Snailiad is a new platform action adventure game developed by Crystal Jacobs and sponsored by newgrounds. It's an 8 bit inspired game where you get to explore a vast snaily world, discover secret passages, collect new weapons, learn new abilities and save the snails. Snail world was all peaceful until one day Moon snail left oa a journey. Soon after, the snails began to mysteriously disappear one by one. Now it's up tp Snaily snail to find the missing ones and save them from whatever horrible creature that is holding them captive (it will be most likely a very bad final boss).
Alright, this game is one amazing 8-bit game that I played in quite a while. It's one to the most epic game ever made that features snaily stuff. It's a big 8 bit game that offers long hours of gameplay. I must warn you that this is not your regular snail game with slow moving characters. It's an action packed-pea shooting adventure snail game with lots of boss battles. Anyways, I'm currently in the process of collecting video guide and so far this is what I've got for a Snailiad walkthrough (updated when new videos are found).
Wow, I loved all the entries! Thank you so much to everyone who entered.
After much deliberation...
Best parental angst Sasha Barin @ 6:47 pm
Most nightmare-inspiring abrielle1 @ 11:46 pm
Best epic journey DavidSimon4449 @2:16 pm
Best rhymes Sheila JG @ 4:58 pm
Most heart-wrenching K @10:08 pm
Best reason to listen to your mother Stephanie Garber @ 10:43 am
And the winner is, for her chilling tale...
christwriter @ 11:19 am
Jo ran through the snow.
We never had roses in December.
“Come on!” My sister held the key up. “It’s this way, Barry!”
But it was just an old garden door; the key wouldn’t fit. Besides, we were moving and the new house had no garden. Joanna said she’d seen a fairy cat in a top hat slinking through the roses. He told her to bring me along.
“Kids! We’re leaving!” Our mother.
“It works!” Jo said. Then, delighted and happy, “Ooh!”
I found the door locked. A thousand blood red petals on the ground.
Jo had gone away.
Congratulations to everyone! @christwriter, if you send me an email with your address, I'll send your copy of the book.
Villainous is a new point and click strategy and resource management game from cellar door games and kongregate. Actually, it's kind of a reverse tower defense game where instead of playing the defender, here you play the role of the aggressors. Send hordes of goblins, golems, evil priest among other hosts of vile creature and pillage every innocent village that you see on your map. Upon earning looted gold and gaining infamy you will have the chance to upgrade your army's abilities and spells. This game is not only new in terms of concept but it also packs great gameplay and challenge through its medal system. Now you can experience being at the other end of a tower defense game.
Anyways, if you came here for the Villainous walkthrough just scroll down a little bit and read the written version of the game guide as seen on Kongregate.com.
General
1. Balanced army compositions and timing the casting of your spells is essential for success, especially when achieving the coveted Gold medals. 2. Make sure to spend your infamy. Hoarding it gives you no benefit. 3. When a unit dies, they will drop infamy as well as mana orbs. Each unit that dies will drop a total of 50 mana. These bursts in mana may allow you to cast that crucial last minute spell. 4. You get the most amount of Infamy by earning Bronze and Gold medals. If you find yourself stuck on a stage, you should go back and try "Gold medaling" an early level for a nice XP boost. 5. Villainous can be beaten without any grinding whatsoever. That means every attempt at a stage could award you a bronze or gold medal. It also means a true strategist is king in this game. 6. In spite of tip #5, for those who have trouble progressing, Villainous does encourage farming Infamy to become more powerful. So don't worry if you're stuck, because everything you do is rewarded. 7. Slowing down time is important in order to maximize the usage of your spells. 8. If you are having trouble with a stage, try a different army composition. Depending on the stage layout, a different composition can have a huge effect. 9. Mana orbs dropped by defeated units disappear after 10 seconds. You can use that time to cast spells before picking them up if your mana bar is full. 10. Towers always target the unit closest to the town, unless there's a Mammoth Turtle drawing their fire. 11. Sometimes it is better to stun Bog Towers then have a Cleansing Warlock in your army.
Skill Tree
1. Summoner is the best skill in the game. Putting in at least 4-6 points as soon as possible will help immensely. 2. MP Cap is very important. Adding a few points in this skill becomes absolutely necessary in order to progress through the later stages. 3. There are two Treasure Chests hidden on the Skill Tree. Getting these early on will help out a lot. 4. Every time you purchase a skill its cost increases. It's more efficient to upgrade multiple skills before going back and upgrading them. 5. At the ends of the Castle are Red Skills. These are the best skills in the game, and saving up a little for them will help a lot. 6. Increasing the health of units is an important way of buffing your units for the later waves. 7. Aura units can all be upgraded in order to improve their usefulness. 8. Shield Golems are great for later waves, but Healing Priests are better for the early waves.
Army Formation
1. Don't forget that the Goblin Raider is the most important unit in your army. Aura units are more powerful, but Goblins allow you to progress and give you way more Infamy. 2. When designing an army composition, compare the number of raids you need in order to get a bronze/gold medal, and use that to determine how many goblins you need to reach the goal. 3. Similar aura's will not stack. So if you have 2 Shield Golem auras overlapping on a unit, you're wasting valuable aura space. 4. Cleanse Warlocks have the second most health in the game. Placing them beside turtles is a good way of absorbing any splash damage from Cannon Towers. 5. Having multiple turtles will help distribute the damage since Towers will always focus the earliest turtle that enters its attack range. 6. Elementals have a very low HP base. If a level has Bog or Stun towers, Elementals don't benefit as much as other units from being within a Cleanse radius. 7. A single Elemental will double your mana regeneration rate. Having 1 or 2 Elementals in your army will help out a lot, but any more and you may be hurting your army composition too much.
Spells
1. Every time you cast a spell, its mana cost will rise. Be conservative with how you are casting your spells to make sure their costs don't get out of hand. All spells have their own individual spell costs, so cycling through your spells will help keep the costs down. 2. The Heal and Quake spell are not very strong in the beginning, but - unlike Stun - they can be upgraded in order to become extremely powerful. 3. Stun and Quake are better used in later waves when towers deal more damage. Heal, on the other hand, is a good spell to cast at any time. 4. Use corners to maximize the amount of units you can heal with the Heal Spell. 5. When fully upgraded, the Quake spell has a massive radius. 6. Unlike the Stun Spell, Quake is best cast when units are in the midst of the turrets.
Units Mammoth Turtle - Cost (10) Unlocks the Mammoth Turtle. A powerful tanking unit which draws the fire of all nearby turrets. Healing Priest - Cost (300) Unlocks the Healing Priest. An aura unit which will heal nearby allies (but not themselves). Shield Golem - Cost (300) Unlocks the Shield Golem Unit. An aura unit which blocks a percentage amount of damage to nearby allies (but not themselves), with a minimum block of 5 damage. Cleanse Warlock - Cost (400) Unlocks the Cleanse Warlock. An aura unit which makes all nearby allies immune to damage from Bog and Holy towers (but not themselves). Elemental - Cost (400) Unlocks the Elemental. A weak unit which gives you bonus mana regeneration every second. Health Upgrades
Turtle HP - Costs (500/1000/1500/2000/2500) Increases the Turtle's total HP from 1100 to (1220/1340/1460/1580/1700). Goblin HP- Costs (400/700/1000/1300/1600) Increases the Goblin's total HP from 400 to (500/600/700/800/900). Healer HP - Costs (400/700/1000/1300/1600) Increases the Healing Priest's total HP from 600 to (700/800/900/1000/1100). Golem HP - Costs (400/700/1000/1300/1600) Increases the Shield Golem's total HP from 600 to (700/800/900/1000/1100). Cleanse HP - Costs (400/700/1000/1300/1600) Increases the Cleanse Warlock's total HP from 800 to (900/1000/1100/1200/1300). Elemental HP - Costs (400/700/1000/1300/1600) Increases the Elemental's total HP from 300 to (380/460/540/620/700). All HP - Costs (1000/2000/3000/4000/5000) Increases the health of all units in your army by (60/120/180/240/300). Unit Special Upgrades Heal Aura Pow - Costs (500/1100/1700/2300/2900) Increases the health regeneration of the Healing Priest's from 7 to (8/9/10/11/12). Shield Block - Costs (500/1100/1700/2300/2900) Increases the amount of damage blocked by Shield Golem's from 15% to (17/19/21/23/25)%. Element Aura - Costs (500/1100/1700/2300/2900) Increases the amount of mana Elementals generate per second from 10 to (11/12/13/14/15).r Upgrades Summon- Costs (150/475/800/1125/1450/1775/2100/2425/2750/3075) Increases the total amount of units you can summon per level from 2 to (3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12). Magnet Rad- Costs (150/350/550/750/950) Increases your coin grabbing radius from 15 to (30/45/60/75/90). Mana Cap - Costs (300/600/900/1200/1500) Increases your maximum Mana Cap from 500 to (700/900/1100/1300/1500). MP- Costs (1000/1700/2400/3100/3800) Begin each level with (100/200/300/400/500). MP Regen- Costs (1000/2000/3000/4000/5000) Increases your mana regeneration rate from 10 to (11/12/13/14/15).
Spells Stun Spell - Cost (150) Unlocks the Stun Spell. A powerful single target spell that will disable a turret for an entire wave. Heal Spell - Costs (600) Unlocks the Heal Spell. An Area of Effect spell which will heal your units for a set amount of HP. Quake Spell - Costs (600) Unlocks the Quake Spell. An Area of Effect spell that will disable turrets for a set duration. Spell Upgrades Heal Spell Pow - Costs (750/1350/1950/2550/3150) Increases the amount of health regained from the Heal Spell from 150 to (200/250/300/350/400) Heal Sp. Aura - Costs (750/1350/1950/2550/3150) Increases the radius of the heal spell from 50 to (60/70/80/90/100) Quake Dur - Costs (750/1350/1950/2550/3150) Increases the duration of the Quake spell from 5 to (6/7/8/9/10) Quake Rad - Costs (750/1350/1950/2550/3150) Increases the radius of the Quake spell from 75 to (90/105/120/135/150)
Special Upgrades
Rainbow - Cost (7500) All units with Auras will now process their effect on themselves. Circus - Cost (7500) Increases the radius of all Aura units from 75 to (100). All aura units now cover up to 3 allies. Wave Mastery - Costs (1500/3000/4500/6000/7500) Each wave, tower damage increase is changed from 15% to (14/13/12/11/10). Spell Mastery - Costs (1500/3000/4500/6000/7500) Cost for all spells reduced from 250 to (230/210/190/170/150). XP Skills Path Infamy - Costs (300/500/700/900/1200) Units drop (105/110/115/120/125)% more infamy on death. Raid Infamy - Costs (300/500/700/900/1200) Earn (105/110/115/120/125)% more infamy for each successful raid.
Hidden Treasures: Cellar Door - Cost (0) Earn 2000 free bonus infamy. Sponsor - Cost (0) Earn 2000 free bonus infamy. Also, if I can find a Villainous walkthrough videos, I will gather them here as well.
Two of my absolute all-time favorite sixties rock songs are 1) Hey, Jude and 2) Bridge Over Troubled Water, the latter of which is sometimes referred to as the American version of the former. Jude came out in August of 1968; Bridge, early in 1970. Best-sellers, award-winners, and the music I came of age listening to, so what's not to like?
They took the three-minute AM pop-radio format and tossed it: 7:11 for Jude, 4:55 for Bridge.
I can play Hey, Jude on the guitar. And after running it through different arrangements, decided that the key of A was best for my voice in its current incarnation, so that's how I sing it.
Once upon a time, I had a half-assed version of Bridge, but the original was, I believe E♭, (that is, three-flats, according to the handy-dandy Circle of Fifths.) Which is not a fun key for guitarists of my stripe (nor any stripe short of serious jazz guys, far as I can tell. It was written as a piano tune, and for the longest time when Paul and Artie sang it in public, they would fly Larry Knechtel, their session guy who played the piano on the recording, in to do just that one number. Must be nice.)
I learned the song after a fashion, playing it with D-shapes and capoing up one to get that E-flat. I managed to get something I could sing ... well, save for about half the high notes Artie could reach and I couldn't get to without sounding like a girl-on-helium screaming in a monster movie.
Hearing my voice crack was not pleasant, and the song fell out of my repertoire.
So I was digging in the songbook and came across it again, and realized that if I–duh–just played it in D without the capo, that half-step down was just low enough that I could hit the high notes, so I'm brushing up on it again. (And leaving out those F-diminished and, especially, suspended-B chords. Take away that third and replace it with a fourth in the Bsus, and it doesn't sound right in this song, better, I think, to skip on to the B-minor. Before, I had trouble playing those chords; now that I can, I don't like how they sound. My arrangement, so I don't have to; not like Simon is going to be listening and shaking his head.)
I'd pretty much wrapped up my discussion of barefoot running a while back, ending on an it-works-for-some-but-not-for-me coda.
Saw this in today's Oregonian, and thought I'd stir the embers a little ...
As part of the story, a local foot doctor was interviewed, and he allowed as how he measured the popularity of barefoot running by the number of patients in his waiting room ...
Yep, it can be beneficial. But it can also be harmful.
Something to consider before you shed your shoes and hit the track.
Me, I believe that this is like a lot of other exercise waves that have washed ashore. When it recedes–and it will–there will be a hardcore group that stays with it, but there will also be a lot of folks who tried it and found it less than satisfactory.
I realize it's only been just under two weeks since we did shrimp, and we try to keep Big Fried to once a month or longer, but catfish was on sale at New Seasons.
And there's really only one way to cook catfish ...
The Last Survivor is a new physics based platform puzzle game from armorgames. In this game, you play as the last creature of your species that has turned into a rectangular green object that has the ability to manipulate blocks with telekinesis. Use this power to get to the other side of the ship where a beam of light will reveal your true form.
The concept of this game is cool and the gameplay is quite addicting but its kinda short so let's just hope that there will be sequel to this where they will feature more levels. Meanwhile, The Last Survivor walkthrough showing game completion is up next.
Escape 3D The Jail is another point and click room escape game developed by bored. Apparently, you were accused of a crime you did not commit and you were prosecuted and is now behind bars. Your goal is to escape the jail with nothing but a rope, some batteries and a vent at your disposal.
This one is one of those escape games that will test your wits and your ability to think out of the box. Anyways, for Escape 3D The Jail walkthrough, watch the video covering some solutions.
Nano War 2 is another point and click strategy game developed by supertoweredefense. This is basically the sequel to the popular Nano War game that came a while ago. Now it comes with even more new ways to play the game. It's about strategically using your cells to take over enemy clusters while upgrading to get more powerful cells.
Its gameplay offers neat experience and tacticaly-wise, its fairly challenging. It's like Tentacle Wars but without the tentacles. If you came here to view the solutions for all levels, see Nano War 2 walkthrough showing game completion.
Crack The Nut is another new physics based point and click funny puzzle game from gamezhero. The author said this is a marvelous game that you will have to use your brain and logic a little bit more in order to crack and solve all the 25 levels it has. It showcases chalky graphics and ambient music that will pleasantly surprise you.
Well, it is indeed one difficult nut to crack and it's hilariously fun. Meanwhile, here's Crack The Nut walkthrough to help you out solve all levels.
Passersby spotted it and flagged down bike officers to point this out, and in this day where everybody has a camera, somebody got a picture.
Want to bet some LEO will need a proctologist's visit real soon?
Hey, Curly, where is the assault rifle?
Assault rifle? I thought you had it, Moe.
No, I don't have it, you had it.
Maybe Larry took it ... ?
Whoowhoowhoowhoooooo!
The story is that an officer was in the police garage cleaning out his car, and laid the weapon on the truck of a second unit as he was doing so. He got distracted, and a second officer came out, got into that unit, and drove off, hardware still perched on the trunk. And the rifle stayed there until he parked and got out, never noticing it.
My. Maybe two guys get visits to the proctologist?
According to the story, this is not a violation of law, but it is of policy:
Rule 231, subsection A) Do not leave your assault rifle on the trunk of another unit while cleaning up ...
Death allowed himself a small, satisfied smile as he swooped gracefully towards the small girl bleeding on the floor. A moan crawled from her lips, barely audible against the clamour of the outer parking lot. Already purpling nicely, a substantial bruise coloured the edges of her right eye, framing the split on her brow that still trickled a small amount of blood.
Parking Lot. Public toilets. Earl Street. 2.15 pm. Just a few minutes early, as usual. Funny, he thought, they don’t always say who it is when you’re on a job. Just a time and a place. Show up, you’re guaranteed a dead body.
But there she was, just the same. His favourite little escape artist, a slippery eel of a girl. His own personal Houdini of Death. A million close shaves, but never a result. Not a close shave this time, though. The blood loss was undeniable. Leaching out onto the wet surface it formed a halo of watery crimson radiating from her waist.
Running a curious finger around the ragged edges of the rips crisscrossing her stomach, he asked the most inappropriate question he could think of.
“Hey, Frankie. Have you got a light?”
"Left coat pocket," She rasped, the breaths coming hard and sharp.
"You shoulda stopped smoking years ago, you know, it'll kill ya."
He sniggered and lit a crisp Cuban.
She tried to raise her hand to flip him off, but it flopped into a pool of watery urine, over flown from the toilets.
With Suzie's Notes
Death allowed himself a small, satisfied smile as he swooped gracefully towards the small girl bleeding on the floor. A moan crawled from her lips, barely audible against the clamour of the outer parking lot. Already purpling nicely, a substantial bruise coloured the edges of her right eye, framing the split on her brow that still trickled a small amount of blood.
Interesting that we're in Death's perspective--and he enjoys his job! There are a few too many descriptors in the above paragraph though. Don't let those weigh you down. And the last clause "framing the split..." feels a little awkward and confusing. Also I'm not sure "girl" is the right word. The first time I read that I pictured a five year old. By the end I was thinking late teens or twenties.
Parking Lot. Public toilets. Earl Street. 2.15 pm. Just a few minutes early, as usual. Funny, he thought, they don’t always say who it is when you’re on a job. Just a time and a place. Show up, you’re guaranteed a dead body.
I like this bit of worldbuilding and characterization for Death. It's concise but it also tells us a lot.
But there she was, just the same. His favourite little escape artist, a slippery eel of a girl. His own personal Houdini of Death. A million close shaves, but never a result. Not a close shave this time, though. The blood loss was undeniable. Leaching out onto the wet surface it formed a halo of watery crimson radiating from her waist.
I like these details, but...If Dead just gets a time and a place and shows up for a guaranteed dead body, how does he know this girl and how has she escaped him? It's a minor thing, but it suggests an inconsistency or a whole in the worldbuilding right at the beginning.
Running a curious finger around the ragged edges of the rips crisscrossing her stomach, he asked the most inappropriate question he could think of.
Now, an important question. Is Death the protagonist of this story or no? (Obviously were this a query, I'd probably know). I'm a little creeped out about him running a finger around the rips of her stomach, and I don't want my protagonist to creep me out like that. But if I'm supposed to be creeped out, good job! I do like that he asks an inappropriate question, and I love that she answers anyway.
And again, I crossed out some extra words. This is me being very nitpicky, and it doesn't matter too much, but you don't want to say something in ten words when you can say it just as well in five.
“Hey, Frankie. Have you got a light?”
"Left coat pocket," She rasped, the breaths coming hard and sharp.
"You shoulda stopped smoking years ago, you know, it'll kill ya."
He sniggered and lit a crisp Cuban.
She tried to raise her hand to flip him off, but it flopped into a pool of watery urine, over flown from the toilets.
Awful image (but good) to close this section. What a way to leave me hanging! Based on this, I'm intrigued and would keep reading to see where this goes. I am wondering if she's inside or outside. The stress on the parking lot earlier had made me think outside. If she's inside, maybe just say Public toilets. Earl Street. Also, you use "watery" twice in this section, and one of them should go.
Yo ho~ wah ga kerasa udah tanggal 28 aja ya? maap baru bisa update sekarang berhubung kemarin saya sangat lelah... huhuhu gomen ne~ oke langsung aja! bagi kalian penggemar jepang pasti ingat dengan acara GJUI yang berlangsung selama 3 hari dari tanggal 24-26 kan? yup, saya pun masih ingat dengan kepadatan dan keseruan event J-fest yang satu ini.
Sudah saya duga kalau event ini bakal sangat ramai, tapi saya sempat kaget waktu ngeliat keramaian yang benar-benar jauh berbeda dari GJUI tahun lalu. Sepertinya event ini sudah sangat dikenal orang sehingga saya sampai kesulitan untuk menembus kerumunan massa. XD
Sewaktu saya baru menginjakkan kaki di area depan GJUI, tiba-tiba saya sudah disambut dengan berbagai macam stand yang rata-rata menjual goodies dan baju-baju dari berbagai macam anime. Pemandangan ini jelas banget beda dari GJUI tahun lalu~ X3 banyak pengunjung yang mampir sebentar untuk sekedar melihat sebelum lanjut ke dalam. Tapi ada juga yang beli sih~ hohoho.
Di event tahun ini sepertinya stand-stand lebih banyak. Stand makanan pun sangat ramai sampai harus mengantri panjang. Tapi lucunya, begitu acara utama di panggung yang terletak di area parkir dosen berlangsung, para pengunjung langsung berbondong-bondong menuju ke sana untuk melihat aksi para cosplayer dan dalam sekejap antrian menjadi lebih lengang (walaupun tetap ramai dan harus tetap mengantri XP).
Di sana juga banyak yang street cosplay ato cosplay yang nggak ikut kompetisi. Mereka jalan-jalan dengan beragam dandanan mulai dari original sampai ke karakter favorit mereka, sambil sesekali berfoto sama pengunjung yang minta foto bareng. Saking banyaknya yang minta foto, mereka sampai sulit untuk berjalan ke tempat yang ingin mereka tuju. Kalo dihitung sih, ga sampe satu meter udah harus stop dan terkadang harus diam di tempat buat foto. Lucu ngeliatnya, tapi kasihan juga sih. hahaha mau gimana lagi? konsekuensi menjadi cosplayer ya begitu. harus siap di berhentikan~ XDD *kyk angkot aja*
Selain cosplay, ada juga penampilan band dan umaku eisa taiko yang tampil bersama yosakoi. saya tidak sempat mengambil gambar berhubung sangat ramai. saya sendiri sampai tidak kedapetan tempat buat ngeliat aksi mereka. huhuhu T__T meskipun begitu, saya tetap senang bisa dateng ke event ini walaupun tidak sampai akhir acara yang ditutup dengan bon odori dan hanabi~ *nangis guling-guling*
Yah, mau bagaimana lagi? berhubung waktu sudah malam jadi terpaksa harus pulang. Tapi saya salut dengan GJUI tahun ini yang sangat ramai dan pastinya seru! oh, hampir lupa... tahun ini obakeyashiki ato rumah hantunya GJUI hadir selama 3 hari berturut-turut lho! Atriannya meni panjuaaang banget. Saya sampai tidak sempat masuk. *kyknya banyak yang terlewatkan* DX
Pokoknya, bagi yang ngga dateng pasti nyesel deh! dan bagi yang dateng, pasti seluruh badan terasa pegal di hari berikutnya. *merasakan hal tsb* XD oh well, sepadan kok dengan acaranya.
Okedeh minna, Shin pamit dulu yo! maap klo ada yang kurang dari update-tan ini krn saya juga gabisa lama-lama di sana. Jangan lupa untuk datang ke acara J-fest lainnya ya.
Ultimate Assassin 3 is a new top down action shooter game from games121. In this game you are an assassin sent from a distant future to eliminate some certain targets, mostly green bad guys. In every level your mission is to take down the green guy and escape. It would be easy if not for the time limit that is based on the difficulty level of the mission. There are different sets of levels from easy to normal and from hard to even more insanely difficult ones.
Like its predecessor games, this one is quite entertaining and offers neat gameplay and fairly challenging levels with plenty of achievements. Special abilities namely speed and invisibility are your best allies. Use them wisely specially in further and harder levels. Anyways, for Ultimate Assassin 3 walkthrough (UA3W) here are some videos I've collected so far.
Marty Greenberg, sometimes called the King of Anthologies, has passed away, after a long illness. There was nobody in the field of science fiction who came within a parsec of the quality and quantity of books he put together and edited.
He was a professor, and later a dean, at the U of W in Green Bay, who eventually became best friends with Isaac Asimov. He came up with and edited all manner of books, SF&F, mysteries, more than 2500 titles, published in 33 languages. Go look, and be impressed.
Everybody who was anybody in our field worked with Marty sooner or later, and he was ever the gentleman and scholar, always trying to get the best deals for his people.
He wasn't a writer, but he was a great story-teller, and I remember a lunch in Portland a few years back that had me in stitches. A smart man.
I first worked with him on the Nimoy book, Primortals, then later on the Asimov-inspired Ibots novel, Time Was (written by Gary Braunbeck.)
I also had the odd story in one or the other of the anthologies, but mostly, I was involved in the ten-book series, Tom Clancy's Net Force. Marty and his guys at Tekno Books took excellent care of me during all of of these ventures, a class-act across the board.
Marty was always looking for a new project, he had more balls in the air than a platoon of jugglers on speed, and now and then, he'd give me a call and pitch one at me. Even once he grew deathly ill with a terrible attack of pancreatitis and was in the hospital, he called with a new idea.
His wife Rosalind and his team, including Larry Segriff and John Helfers, will continue to run the company, but Marty will be missed.
I have a fondness for military science fiction, having dabbled in it a time or three myself, and my guy at Powell's, Peter, will now and then spot an example he thinks I might enjoy and hold it for me. Thus, Germline, by T.C. McCarthy, an advance copy of an Orbit paperback I've just finished reading.
Billed as The Subterrene War #1, which is a clue there will be more, in case you miss the preview of the next one in the back, it's a near-future novel that deals with a war ostensibly over rare metals, between America and Russia.
McCarthy, whose background seems fascinatingly-diverse, and who did a tour as a CIA analyst, offers up what for me is a conundrum: For a first novel, it's well-written and most evocative, grit and grime, worth a starred review at Publisher's Weekly.
On the other hand, the points he wants to make seem to be 1) War is hell. 2) War is really hell. 3) No, I mean it, war is really, really, hell. 4) Even after the war is over and if you survive? it's still hell.
Okay. I get it.
There is a market for the blood and puke and exploded-body-parts-flying kind of war novel, crotch-rot and scaly skin and suits dumping pee and turds on the floor hither and yon, and if you are looking for that, this book is for you.
The protagonist, one Oscar Wendell, a reporter for Stars and Stripes, is a mostly-washed up junkie still thinking he's going to win a Pulitzer when he manages to get posted to the tunnels on the front. He loses that notion pretty quick, as he endures–and that's the word I want–a series of progressively uglier and grubbier episodic adventures demonstrating how awful it is to live in a combat suit for weeks at a time in a place where you can be vaporized at any second.
Where madness and combat fatigue are the norm rather than the exception, the mood ranges from depressed to manic in the space of a couple heartbeats. It don't mean nothing. Any of it ... And you know pretty quickly not to get attached to anybody, because chances are good they'll be dead real soon.
Yeah, yeah, I know that's how real war is. Not about honor, nor glory, and most of us who have written about it even without having experienced it, have pointed that out.
Slaughtering people on a battlefield isn't pretty. It's not Star Wars bloodless, nor should it necessarily be depicted that way; on the other hand, past a point, piling it on doesn't make the story better. And that's what you want, isn't it? A better story?
The germline aspect comes from the clones–all women on the U.S. side, men on the Russian side–who have been bottle-bred as cannon fodder, trained, infused with a hokey dogma, and whose shelf-life is about the same as the replicants in Bladerunner. Disposable people, and most of them happy to be wiped if they survive past their expiration date. (After which, if not killed, they begin to rot, much like a combination of frostbite and gangrene ...)
It's not giving too much away to say that McCarthy must have really liked Bladerunner, because there are echoes of it throughout.
This kind of book raises more questions than it answers, and the biggest one for me was, How did we get to a place that can't be more than a few decades away where we could breed clone combat slaves and happily send them off to die? That's a pretty big leap, and McCarthy doesn't speak to it in this book. He might do in the next, where it seems the protagonist is going to be one of the genetics, aka betties.
There's an aspect of technology in being able to do such medical things that seems to make the notion of grunts on a line shooting at each other seem archiac. (If you can teleport living humans through time and space, ala Star Trek, do you really need photon torpedoes and phaser cannons? Materialize any odd bit of junk you have laying around inside the hull of an enemy ship, and you get a nifty nuclear explosion, no two objects being able to occupy the same time and space and all.
If you can create from scratch a cup of Earl Gray tea, cup and all, from energy? Jeez, that makes the rest of the Enterprise a Model-T by comparison. The ship needs to be way cooler, to deserve that cup of tea.)
If I can create humans from scratch, I can certainly create some nifty viruses and bacteria that will cook enemies like a giant Fourth of July barbecue, wanna bet? And if I don't, why not? I can come up with reasons, but I'd rather the writer did that.
So a mixed review. I like the guy's ability to write. I don't much like the level of ick he offers in this book. It's depressing, and worse, the ending doesn't work for me. It feels tacked-on, and it needed more.
Still, I thought it was worth reading, and I'll look to see what he does next, but this a qualified, and not a rave, review.
Karena berita belom ada yg seru dan posting jadi jarang gara2 sepi saya preview aja ya~ :3
Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni! atau banyak orang yang menyebutnya baka test ni. Dari namanya kalian pasti sudah tau dengan anime yang satu ini~ seperti judulnya "Ni!" yang berarti dua artinya baka test akan meluncurkan sekuelnya. Di sekuelnya ini kebodohan mereka masih terus menyebar di Fumizuki Academy dimana di sekolah ini "nilai mempengaruhi kenyamanan sekolah anda~" dan murid bodoh akan di tempatkan di kelas F dimana fasilitasnya sangat-sangat jauh berbeda dengan kelas A. Pahlawan idiot kita Yoshi Akihisa dengan bangga berada di kelas F dan menjadi pemimpin di kelas F. Di anime ini mempunyai fitur unik (yang sebenarnya rada idiot) yaitu memanggil monster kecil untuk bertarung melawan kelas atas dan mendapatkan fasilitas sekolah yang lebih baik. Monster-monster kecil ini dimiliki oleh semua orang dan nilai test mereka akan mempengaruhi kekuatan monsternya~
Bagi pecinta anime comedy anime ini pastinya tidak dapat dilewatkan begitu saja. Karena kebodohan mereka yang ga ada matinya~ X3 Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu Ni! akan meluncur pada bulan July 2011 di TV Tokyo Jepang, Direktur dipegang oleh Oonuma Shin, Cerita yang ditulis oleh Takayama Katsuhiko dan Seiyuu utamanya adalah Shimano Hiro, Harada Hitomi, Katou Emiri, Mizuhashi Kaori, Isomura Tomami, dan Suzuki Tatsuhisa.
Just got back from the Blues and Brews Festival in Stevenson, WA, in the Gorge.
Beautiful venue, great weather, terrific bands, and outstanding beer. My wife and I and the dogs parked in the campground next to the lake, and had a fine ole time.
The event, which has apparently been going on for eighteen years under various names, is held at the Skamania County Fairgrounds, within walking distance of Stevenson, and probably five or six hundred people hung out at the busiest part of Saturday's sessions.
The local cheerleaders handed out water and sunblock. The football team sold T-shirts, as did the science club, to raise money for a wind generator on the school's roof. No dogs allowed inside the venue on Saturday, but you could throw a rock from the back gate and hit the nearest RV and there were places to walk pups until they got tired.
Lot of goose poop to avoid, too.
Our favorite group was called The Knuckleheads. They did great delta blues. Only songs by dead guys, they announced up front, and they had a groove deep enough to swallow a Mack truck.
Two rules for the band, they said when my wife went looking for CDs after their set: 1) They never rehearse and 2) It's never the same line-up twice.
No CDs ...
Fronting this time was Curtis Salgadao, who is one helluva singer and blues harp player. You get a chance to hear him, go.
Naturally, we bought enough tokens to get a fair sample of the beers and wines, and the craft brewers had some mighty fine stuff. Best of it for me was Walking Man's Walking Stick Stout, which was about the color of expresso and as good as it could possibly be.
Only drawback were the mosquitoes who came out after it got dark, once the wind died down. Fortunately we had skeeter dope in the camper, though I always forget to to spray my head, and with short hair, they go for the scalp. Baseball caps are good.
Got the T-shirt, too. Couldn't have had a better time, though it was noise after the bands shut down Saturday night. Lot of happy drunks in the campground, but no fights. When I got up in the morning to walk the dogs, I was the only person out. Not early risers, blues festival fans, apparently ...
Skinny is a new physics based platform adventure puzzle game developed by atmos. This is a game where you play as the skinny robot whose task is to retrieve batteries stolen by a little brat named Felix. Mama sent you to help her little ones be stable on their chairs by bringing back their batteries. But as you go further you find out that Mama has not been really honest with you. The radioactive, the cancer and the system that she mentions, all of it is a big mystery you have to uncover.
If offers amazingly smooth graphics and outstanding audio. Physics elements are just so neat and puzzles aspect is fairly challenging. It's kind of a short game though but the hunt for secret items can be a tough one. Anyways, if you came here for some help see this Skinny walkthrough showing game completion.
So the Prez has offered up his plan for troop drawdown in Afghanistan and, of course, nobody is happy with it.
D's think it's not enough; R's think it's too much.
I understand his dilemma, but I find myself wondering how a guy who ran as an anti-war candidat,e and who was going to restore the lost civil liberties grabbed by the Patriot Act can get reëlected.
How do you play politics as usual and make it look like something else? War Powers Act isn't applicable to Libya because there aren't any hostilities there? Really?
I didn't expect Obama to get the economy fixed in any kind of hurry, that was too big a bear to take down with the peashooter he has; still, the choice of guns or butter is always with us. People are asking the question, and rightly so: How can we afford to build bridges in Afghanistan but not in New Jersey? With our infrastructure falling apart and a hundred and twenty billion dollars a year going into this generation's unwinnable Vietnam, how can we justify that?
My answer? We can't. Empires have tried over and over to win wars in Afghanistan, and they've all failed. Yet somehow, that horrible disfiguring disease looks better on us.
Has nobody in the government ever read any history?
I think Edwin Starr's lament about war: Good, God, y'all, what is it good for? is much more appropriate than the Battle Hymn of the Republic. War needs to be the last tool in the box we reach for, reserved for that point when nothing else will do the job. Mostly, it's been among the first. We don't get to claim we are a civilized species until we slow down that fast draw and think about it first.
Guns or butter. Bush made that choice for us, and Obama got stuck with it, but he knew it was going to be his problem when he went after the job. Taking down bin Laden isn't enough. I don't envy Obama's tightrope walk, but that was in the job description when he signed on.
Eukarion Tales 2 is a new epic point and click fantasy adventure game from ageofgames. Take on the role of Marcus and Eladen as you journey through dangerous dark forest, caves and other evil dwelling places in your quest to attend to the call of the sacred tree that sounded in your mind. That call showed you a vision of an elf who fought against kaos. Hence the quest begun.
This game offers long hours of gameplay with smooth graphics and visual effects. It's kinda huge that's why it might require you a fast CPU. Start off with side pick up quests from NPCs to get required items for the main quest. Like other RPG, you will level up as you earn experience points from killing enemies and completing quests. Upon leveling up you can then upgrade your stats and build your character abilities and spells. Meanwhile, for Eukarion Tales 2 walkthrough here's what found so far and I am looking forward to update this as soon as new videos goes live.
Causality 4 AKA Casuality 4 is a new point and click stick men puzzle game from bored. This is basically the latest installment in the popular hit Causality game series game. Your objective is to eliminate all of the stick men in the game but there is only one rule to go by and that is don't ever let stick men see each other die or it will be game over.
It's been quite a while since the last Causality game but its come back is worth the wait. Why you ask? Because now there's not only one, not two but three levels with different scenario and environment. And man it gets pretty hard but more fun. Anyways, since the game is still new as of the time of this writing, we're still in the process of collecting Causality 4 walkthrough for levels 2 and 3 so this is all we've got for now.
If you've seen Portlandia, or you live around here, you get it that Portland considers itself unique. Look no farther than Voodoo Donuts. Can't get the Nyquil or the Pepto anymore, but the Cock-and-Balls is still available. It looks like what it says, and is filled with white cream ...
Or you can check out the naked bike ride held every year. Several thousand folks get naked or mostly so and bike through the streets of the city, cops fore and aft.
Imagine yourself on a cross-country trip with the kids driving into the city one evening, looking for a B.K. or Mickey D's and you come around the corner and see this parade ...
Went and saw Gray Lensmen–uh, I mean, Green Lantern–last night. (Hardcore science fiction fans will get the joke ...)
It was fun, I'd give it a C-minus.
So far this summer, the latest X-men entry is the clear winner, for character stuff alone.
GL has a lot of flash, space-opera sensibilities, and nice enough EFX. We opted for the 2D version; aside from Avatar, I haven't seen anything in 3D since that was worth the extra ticket cost. Cameron got it right, nobody else has.
My biggest gripe would be that old notion that the audience is too slow on the uptake to get it, so we have to have the upfront once-upon-a-time voice-over explaining the history and backstory they think we need. Better that was spent on character development, of which there isn't quite enough.
We don't need the set-up. The reboot X-men movie just jumped right into the middle of the story, and GL could have done the same thing. It would have been better.
The story, such that it is, is fine; the villain tragic and sufficiently creepy, and the supporting actors way over-qualifed for their roles. Tim Robbins? Angela Bassett? A waste of talent, what they are given to do.
Mark Strong does a nice turn with Sinestro.
Best piece of hardware is not the suit, which is pretty cool, nor the ring, nor the lamp, but a doohickey in the lab that looks like a roller coaster loop with a single car going round and round for no reason of which I could conceive. Funny.
What sells the movie is whether or not the lead is likable, and Ryan Reynolds, who buffed up for the role, is that. The chemistry between him and Blake Lively (as Carol Ferris) is okay, if not all that hot.
Listen to the soundtrack, and you'll now and then get a sting that sounds a lot like the fanfare music in the first Chris Reeve Superman movie. No doubt in my mind this was deliberate.
When the major villain shows up, the fight sequence is over pretty fast, and every beat in it is predicable.
There's a teaser during the credits that won't surprise anybody who waits to see it, and t sets up the sequel, if the numbers are there to pay for it.
Hey. It's a summer movie, buy the popcorn, turn the brain input knob down to low, enjoy the ride.
