penn page 2 - Dave's Blog

Portal is fun; the cake is a lie!

2007 Oct 22, 4:47I purchased the Orange Box off of Steam a bit ago and like others before me who have discussed elsewhere, I already owned two of the five games that come from the Orange Box. However, the combined price of HL2E2 and Portal, the two games I actually wanted was supposedly equivalent to the price of the Orange Box bundle. Incidentally, if anyone would like HL2 or HL2E1 I can gift them to you.

HL2E2 was excellent of course but the big surprise for me was Portal. (Mild spoilers follow) It has a sort of zen simplicity: there are a few simple game-play mechanics, a handful of textures and objects, and a deceptively simple story all used well and tied together to produce an entertaining and polished game. It seems a bit short but its probably better to end with the gamer demanding more. The humor and the sort of play within a play aspect of the game is what really sold me though. It has the funniest ending theme I've heard (also blogged by the creator). The voices of the automated turrets are so adorable I would feel compelled to hug them if they weren't always trying to kill me. Additionally the weighted companion cube seems like an experiment in understanding gamers' attachment to NPCs. In this case the NPC is a box and yet I still felt awful incinerating it. The whole time I was vaguely reminded of Solitary the reality show that sticks contestants alone in small rooms forcing them to endure various tests all the while being watched by a humorous computer with a female voice. Someone should sue...

RPS has articles on Portal including a Portal review, a page suggesting Portal is a tale of lesbianism, and others.hl2e2 game hl2 solitary valve portal nontechnical

Chicken Roundup

2007 Jul 11, 3:52I realized that I have short list of chicken related things I find humorous and they're all available for the linking to via youtube.

Chicken: The Powerpoint Presentation. This is a power point presentation of a research paper written in the language chicken. (video)

Bluth Family Chicken Dances. From the show Arrested Development many Bluth family members had their own chicken dance. (video)

Peter Fights the Giant Chicken. A man sized chicken fights Peter from Family Guy for multiple minutes in several episodes mimicking famous action sequences. I must admire the writers dedication to the gag. (video1, video2)

roundup video personal chicken humor nontechnical

Missing Bee Roundup

2007 Apr 15, 4:06For the past several months I've seen various articles suggesting why bees are disappearing. At first I thought this was another crackpot's article that somehow made it onto digg.com. But they keep coming and sometimes from credible sources. After the article I saw tonight I thought I should go back and put together the various articles I've read on this topic. Bees may be disappearing due to pesticides, new organic pathogens, genetically modified crops, mobile phones, or climate change. Apparently, the US hasn't been keeping accurate counts of its bees so we don't know the extent of the situation. There's an interview with Maryann Frazier, M.S., of the Dept. of Etymology at Penn State and a congressional hearing on the matter.

I know this is all very serious and could signal the end of our ecosystem as we know it, but I can't help throwing in the following links as well. The bees could be hiding in this Florida couple's kitchen. Or perhaps they're laying low while being trained by the government to fight terrorism. Or they're hiding in extra dimensions that we mere humans can't perceive (I'm fairly certain that's what this article is suggesting. Really. Read it. Seriously. Its awesome.)roundup personal bees nontechnical