Fun and games

Well, here's a little light relief in a life made miserable by Brown's crackpot economic policies (yes, I've been filling in my online tax return). One of my all-time favourite games, SimCity, now works on the iPhone. And it's brilliant!

I'm really impressed by the way it's been organised for the device. Obviously, it's been simplified in one or two areas, but the controls are nicely arranged and easy to work through, and it's an incredibly satisfying waste of time on the train. It turns out that almost any random arrangement of streets, railways and public buildings results in a better-planned town than Woking. I imagine that this represents some amazing underlying mathematical principle, like Godel's Incompleteness Theorm or something, so I shall keep on working on it.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

New hope

Having taken over the reins at the Robins, I decided to move to the 4-5-1 in favour at many clubs and opt for more direct wing play as the way to get round opponents. Building on a solid defence, around stalwarts Ifil and Hasjofree, and bringing in some energetic midfielders to support the decent strikers I already had, I made a great start to the new season despite limited resources. Let's hope I can consolidate a mid-table position and then build on it next season.

Hurrah, Football Manager 2009 has arrived! When I was walking past W.H.Smith on Friday, I was subject to an unsolicited approach from an attractive young lady who told me that if I bought anything over £25 in the shop, they would give me a £10 gift voucher. That seemed like a good deal, so I wandered in and the first thing I saw was FM2009 for £28 (ie, £18). What a pleasant distraction in these inflationary times.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.
[posted with ecto]

D & Deceased

I was surprised how sad the news of Gary Gygax's death made me. For those of you who aren't initiates, Gary Gygax was the man who invented Dungeons and Dragons. When I was first introduced to D&D, I had never come across anything like it before. I came from the borderline-autistic wargames school, having spent many happy hours (days, in fact) at University refighting the Yom Kippur war and repelling Soviet tank brigades sweeping through the Fulda Gap. The idea of a game where you could do, essentially, anything... wow.
I always loved the game, even after moving on to Runequest and Stormbringer. Now life has gone full circle: my kids and their friends love D&D and I still love playing it with them. In fact, playing D&D with your kids is even more fun than playing D&D with your friends. Thanks, Gary.

In the future, everyone will be famous to fifteen people.

[posted with ecto]