Obsession

Ok, so I've always been easily addicted to stupid games. Yes, I'm still playing Farmville. And D&D, for that matter. But this past weekend I stumbled across something that has me hooked like nothing in recent memory.

It's a Facebook game, yes. So I get that lots of folks will dismiss it immediately. That's probably wise. But anyway - it's called City of Wonder, and it's basically Farmville + Civilization. Which means that for me, it's crack.

Now, if one is smart, one can play this game casually. You can set up your little farms and ranches and quarries and lumber mills to pop out goods every 8 hours. Or presumably every 24. Then you can just check in once a day, click all your little buildings, and go about your real life.

I, however, am unable to do this. I have all of my factories spewing things at the fastest rate they can. Every 3 minutes in the case of my garden. Who knew peas grew that fast? So, I'm logged in at home and clicking all day/night this weekend. Then I went to work this morning and did it all day in my office. I can't stop.

The building-clicking isn't what makes it interesting - that's farmville, and social city, and any number of other games. But this one adds in the Civ elements that have me hooked. I NEED to research Fermentation, so I can convert my garden into a vineyard, damn it! I need to know how much better Currency is than Trade. I want to know if Stonehenge is enough to win my culture exchanges, or if I need the Colossus - or, God help me, the Pyramids.

It's a perfect storm of Crap Heelzebub Cannot Resist.

I'm sure I'll at least extend the factory timescales in the next couple of days. But I still need to recruit some more Euclids to cut down my research time on Theology so I can get started on Law...

Okay - Sara and Karen stories

I'll post them here for my college friends who have been unable to find them on other threads.

Things that are Wrong with Boston

Deer Island is neither a Deer nor an island.

There are other placenames that are problematic.  Commonwealth Avenue, for instance, is certainly an avenue with trees and what not lining the street, but it seems highly unlikely that it is a commonwealth.  Admittedly I have only a vague idea of what a commonwealth is, despite having lived in at least two (Massachusetts and Virginia) because from what I can see they are just states.  So we'll let that one slide.

What really irks me is Porter Square.  Okay, it's in Cambridge and not Boston.  BUT.  It's not a ******* square, and I don't even mean in the literal geometric sense.  Obviously you don't expect that, but I'm looking for at least some sort of symmetry.  Take Carrollton, GA.  It has a square that is a geometric square, cut right out of the center of town where two roads cross.  Same thing in Davie County, NC, in whatever town that is in the middle of Davie County.  Mocksville.  Alright, fine.  But I'm not even taking that as a requisite.

I'm saying to be a square you need this symmetry--at the very least, a crossroads.  And look at Porter Square in Cambridge, Mass.  Not a crossroads.  Not a geometric square.  It's one road coming in from the side to intersect with Mass Ave (Massachusetts speak for "Massachusetts Avenue," which is clearly too long a name for a people renown for their rapidity of speech).  It's a T-intersection, fittingly outfitted with a T-stop (Massachusetts speak for "subway station").  A freaking T intersection is not a square.  It doesn't even come in at anything close to a 90° angle, which might at least give the town founders a shot at a different definition of "square."  You might as well call an orange a football field.

The Problem with My Cats

Look, I can understand if the litter box is too full for your comfort.  But instead of just laying one down on top of the litter with total disregard for any sort of odor-preventing technique (be it the chemical power of deodorant litter or the physical prowess of simply piling a bunch of sand on top), why don't you do the manly thing and just stick a claw in my leg to tell me something is wrong?  You had no problem this morning sticking a claw in my leg (which still itches, by the way) to let me know that you had not yet been allowed to lick the milk dregs out of my wife's cereal bowl.  I know you can handle that technique.

Instead, you try to stink up the entire bottom floor of the house.  Now, I have to put on my shoes (which are uncomfortably warm to be worn indoors this time of year (warm-worn, that sounds very similar!)) and go into your "cat bathroom," which is the one in which the toilet has been cut off because the flapper leaks, and pour a bunch of litter on top of your steaming produce because I don't feel like actually making the effort of cleaning out your damned box, which I just did three days ago, thank you very much (not that you ever thank me for this service that I have been performing for you on a semi-weekly basis for five years now).

Prepare for  a big dose of limonene in your breakfast.

SyFy movie of the week

I can hardly wait: Lake Placid 3. I guess I was vaguely aware that there was a 2. Never mind that I haven't seen 1 or 2. I'm a little worried that the only "star" listed is someone of whom I've never heard - Ryan Carnes, anyone? But this plus Joe plus Karen plus Andrew plus Emily plus Martin plus Jay, maybe Gabrielle, maybe John Lawrence, and my awesome husband? Plus our homebrew blackberry lambic. This should be good. I'll keep y'all posted.

Ha! 2 is on now, and John Schneider is the star. Remember when C&I dressed up as the Duke boys?

Recurring Dreams, Part II

Here is my next recurring dream.

RECURRING DREAM #CT02

I dream a lot about tornadoes.  They are always approaching on the horizon, sometimes as many as 6-10 at once.  They are coming for me and I must hide.  Often these dreams wake me up in the middle of the night, generally during rainstorms, and I make my wife run downstairs and hide in a closet with the cats.  In general, I am too terrified to speak coherently when I wake up, which in turn terrifies my wife because I can only bark out commands like "Get downstairs. Now.  Go.  Go.  Get in the closet."  She becomes convinced, while in that muddled just woken up mode, that there are robbers and we are hiding from them.

Which reminds me.

I knew this girl in high school whose house got robbed in the middle of the night while she was in it.  The thievers crept through her bedroom window to enter the house.  She remembers waking up and seeing them and being scared, but then she convinced herself it was a dream and went back to sleep.

GO

Interpreting recurring dreams

This is a post about interpreting recurring dreams.

1)  You are allowed to post your dream (keep it clean)

2)  You are allowed to interpret other peoples dreams.  And your own, for that matter.


RECURRING DREAM # CT01
In this dream I am driving my car.  It is always my car from high school/college, a 1990 midnight blue Nissan Sentra.  In the dream, I attempt to drive the car either 1) through running water,  2) over running water, or 3) across bridge that crosses rapidly rising water with water creeping over the edges.  I never get swallowed by the water, I am always driving across.  But I never reach the other side.  I either wake up or the dream changes to something unrelated

COROLLARY DREAM #CT01A
In this very similar dream, I am flying or rising up or jumping over something.  I keep going up, just until the point where I pause in the air, but I never descend.  I pause for a sickening second and look down, but then I'm rising again until I pause somewhere even higher.  This cycle continues until I either wake or the dream changes to something unrelated.

GO

This is my blog against SHC and Sandinista

War commenced.