I need to type this out to get it out of my system. Distracting myself from my life at the moment, which I don't want to discuss. I decided to try re-playing an old point-and-click adventure game, Sierra's 1989 "Manhunter 2: San Francisco". No one cares about this game, for valid reasons, so consider this a post of pure blather ( Read more... )

Upon trying to re-watch "The Trial of a Time-Lord" Doctor Who season, well, it was too painful. My patience ran out. I think the whole season can be skipped, except that the following spoilers might someday be useful ( Read more... )

An unexpected gift that my parents brought back from Mexico for me was a glass jar of mole sauce, which orleans had introduced me to. After translating the cooking instructions, I understood that its uncooked storage life would be very short after opening the container, so I'd have to use it all in one go. So I mixed up a large casserole/stew with it. ( Read more... )

After Watson played Jeopardy, the developpers at IBM decided to turn their computer protégé's attention to... cooking! It recently came up with a concoction they called Bengali Butternut BBQ Sauce, but all the ingredients were listed by weight. I tried making it the other day, and so I present my modified version with approximate volumes for the ( Read more... )

It looks like I'm going to be getting a Moto E phone, which I'll use maybe three times a year when I go on trips, then leave in a drawer for months on end. I've never used Android before - this comes with 4.4.2 - and I'm looking for app recommendations. I don't need many, but I don't know what the OS comes with, and here's the basic list of ( Read more... )

Any suggestions for an unlocked, GSM Android phone that's fully compliant with Google Play, does GPS and has a removable battery? This is a phone I'm going to turn on maybe 2 or 3 times a year while I'm on trips to cons or to visit family. It's going to sit unused in a drawer for long stretches. Cutting-edge specs and doodads are meaningless to ( Read more... )

I've spent a good chunk of this weekend playing Heroine's Quest: The Herald of Ragnarok, a free(!) indie adventure-RPG lovingly modelled after Sierra's Quest for Glory series, except with a strong female protagonist, and set in the context of Norse mythology. Excellent graphics, pretty good voice-acting and music, and they did a good chunk of ( Read more... )

I want to see a French children's book called "Une journée à la ferme" where instead of learning about all the things you find on a farm, it's about all the barnyard animals telling each other to shut up.

I just stumbled across an online article that interviews an old friend of mine, related to tabletop gaming. We originally got to know each other through doing improv in high school (he was better than me), and later on we were roommates for a couple of months. That nearly killed our friendship; we were both bad roommates, but after a few years of ( Read more... )

So I'm going to be having a movie night at my place, and suddenly I get an e-mail from one of the guests who'll be coming. She asks if I'd mind if one of the guests can use my place to give another one of the guests a haircut, because university students in Winnipeg will do all sorts of things to save twenty bucks ( Read more... )