Nappi

If anyone is still wondering what to do with their free audiobook download (http://www.audiblepodcast.com/wizard), I can heartily recommend Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Jeremy Irons' narration is quite incredible. (Don't worry. The pompous voice at the beginning of sample is that of a fictional publisher and not of Humbert Humbert.)

I think you can return to the main menu after you have started the tutorial and start a new city.

They could throw a couple of Japanese kids into the mix as well. Also: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/03/31/japan-why-does-mario-move-from-left-to-right/

Someone should perform an experiment where kids of various ages are asked to draw a car moving forward, in order to see what percentage of them draws the car going from left to right and whether this choice starts to dominate only after a certain age. Actually, I'd be very surprised if an experiment like this hadn't been carried out already.

Intimidation and extortion confirmed! Congrats Nick, you really did it this time.

There is fireworks when you upgrade your Town Hall or Major's Mansion. It doesn't feel the same, unfortunately.

The global trading was very confusing at first. I didn't even realize it was there until very late in my first city (which ended up in a nuclear disaster). I have loads of buildings related to trading but I have no idea whether I'm making money or losing it. I'm sure there is screen that tells me exactly that, but I haven't bothered to check it out yet because so far I'm doing good. I'd say that this is a minor complaint compared to the server issues, but I'm really disappointed by the lack of New Year's fireworks in this game. In SimCity 4, I remember watching those tiny sparks from my god-view and feeling somewhat responsible for those tiny people that cared so much about an arbitrary date that meant practically nothing to me as a player. I bet they thought the fireworks filled the entire sky. I like the Antarctica server. I bet it caused nervous laughter at the Maxis office.

Yeah, I built a nuclear plant in one city and soon after that demolished the coal plant that had been providing electricity for both cities in the other. I couldn't get electricity in the city that used to have a coal plant in a long time because the game didn't recognize that there was (excess) electricity in the other. Of course, soon after I got that issue sorted out, the alarms went off. Apparently, the personnel in the nuclear plant wasn't qualified enough. I didn't have time to react to the situation because I was deciding where to put my mayor's mansion, and the reactor core melted. Typical.

I haven't noticed any negative effects. Just the wave of euphoria that ripples through the neighborhood when I place fancy parks in the area. You should obviously place the structures over houses whose occupants are not happy with your efforts.

According to the customer service guy (to whom I was able to vent my frustration after an hour of queuing) you can continue building your city on a different computer because the information is stored in the server. This also means that you always have to use the same server unless you want to start anew. If that particular server is down you can't just connect to another one and continue playing. Keep this in mind before you decide to try that Oceanic server because every European server is full. The fact that they had to disable the fastest game speed does indeed sound quite worrying. I'm curious to learn more about the server implementation as well.

Is there anything to suggest that this is the case? I'm not saying there isn't, I'm genuinely curious. I spoke too soon when I said that things went surprisingly smoothly for me. When I got home from work, I was not able to play one minute of SimCity. I hope that EA gets as much shit as possible for their server fiasco. The amount of pre-orders simply couldn't have come as a surprise to them. On the other hand, I sure would like to play the game over the weekend.

Mine unlocked today. I think UK copies unlock on Friday. The installation was much smoother than I had expected. I was even able to start up the game.

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/06/deus-ex-the-fall-trademarked-while-human-defiance-points-towar/

I almost said Julia Roberts, but I would have had to kill myself if that turned out to be true. The thought of Cruz giving Molly her usual sensual Spanglish treatment, just cracked me up for some reason.

Just, wait until you hear who is cast as Molly.

I think he prefers Marky Mark.

You are not lying.

I missed most of the instructions (e.g. how the duels work) in Red Dead Redemption because the developers decided that the tutorial stuff should appear in the upper corner only. I'm currently replaying the Witcher 2 and I find the tiny battle log in the lower right corner completely rubbish. When I'm focused on the action at the center of the screen my mind doesn't even register the new lines. Fortunately, the information is completely useless too, except for the occasional reminder that you are using a wrong type of sword. So yeah, I think I would miss most of that glues if the developers decide to stick with that stupid 90s UI.

Damn.. I just paid for an extra month of Audible because I tried to cancel my membership in a hurry and didn't notice you had to press "Continue Cancelling" several times. Now I feel 85 % stupid and 15 % cheated. So if you are planning on cancelling your gold membership after the free trial, make sure you do it properly. It's a nice service but I find it increasingly difficult to focus on audiobooks. I missed much of For Whom the Bell Tolls, and now I will use my unwanted token to miss large parts of Lolita.

Why would you steal pabosher's nickname? That's such a dick move. I miss pabosher.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/27/oh-my-god-jc-a-trademark-deus-ex-human-defiance/

Heh. My view of Conan was kind of the opposite, and I was therefore expecting the review to be all about creepy jokes and drooling over Lara's ass. Fortunately, I was at least partially wrong. Admittedly, I haven't watched the show in a long time, and my view of his humor might be completely inaccurate.

I think Douglas Adams' comment on The Sirens of Titan is applicable to many of his works. Very much so for Bluebeard which might actually be my favorite Vonnegut novel now that I have had time to process it. Dark matter (via Wikipedia)

I'd say Inherent Vice is more accessible than The Crying of Lot 49. On the basic level, the plot is quite traditional and easy to follow. Pynchon's strange, masterful writing is definitely still there, though. It might be "Pynchon Lite" but I still enjoyed it immensely. Oh, and Paul Thomas Anderson is directing the movie adaptation of Inherent Vice, with Joaquin Phoenix (and, thankfully, not Robert Downey Jr.) in the lead.

I have been very happy with that case. It is quiet and cleverly designed. And like n00js, it is actually quite cheap as well.