A Nameless Blog

It’s late June.  The sun beats down on us as it always does.  Our electric bills are soaring and our genitals are even sweatier than normal.  The only relief, of course, is a cool, refreshing blogpodge.

In case you don’t know of him already, allow me to introduce you to Cliff Johnson.  In 1987, he made a low-res puzzle game called The Fool’s Errand.  It’s pretty fantastic — all the puzzles are fair and enjoyable, and to top it off, it’s one of the first meta-puzzles of the technological age.  If you like puzzle games that make you say to yourself, “Holy shit, I’ve been at this for five hours”, download the game for free (follow the instructions — the game’s so old you’ll need a Mac emulator to run it).  But first, read these two Wired articles about the game’s legend (don’t worry, they’re brief).

If you poke around Cliff Johnson’s site, you’ll see that he made a couple other games in that era.  I played At the Carnival — don’t bother.  It’s too repetitive and easy.  But so far, 3 in Three is great.  It’s a ramped-up Fool’s Errand (at least in the sense that there’s actually color and sound).

I’ve said this before, but do you think that if I asked really nicely, Shakira would have sex with me?  She’s not at the top of my fantasy list of unattainable celebrities, and she doesn’t strike me as particularly slutty, but something about her makes that thought pop into my head.  Like she’d agree if I just told her, “Have sex with me.  I’ll say nice things about you to all my white friends…”

In the last week I’ve gotten a handful of new followers on Twitter.  The funny thing is, I’ve never twittered (tweeted?  Eh who cares…) to that account even once.  I got the account twitter.com/zazzumplop in case I ever decided to jump on the bandwagon.  You know, spread your unique domain name thin and all that.  Well, now that people are actually following me for some reason, I’ll start posting to Twitter.  Granted, the only posts will be along the lines of, “New post at my actual blog.  Read some full sentences for a change”, but at least it’s something.

Speaking of Twitter, let me be the umpteenth person to praise Conan’s new Twitter Tracker bit.  I don’t think I can describe it without wringing out all the funny, so just watch the first one on Hulu and enjoy (after sitting through a twenty-second ad).  You can also check out the new Twitter Tracker website, but please, only in small doses.  It’s only so many times you can read the likes of the following without liquefying your brain: “WHAT’S THIS?!? ROB THOMAS LIKES THE CITY OF CHICAGO?!??? EXCITEMENT!!! RT @ThisIsRobThomas I could see myself living in chicago.”

I just caught up with all the aired episodes of Dollhouse.  It’s an excellent show, but it’s been kinda weird for me.  I let myself fall months behind, episodes piling up on my TiVo, without much desire to watch them.  But every time I watched an episode I came away extremely entertained.  The next day, I’d see Dollhouse on the queue and think, “Eh, I’ll watch it later.”  I don’t understand it.  Most shows that I love I can’t wait to watch.  If I have to record Lost or House, I watch it the minute I get home.  I can give you a host of reasons that Dollhouse is an exciting, moving, funny, enjoyable show.  I like the regular characters, and I like that Eliza Dushku has no consistent personality (it helps hide that she’s normally the worst actress on the screen).  I also like the hot, empty-headed women in tiny clothing.  (If you haven’t seen the show, “empty-headed” is meant literally.)  So I highly recommend the show, even though it hasn’t reached Appointment TV status.

I’ve been meaning to post this awhile, but I think I neglected it.  It’s high-speed video of bats in motion (and a fascinating article).  The best part isn’t watching them fly or land upside-down, which is still cool; the best part is watching different bat species walk.  This is why nature is awesome.  And yes, Eddie Izzard, I’m using the word ‘awesome‘ properly, thank you.

To keep the parade of links going, read this British article about the King of Pop.  It’s written quite well, and it reminds me of something I dare not forget: Michael Jackson is probably the most talented person we’ll ever see.  If you’re angry about Heath Ledger’s death, it should pale in comparison to the anger you feel about what has happened to Michael Jackson.  He had so much talent, and none of us could handle it.

On that cheery note, I’ll bid you all adieu.  Well, not before I leave something on Twitter about how amazing this post is.

-Darrell

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.