A reader writes:
updates = reader appreciation
Which is good to know, and also a nice gentle remonstrance to me. It has been awhile, hasn't it?
I've been playing The Sims 2 all too much; my first character, Ransom Zoom the third cousin of Harry Zoom who is one of my older Sims (non-2) characters, met and married local girl Marisa Bendett (Marisa is a popular spouse in various possible worlds). They now have a little daughter, Georgia, who just recently morphed from toddler into child, and can therefore use more of the items in the house, but also has to go to school.
It's just as wildly involving as the original Sims, and I have the feeling that the main changes (more short-term desires on the part of the Sims, and more longer-term narratives in the form of family histories, since individual Sims get old and die (unless you cheat)) will just intensify the effect.
These people are Clued.
Speaking of which, Sims dude Will Wright recently wowed 'em yet again, with a way-cool speech and game demo at the 2005 Game Developer's Conference. (Well, not that recently anymore; this is probably old news to lots of folks; so I'm not an Up To The Minute News Site, as you've probably already noticed.) He talked about how users love to design stuff for themselves, and showed off a new game (prototype?) called Spore, in which the player (really!) starts out as a single-celled creature looking for stuff to eat in a primordial soup, and potentially ends up running an interstellar empire. And along the way each stage of evolution is open for design by the players.
Very XXIst Century, very cool.
All sorts of Supreme Court decisions that I haven't had time to look at. M and other people tell me that iTunes 4.9 has podcast stuff built right in. The kids are both away at camp, which is very odd.
Ah, so I didn't even talk about going up to Vermont, did I? Mostly it was hot; much much hotter than Vermont is supposed to be. But the little daughter got all stowed away at camp, and I drove back home listening once again to all those remixes of Madonna's classic "What The Fuck Do You Think You're Doing?", which was nostalgic.
And otherwise I dunno. I finished and wrote up Cunningham's "Specimen Days"; it was very good. (Now I want to get Walt Whitman's "Specimen Days" and read that also.) I'm still slowly moving through Vidal's "Creation". No longer following alt.zen and family to speak of; I learned alot, but didn't really want to become a long-term part of the more or less permanent set of ongoing feuds.
And I woke up last night (this morning) at like two thirty aye em, for no apparent reason, and lay there wide awake for I'm sure not nearly as long as it seemed (too much coffee yesterday?), but so now I'm really quite sleepy and I probably won't write more than a couple more words.
Good Night!
