion of DEADLY PREMONITION's cause and starfucker.
  • We Clock—Ian Scott appeared in my Facebook friend requests one day with a mutual friend, so I added him. His blog covers a variety of topics, from general geekery to eye-opening slice-of-life stuff. He's also an active member of the GOG.com and Reddit communities, so is a fountain of information on old games and Internet memes.

If I missed you, it's 'cause you didn't get back to me on Twitter. I know there's a couple of you out there but you're escaping me right now. Give me a poke in the comments and I will add your links to my sidebar (and this post) post-haste!

For now, enjoy all the hot and spicy content these fine folks have conjured up for you and I'll see you tomorrow.

#oneaday, Day 339: Looking Forward

Okay. I'm going to go ahead and make this pledge now, since I've been farting around with it for the whole day and don't want all that work to go to waste.

I will be continuing with daily blogging next year, whether you (yes, YOU) like it or not.

However, a couple of people pointed out that it's worth putting some kind of "incentive" in place for those who want to take part. I'm not talking about monetary gain for the participants (though if you want to fling a few quid and/or Steam/GOG games my way in appreciation for my hard work, I certainly wouldn't say no) — rather, as the fine, gorgeous and well-endowed Mr Daniel Lipscombe suggested, we should get sponsored. For charity, like.

With that in mind, I've set up a few things today. The first is this. I envisage this page being a central hub for our collective, where we can post all of our entries together and end up with a delicious archive of everything we've done together. This can also double as a jumping-off point for people to visit our individual sites, and contains the all-important donation buttons. I took an executive decision and signed up to benefit Cancer Research UK via JustGiving, and To Write Love On Her Arms via SocialVibe. Most people out there know someone or have been personally affected by cancer, so that seemed like a safe option. To Write Love On Her Arms is an organisation which helps those with depression, anxiety, crises and suicidal thoughts. Being someone who has suffered considerably with depression for many years now, this particular group held some personal resonance for me, and it's one of the more popular options to support via SocialVibe.

Here's what I need anyone reading this to do, and it's very simple:

Tell people. Get them to follow us on Twitter. Like us on Facebook. Read the updates on the blog. And, for those who are interested in joining the party, signing up on this page.

Once things are up and running, I can co-ordinate everyone's work (and by that, I mean post their entries onto the Project's main page, not hassle people if they don't have time to write something) and we can all work on promoting blogging for a good cause.

Sound good? It sounds good to me, and as a co-operative effort I think it will work well. The fact that we're being sponsored for charity will give some people the push to carry on, and despite the name, I figured we can relax the rules on posting frequency a little bit.

By the end of another year, we'll have a huge body of work to look back on with pride and hopefully will have raised at least a little money for a couple of charities that are worth supporting. Plus it's certainly a more proactive approach than simply changing your bloody Facebook avatar.

#oneaday, Day 338: English-American Dictionary

In honour of my being in America, I thought I would clarify some of the strange words that I use in order that we might understand one another a little better. I'm also away from a Mac with Comic Life Magiq installed, so our friends in the panels above might look a little different for the next couple of days thanks to the idiosyncracies of Windows Paint and the Windows version of Comic Life.

But anyway. Here we go. In no particular order:

  • Chips: French fries.
  • French Fries: A brand of chips that look like fries.
  • Crisps: Chips.
  • Jam: Jelly. Also, a line of traffic.
  • Jelly: Jell-O or equivalent.
  • Queue: Difficult to spell. Also, a line of people and/or cars.
  • Herb: A word with an "H" at the beginning.
  • Erb: A little-used verbal non-fluency feature.
  • Aluminium: The correct way to spell "Aluminum".
  • Wanker: A person who masturbates. Also a synonym for "asshole", when used in reference to a person who is an asshole, not an actual asshole.
  • Wankered: Drunk.
  • Arse: Ass.
  • Ass: Donkey and/or mule.
  • Rat-arsed: Drunk.
  • Trousers: Pants.
  • Pants: (n.) underpants or (adj.) not very good.
  • Trousered: Drunk.
  • Fucking: Verbal punctuation.
  • Fucked: Drunk. Also, screwed over. Sometimes at the same time.
  • Bollocks: (n.) testicles or when used as the object of a sentence, nonsense, clearly a lie. "The things Mat Murray said on his blog were bollocks."
  • The dog's bollocks: Really good. "Mat Murray's blog is the dog's bollocks."
  • Itchy scrot: Venereal disease.
  • Scruttocks: Compound word, meaning unclear. Component words suggest that it might refer to the perineum. More often used as a mild, non-offensive expletive.
  • Fanny: Vagina. Also, to mess around: "to fanny about".
  • Faff: See "fanny", but remove the vagina reference.
  • Bum: Butt.
  • Tramp: Bum.
  • Slag: Tramp.
  • Bumming: Engaging in anal sex.
  • Poof: A homosexual male.
  • Pouffe: A footstool.
  • Sod: Multi-purpose mild profanity. Can be used as a noun or a verb. ("Sod off, you sod")
  • Bugger: See "sod". Also, to engage in anal sex.
  • Buggered: Broken or messed up. Also, to have been the recipient of anal sex.
  • Shag: To have sex with. Also, carpet.
  • S: a letter we use instead of "Z".
  • Zed: Zee.
  • U: a letter we use after the letter "o" for no particular reason.

Clearly British English is a ridiculous language. The sheer number of synonyms we have for being drunk should probably tell you everything you need to know about our culture.

Still, you know what? I'm a big fan of our stupid words. There are few words more satisfying to mutter under your breath than "bollocks" when something goes wrong. And calling someone a "bloody bastard stupid buggering bugger-head" (or similar) if they have infuriated you is similarly satisfying.

Also, the number of alternative meanings for many of these words can lead to a wide variety of entertaining double-entendres and ambiguities. The cast of the Carry On series of films made an entire career out of this little language trick, after all.

So there you have it. I hope all you Americans out there feel suitably enlightened about the best way to use the English language now. I shall expect you to all be talking the Queen's English the next time I hear from you.

Because of course, the Queen is always banging on about how rat-arsed she's going to get before shagging her husband and throwing him out on his arse. In fact, that's all her Christmas speech normally consists of. It's actually quite embarrassing.

#oneaday, Day 337: Internet Games #2: TinyURLette

It's easy to get stuck in a rut when browsing the web, visiting the same few sites over and over and over again in a vain attempt to find something new to waste your ultimately meaningless existence with. Facebook is usually the timesink of choice for many people, closely followed by Twitter, TVTropes, Wikipedia and a few others.

As such, it's easy to forget that there's a wider web out there, filled with sites that you may not have ever come across during your daily browsing routine. Some sites you would never have wanted to discover, ever. And some are real gems that you'll be happy you came across.

So what better way to explore the web than to make it into a little game? There used to be a website devoted to this very philosophy. Called ShuffleTime, it allowed players to jump around the web seemingly at random, answering trivia questions about the pages they were seeing. Correctly answering the questions allowed the players to collect cards and coins and purchase rewards and entries into prize draws. Sadly, it didn't last very long, but I thought it was a great idea.

So here's a variation on it. I can't promise any kind of reward (short of discovering something horrendous/wonderful) but it's a good time waster. Probably not safe for work, but if you're reading this at work then you're probably not concerned about that, either. Here is a picture of Rise from Persona 4 in a bikini to make you feel uncomfortable about reading this at work.

Well, it serves you right. Get on with what you're supposed to be doing and I won't have to embarrass you again.

Alternatively, you could embarrass yourself further by playing TinyURLette, a game of discovery. The rules are very similar to The TwitPic Game which I informed you all of a few days ago (and no-one participated, boo) except this time we're dealing with websites.

So here's what to do. Visit your link-shortening service of choice and simply add whatever you like after the URL. I will attempt this with both TinyURL and bit.ly links to demonstrate.

So first up, we have http://bit.ly/blargh, which takes us to a page of YouTube comments for this video. It is a Scottish guy who has obviously been studying phonetics recently. He also says hello to a lot of people. And goes off on a rant against one of the members of his channel. He also does that irritating "quick-editing" thing that people are doing all the time on YouTube. "Hello! I am [edit] a person [edit] who is [edit] talking [edit] to you about [edit] rubbish." Enough of him.

http://tinyurl.com/ihateyou, conversely, is appropriately named and takes you to a picture you really don't want to see. Especially if you're at work. You have been warned. It's not porn or gore.

http://bit.ly/arse takes us to BioEthics Bytes, a blog about multimedia resources for teaching bioethics. An unfortunate URL for a page that looks quite interesting.

http://tinyurl.com/what takes us to an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about the death of Margaret Singer, an expert on brainwashing and cult activity. The obituary is an interesting read, actually, with some quotes from Singer herself.

By extension, http://tinyurl.com/whatisthisidonteven takes you to a page clearly intended to RickRoll you. Unfortunately for them, the video they have been using for RickRolling purposes is a broken link, meaning that this page is, in fact, a failed RickRoll. A RickStumbleAndFallOnYourAss, if you will.

http://bit.ly/yourface features a news headline from Twitter very literally about your face.

http://tinyurl.com/stopit gives us a blog post in Russian about Lifespring, the now-defunct "human potential training" company. Or, as Google Translate puts it, "Layfspringe", which is a much better name.

Finally, http://bit.ly/borednow takes us to a page from McCarthy Psychology Services from Australia about care provision for the elderly.

I'm a little disappointed. Out of 8 different pages, only one of them is the slightest bit inappropriate. You are not doing your job properly, Internet.

Found any entertaining TinyURL or bit.ly shortlinks through playing this stupid game? Let me know in the comments.

#oneaday, Day 336: Being For The Benefit Of Mr. @shoinan (And Any Other Prospective #oneaday-ers)

The few of us who are still flying the #oneaday flag are closing in on the grand finale. 365 posts of non-stop bollocks, some of which might have been entertaining, some of which may have been utter nonsense. If you haven't checked out the fellow survivors' blogs yet, I encourage you to pay Jen, Mat, Mike, Krystian, Ian and other Ian a visit and support the awesome work (and endurance) they've shown over the last year. Give 'em a big hand, or whatever the Internet equivalent of applause is.

Now: to the point. I have tagged @shoinan in this post because he was specifically asking about it on Twitter at some indeterminate point in time that I'm confused about due to intercontinental time zone drift and watching Scott Pilgrim until 1:30 in the morning, then getting up at 7am to record a podcast. But this post is directed at anyone who wants to be Awesome Like Us.

#oneaday is something I intend to keep going with once my year is up. The others may feel differently. For some it feels more like work, for others it's a good habit that they've got into. Some are persisting out of sheer bloody-mindedness, some are passionate about the whole thing and want to succeed in it as a creative endeavour. In fact, most of us have fallen into some or all of the above categories at different times. And those who dropped the project partway through the year all did so for completely valid reasons, too.

It's a challenge, make no mistake, but it's one you largely set the rules for yourself. The only rule that everyone needs to abide by is this:

Post something—anything—at least once a day for a whole year.

Exactly what "something" means to you can be anything at all. It can be a photo-based post (I've done a few of those in the past). You can set yourself a minimum of at least a paragraph. Personally, I try to write at least 500 words a day, and in the last *mumble* days I've also been doing my comic daily, too. (All right, I couldn't be bothered to check. But I know it's over a hundred days now.)

But there's no hard and fast rules about how much you need to write, how good it needs to be or even what it needs to be about. The whole point of the exercise is to get you (yes, YOU) writing. Writing anything. Posting anything. Getting into the habit of being creative regularly. Creativity is something you need to exercise, just like your muscles. Spend your time not being creative and you'll stagnate, but it doesn't take long to get back on track. And there's no better way to exercise the creative bits of your mind than coming up with something—anything—every single day.

The other side effect that you might find is that it's a good outlet. I've had a shit year, by all accounts, and I know that one thing that has really helped me deal with said shit is writing about it, getting my thoughts out of my head (where they'd fester and eventually explode) onto the page. Saying things and knowing people are reading them—even if the things I've written aren't specifically aimed at anyone (or are, in some cases)—helps. It's a form of therapy.

I'm not saying you need to have something going on in your head to enjoy success at #oneaday blogging. But it certainly gives you something to write about, and I believe it's a healthy thing to do, too.

So for those of you interested in participating next year, I'm fully intending on continuing to take part and helping to co-ordinate everyone's efforts, too. Keep an eye on these pages for further details, and in the meantime feel free to get started whenever you like. If you do, be sure to let me know that you're on the case and I'll be sure to throw up some links.

Not in a vomity way. That would be weird. You know what I meant.

Anyway. Now it is time for pancakes. I hope those of you reading this who have a creative itch that is proving difficult to scratch will certainly consider joining me on another year of #oneaday blogging next year. Good luck to those of you who are in for the ride.

#oneaday, Day 335: My Synapses Are Cold

I think it's pretty much a given now that I'm a fan of creative indie games, particularly ones that put unusual twists on established formulae. There's one I haven't really talked about here yet, and I feel I should rectify this forthwith.

My brother (John Davison of GameSpot, for those three of you who haven't realised that yet and are now going "Oh, yeah!") mentioned on Twitter the other day that asynchronous multiplayer was "multiplayer for grown-ups". Or specifically, multiplayer for people with little to no free time. Eminently suitable for those with jobs. Or those with families. Or those who simply suck at action/skill-based multiplayer titles.

Mode 7 Games' Frozen Synapse caters for this crowd, specifically the subset of it who wish that they could pull off a headshot at a hundred paces but no longer have the reflexes of a twelve-year old with too much sugar and caffeine in their system. Frozen Synapse is, at heart, a team-based first-person shooter, albeit one represented from a top-down view played in turns by only two people. So not a lot like a first-person shooter at all, really.

Except that it kind of is. For the uninitiated, Frozen Synapse features a wide selection of different game modes, many of which will be familiar to players of shooty-shooty-bang-bang games. The simplest is Extermination mode, which simply tasks one team with killing the other team before five turns are up.

Each turn represents a five-second period of time, during which your little people can run, walk, duck, crawl, aim, shoot and focus on specific targets. It's your job to set up a plan of action for them by setting waypoints and actions, then testing your plan to see where they'll end up after five seconds, then committing your plan. At the same time, your opponent is also doing this, and when both of you have committed your plans, the outcome is shown, and it may not be what you had anticipated.

The cool thing about it, though, is that you don't both have to be online to play. It's essentially play-by-email, with the game sending a message to your opponent when you've taken your turn and it's time to check out the carnage. This means that you can have a whole bunch of games on the go at the same time, and be able to rattle through them all in a matter of minutes. It's a great idea, and it's awesome to see this kind of idea work in a setting other than a game with With Friends in the title.

Best of all, the game plays well and it's not even finished yet. The final product promises a single-player campaign mode, puzzle mode and all manner of other goodies. Those who are keen to support the game can pre-order and play the beta version right now, though, and you get a free copy to give to a friend, too. Which is nice.

Even better than that, the game is 30% off until Christmas. So if you're the slightest bit interested in the unusual concept—and it genuinely does work really rather well—I'd encourage you to support the hard-working three-man team that is Mode 7 and pre-order a copy now.

If you do, be sure to send me a challenge. I cordially invite you to the turn-based bloodbath.