Bridges falling down

Since I've been passing it around in the emails, I figure I should make a link to it here. This is the bridge nearest to where I work. It had explosives strapped to it on Tuesday. Here is a video of when those explosives where detonated.

More info here..

More maps....

Everyone knows I love maps.

Via the stingy scholar, I found this page, which while has interesting commentary, for whatever reason has the maps just barely reduced enough so you can't read the detail, but, the maps shown come from a class entitled American Ethnic Geography.

Edit: This style sheet makes it hard to insert large pictures. :(

Scroll down a bit to see one of the maps.

perils of video game addiction.

Since playing Alpha Centauri with other people for a while, I have come to the conclusion that I'm the one who always gets his ass kicked. Well then, I sez to myself, play a single player game, to figure out what are common strategies, or at least the stupid stuff everyone else knows from playing that I hadn't learned, since this is pretty much the first few games I've ever played.

So I started a single player game on Thursday, and played all day. Didn't go to work that day. This was a game I had never played more than ten turns before, because it was too boring. I figured it would be like MOO2, a game I never got into because it was too boring, until one time I played long enough for something to happen, and it became the greatest game ever. SMAC hasn't gotten that status but suddenly I see what people are raving about.

Started another game on Saturday. And suddenly Saturday had nothing accomplished either.

So I'm carefully going back to just the PBEM model of playing, and accepting that I will be the suckiest player.

(random comment: I had always said that I would refrain from posting boring personal crap here. Well, there's always an exception.)

More thoughts on PBEM

I've been looking for a good source of Play By Email Games. The only list I've seen so far comes from Home of the Underdogs. However, since HotU hasn't paid thier domain name fees (anyone want to send the guy the $35 or whatever it is to fix this? I might have to) you can't get to thier usual web page of www.the-underdogs.org. You must use the IP address http://209.120.136.195 to get to thier web pages. Further, since they had all sorts of tricks to prevent other websites from leeching off thier servers, you can't see the images, nor download the files, since they carefully check where your referrers are coming from.

But they still do have a list of PBEM games. And it is here.

I have discovered PBEM

I have discovered Play By E-Mail. I wonder what took me so long. I really enjoy the fact that I can play a game that would normally take several hours, and enjoy it in ten minute chunks through out many days interspersed between work, classes, and whatever else I'm doing.


Actually, the only game I've been playing PBEM is Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, and I'm supposing that the reason it took me so long is that so few turn-based games actually support PBEM. Normally I don't even like Alpha Centauri, but with PBEM it's really fun. I don't have any friends who like chess enough to play PBEM, so that's been out. What I'd really like to do is have a boardgamegeek.com-style list of games that are good play by email. Please post any recommendations.