So, I’m volunteering at WisCon this year to do something that can hardly even be called “volunteering” for me — I’m teaching / playing board games! This is a new thing at WisCon, so I really, really hope it goes well.
My slots and games are tentatively (provided they don’t need to shuffle them around to accommodate last-minute changes) to be:
Saturday, 8:15pm: Cleopatra and the Society of the Architects
Sunday, 8:00pm: The New Science
Sunday, 10:00pm: Mansions of Madness
I’ll probably bring some smaller things on the side in case we finish games and people want something light thereafter.
If you’re of a mind to, I’d love it if you came out to my games! (Or any of the others — there’s also a Friday evening slot from 8:30pm onward, and the games other than mine that are going to be up are Cranium Caddoo, Game of Thrones, FanFic The Game, Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game, Zombicide, and Zombie Munchkin. There’ll be a poster printed up with the games and times and so on.)
Filed under wiscon gaming me board games
Canada is lifting the lifetime ban on blood donation by gay men, though serious restrictions will remain in place.
Note that although the article specifies gay men, this affects bisexual men as well.
The previous regulations stated that any man who had had sex with another man since I believe 1972 was ineligible to give blood. Ever. (With no regard as to safe or unsafe sex practices, etc.)
The new regulations drop this limit to five years. This will still rule out quite a lot of people, obviously. They say in the article that they realize that many people will feel that this isn’t enough — and it truly isn’t. However, they state that they feel it’s a first step. As long as they follow up with future steps, that should be a good thing.
For me personally, this actually makes me eligible to donate blood, since the last time I was involved with another man was a little more than five years ago. I’m uncomfortable about the restrictions still in place, but I have a relatively rare blood type (AB-), so I will probably start giving again.
Filed under canada blood gay bi queer discrimination
Woman brags about hitting cyclist, discovers police also use Twitter. Full article here.
Filed under cycling safety twitter idiots dumb criminals
Full-time mothers are now eligible to collect a pension in Venezuela.
Robotron: 2084, the game that I’ve been playing off and on in Mame. I usually last less than eight waves, I think? This person holds the current Mame world record (note that the Mame world record requires “tournament settings” — no free lives, internal difficulty set to maximum).
This is a good example of what a lot of video games were like in the 80s: bone-grindingly difficult. You weren’t really supposed to be able to win. It was about how long you could last before losing. Of course, there are still genres these days where that’s the norm (ironically, it seems most common in so-called “casual” games), but I often feel like the wall of challenge has been largely tamed.
For the most part, that’s probably good, especially as one of the reasons for it is to allow great access to the narrative possibilities of the genre. However, sometimes it’s still fun to go back and try to face the cliff.
(Note that Robotron: 2084 is partciularly well-suited to playing using a modern gamepad, since the controls were comprised entirely of two joysticks. Sadly, my other classic arcade favourite, Tempest, is next to impossible to get a decent experience of at home without buying an actual cabinet, because the endless, weighted paddle is a really necessary part of the experience.)
Filed under 80s video games robotron
Well, it was a holiday up here! What did I do? Mostly game. :) I did get out for about an hour of weeding around noon, and I culled some of my old clothes a bit, but it was primarily a pretty laid-back day in front of the computer. I finished playing Costume Quest (and the Grubbins on Ice expansion), which I got as part of the Humble Double Fine Bundle for a bargain of a price. It was thoroughly delightful — a very simple game, but fun and charming. I fiddled a little with Stacking, which I got in the same bundle, but wasn’t in the mood for. Then I played several rounds of Robotron 2084. I seriously do not know how people ever develop enough skill in that game to last more than a couple of minutes. It’s intense!
I suspect that the rest of the evening is going to be split between getting some work done on my cross-stitch project and possibly doing some reading. :)
alcindora:
mousesinger:
offbranddrugs:
electronicanonsensica:
Everyone is missing the biggest problem here.
Fuck the ads. Fuck the links. Fuck the email stuff.
Yahoo explicitly forbids pornography and sexually suggestive material on their websites and all affiliates.
That means no more porn on Tumblr.
So I could potentially go into any tag and not see porn?
I willfully accept my new yahoo overlords.
You mean I can read Tumblr on my iPad in public?!
that’s the opposite of a problem!
The funniest thing about all of these Yahoo-buying-Tumblr doomsday posts is the way they exist in an alternate fairytale universe.
Go to Flickr sometime and then tell me that there’s no porn on any Yahoo services. For the uninitiated, it’s actually probably *easier* to find porn on Flickr than on Tumblr.
(via becktasm)
