Every part in its place

I have a deep fondness for puzzle games and finding out how things interact, and the game Grow (both the original and the games that followed) does this better than any other game I've found. The goal is to find the optimum order to activate the different elements, but since everything affects everything else, this is WAY more enjoyable and challenging than you might think (after all, if you don't get the lake big enough before the sun shows up, you end up with something of a desert). I wait with perpetually bated breath for the next instalment.

Grrr! Arrr!

I have a huge fondness for zombies. Zombie Walks (I swear I will go this year), Zombie movies (Fido), Zombie spoofs (Shaun of the Dead), and Zombie video games (Hunter the Reckoning anyone?) are all equally adored. I even have truly epic Opinions about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (also, the movie is coming up! I look forward to having Opinions about that too).

So it should surprise no one that I have spent far too many hours over the past couple of days playing
Rebuild.

In this tiny flash game, you carefully direct your survivors so that you can reclaim a city and not be devoured by the ravening hoards outside your walls. Pure bliss. But like Mardek, don't click on it if you have something else you were planning on doing today. You've been warned.

Upcoming marathons: Walking Dead (I will almost be in time for season two)
Upcoming shows: TyLean and thOrN at the Avantgarde Bar
Upcoming craft shows: Originals at Landsdown

Level Up!

If you too love a well balanced fight to kill dragons, arrange your inventory, and increase your skills, let me strongly recommend the RPG game Mardek, which is not only funny and irreverent on all those classic RPG tropes, but can also be played online for FREE!

Mardek 

And the best part is that there are three VERY substantial chapters so far. But, I'm going to let you in on a secret. Although you can find this game on a number of websites, I encourage you to start on Kongregate. This is because it is the only website with Chapter 3 and you don't want to have to play through the whole thing AGAIN just so you can bring your favourite sword *embarrassed cough*

To any of you who had other things they needed to get done... I'm sorry.

Poetry update: Walt Whitman was lovely, as always, and I may have become somewhat emotional while reading "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking": 

That is the whistle of the wind—it is not my voice;
That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray;
Those are the shadows of leaves.

But I am very excited for Emily Dickinson next.

Shopping Trip

This Sunday announced early that it was going to be grey and rainy and just a bit cold. I had initially had plans to go down to Raw Sugar, my favourite coffee shop down in Chinatown, and noodle about on my laptop, but when three rolled around and I was barely up and out of bed, (although I had completely finished The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner), I cancelled those plans and invited friends over for board games instead.

This had the double benefit of yay games and providing incentive to clean my kitchen/bathroom/tidy the gooddamn living room. My bedroom may still look like a tiny clothes explosion, but my living room has managed to get most of its floor space cleared (unpacking=hard).

Unfortunately, I promptly realized that although I was in possession of plenty of party games, I did not have any of the games ideal for three people and a bottle of wine. So I marched out my door to Fandom II, the nearby boardgame shop, and picked up Pandemic, the game I have been hopelessly addicted to for months. This game is beautifully balanced, which in my book means you actually end up losing a lot as you frantically work with your team mates to cure diseases and stop the spread of infection. (for those of you who know, yes of course Play Games was on in the background. Certain mix tape traditions should never die)

So my apartment is as clean as if has been since I've moved, I made chili for lunch tomorrow (it could, however, be spicier), and I have added to my board game collection. Today = success.

Tomorrow's Plan: get fed awesome Indian food.