Crop Circles: Real or Made up?

  Ever since people started saying aliens left weird patterns (crop circles) in their fields, there have been just as many people saying those people made the patterns themselves.  So, who should you believe?  Some people might tell you it depends on how much you want to believe in aliens, but it doesn't.  Can you imagine how many people would start losing interest in aliens if everyone thought the crop circles were real and then they found out that they weren't?  I guess it doesn't always work that way -- at least, not in the near term -- but for every person whose interest in alien life survives the disappointment of finding out not ALL people who claim to have seen aliens are telling the truth, there are ten more that decide aliens aren't even out there. This leads to people lying harder, and making really outlandish claims about the aliens.  This makes for good storytelling, but does it help us answer the basic question, of are aliens real?  You can probably tell I'm a bit of a skeptic, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like for the aliens to be here...

E. T.: the Extraterrestrial [review]

  I have to admit a certain bias, here.  This was my favorite movie as a kid.  I've heard people criticize it before.  Sometimes I wish I could agree with the criticisms...  Sometimes I see their point but I still don't care...  The closest thing to a fault I ever found with the movie was when I was little:  I kind of wished there were more aliens in the movie, instead of just the one and a few brief glimpses of the rest of them.  Later, I would have a similar feeling about Close Encounters of the Third Kind, only that feeling was stronger and more justified.  In terms of alien movies, this is among the best of all time.  If you haven't watched it, watch it.  It'll make you feel bad that you even watched the newer alien movies.  At least, if you're anything like me, it will.

Game Maker Fail Part 2

  There's another game that I worked really hard on, in Game Maker, but the file was corrupted when I uninstalled version 8.1.  I tried to find it in an email to myself, but it was nowhere to be found.  Pretty sure I still have a version of it somewhere, but not on this computer.  The game was called "ADRIFT", and it's based on a science fact that always really impressed me.  Did you know that, if you are stationary in space and can't move, you can throw a heavy object, like a wrench, and start moving in the opposite direction.  ADRIFT, if I could show it to you, gives you three wrenches to start, then forces you to navigate awesome 2D maps!  It's far from finished, like almost all of my games.  Sad that I couldn't show it to you, today.  Maybe I'll try to give you ADRIFT some other time...

"The Lost Vikings" Badge Pin

  This extremely rare fashion accessory is the only merchandise I could find relating to what I consider one of the best console video games I ever played.  It was exceptional, and much better than the sequel.  The concept of the game is that three Vikings are kidnapped by aliens, and forced to solve elaborate puzzles to try and defeat an evil alien, and eventually get home.  I LOVED this game.  Even when I wanted to throw the controller at the TV screen because it was so hard, I still loved the game.  My only complaint about the game was that the dialogue was poorly written and often tried to hard to be funny.  The pin is going for $42, on Ebay, at the moment.  If any of you losers are familiar with the game, you should definitely bid on it.  As for me, I'm just happy I got to play the game...

Wizard 101 [review]

The last time I played this computer game was a couple years ago, so I’m not exactly up to speed with all the new worlds and additions that have been added to it, since then. I have something in common with a lot of the people who play Wizard 101, in that it was the first MMORPG I played. I never made it to Dragonspyre, so that I could complete the first storyline, but I got to see dragons pyre while I was farming enemies with a friend. MooShu was as far as I got on my own. Just to get this out there: if all you do is play around in the free areas, you really should subscribe, so that you can see the whole game. I did have some complaints about the game, not surprisingly. I felt like each world should have more of their own minigames, instead of just the same minigames throughout. And, overall, I felt like some of the creativity and semi-originality was lost in the later worlds. Overall, though, a great game. I highly recommend it!

Steampunk and Human-Powered Flight

  I always thought these two things would go together well.  I found this blog post from 2010, from someone who probably agreed with me at the time, but I couldn't find any indication of how they did on the flugtag site.  Man-powered flight is really interesting, because no one has ever done it, but so many people throughout history have tried!!  Maybe if you tried it on the moon, or on Mars, where gravity is less, you could make some of these machines work.  Of course, you'd need a space habitat large enough to fly around in.  The only problem with that is that it's not very steampunk.  I guess that's not SO important.  I already wrote about that idea in two books.  I guess the cat's out of the bag.  I'll be publishing my books at some point...

Malifaux Outcasts: Convict Gunslinger Mercenary

  I don’t have this, but I kind of want it.  For those who don’t know, Malifaux is a game that features cards and figures, sort of like a mixture of Magic the Gathering and Warhammer, but not so much.  It’s really not that similar to either of those.  I’m going to completely level with you:  I’ve never played it, but it’s never to late to start, I guess.  It is one of those things that would take up more of my time that I’d want it to, but so does this blog, and so do a lot of things.  Why don’t you, if any of you have played the game, tell me if YOU think it is worth doing?  That would be an excellent topic for the first comment I get on this blog.  It’s simple, you sign in with your Gmail account, if you have one, and fill out a CAPTCHA.  I’m eminently fascinated by this so-called site traffic indicator, but ultimately puzzled by the silence from your end.  A comment I would understand.