In Case You Don't Know Who We're Voting For...

James Taylor gave a free concert in Raleigh a couple weeks ago to promote Obama and got the audience chanting this a couple times. Even though Cole says he's voting for John McCain, the two of them keep breaking into rounds of Go, Obama, Go.

Time Wasting Games

Being a software developer I'm constantly connected to the internet while working. There are also some "lulls" during the day where I can't really do much work (code is compiling, tests are running, etc). This leaves me exposed to the evils of the inter-tubes and on occasion I am lured into the dark pits of online games. I'm not a big gamer and most of the things I play are short 5-10 minute games that are very geeky (engineering, strategy or zombie killing) but I thought I'd take a short post to tell you about some of them with the hopes of infecting more people. Remember, wickedness enjoys company :)

Desktop Tower Defense
Build a maze of towers to try and shoot little bug like things as they crawl across your desk. Seems very simple (has a nice hand-drawn feel to it) until more and more bugs start coming. And after you've beaten the easy levels there are lots of variations you can play that are harder or more fun.

KDice
A simple strategy game in the vein of Risk. You protect your territories with stacks of dice and you try to invade other's countries. Most of the time when I'm playing computer games I prefer to play solo (some people get crazy involved with online gaming groups) but this is a nice fun little game where you are actually playing against other people.

The Last Stand
Kill the zombies before they kill you. If you need more information than that then you've never had the pleasure of killing zombies.

Fantastic Contraption
This is a really neat game that will make you want to be an engineer. And if you already are then it will definitely stroke the geeky part of your brain. Each level is a different task of moving a red object (usually a ball) from one part of the screen to the other. To do this you must construct a contraption out of sticks and balls.

If you try any of these out, let me know how it goes. And if you have any other time wasters that really enslave you, let us all know so we can enjoy the chains together :)

A Little Pre-Halloween Fun

A Schmorgasborg of Peters

Michael has accused me of neglecting this blog for my other one, so here are some fun glimpses into life at the Peters' house.

Cole Says...
Cole: I'm voting for John McCain.
Me: I'm voting for Barack Obama.
Cole: I think he's dead.

How Rylan Spends His Time
Rylan loves balls and technology:






Cole and Eli Puppets
I drew these pictures of Cole and Eli for Cole and Eli. They made them into puppets.

Book Review: Thud!

I've been meaning to write this book review for a while now, since I've already read 5 other books in the meantime. That probably says a lot about my personality, but I'm not willing to delve too deeply into that right now...

Thud! is a mix of The DaVinci Code, The Lord of the Rings, a police detective novel (in the vein of Michael Connelly) and a little Brittish humor all baked together to make one tasty cake. Parts of it made me laugh out loud. Parts of it make me think "Ahhh, how cute". Parts of it were page-turningly exciting. But the whole thing kept me locked up and entertained. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Thud! and I can't count the number of times I recommended it to Erin while I was reading it.

In this book we follow Sam Vimes (who besides being my favorite character so far in all of the Discworld books I've read, is the commander of the city guard) hears rumors about the murder of Grag Hamcrusher, a dwarf extremist religious leader. With racial tensions already at a fever pitch between Dwarves and Trolls, this is the last thing Commander Vimes needs in his not-so-fair city of Ankh-Morpork (which has the dubious city motto of "Pure in heart and water"). The book follows Sam on his journey to discover the truth behind Hamcrusher's death and along the way, to solve the mystery of "The Battle of Koom Valley", a painting created by an insane artist named Methodia Rascal.

Thud! is the 34th book in Pratchet's 36 book Discworld series. While it might be intimidating to jump right into the latter part of such a long series, I thought Pratchet did a marvellous job of making the reader familiar with Discworld (the imaginary world where the story takes place). I had read the first book (The Color of Magic) but nothing else in the series before picking up Thud! and I didn't feel lost at all.

I loved Thud! so much that I have since read 4 other books in the Discworld series (The Light Fantastic, Monstrous Regiment, Night Watch and Going Postal) and am currently reading Equal Rites. In fact, I've made it a goal to read all 36 books now. And Terry Pratchet's got my vote for a 37th as well.