Distractions Along the Way

I’ve been meaning to write up my summary of and reactions to the Doctor Who series finale, but I haven’t quite managed it yet. First I wanted to see the episode a second time, then I wanted to hear commentary on it, then I was procrastinating. It’ll come in good time, I suppose.

In the meanwhile, I’ve been spending far too much time playing Doctor Who Legacy on the iPad. I don’t play many games, and those I do tend to be fairly simple ones, like solitaire, but this one has captured my interest.

The game doesn’t have much to do with Doctor Who. Oh, sure, it has characters that resemble those on the show - Doctors, companions, villains, monsters, good guys, aliens - heck, even the Third Doctor’s Whomobile - and something of a story line, but it’s really Dungeons & Dragons crossed with Bejeweled. Create a team - a Doctor and five allies - and match colored gems in order to generate hit points on enemies. Kill enough enemies before your team runs out of health and you win the level. Repeat. A lot. Over time, other characters and “time fragments” drop, and you level up characters by spending time fragments. The game’s currency is the crystal: sometimes these drop as you play the game, or you can buy them. Either way, you can spend crystals on leveling up characters, buying enhancements to the team (increasing hit points, or increasing resistance to damage, for example), or buying characters. In theory, you can play the game indefinitely without spending a cent, though buying as few as 6 crystals for a few bucks unlocks the “Fan Area,” with access to additional levels and some other perks.

The interesting bit involves tactics within levels and your overall strategy for leveling up characters with different skills in order to form successful teams for the harder levels. For example, some of the enemies might “poison” the team, delivering multiple rounds of damage even after the enemy has been destroyed. Having a team member who can “cure” the poison becomes a necessity.

I’ve managed to complete the first two “seasons” of the game, along with some of the extra material, but the Expert levels are still baffling to me. The enemies have such firepower and other abilities, such as locking gems into place, or “stunning” the entire team (so gem combinations have no effect) for one or more turns, that even advanced teams are wiped out in only a few turns. Well, that’s what keeps it interesting, I suppose.

New Year's Traditions, Growing Older, and Other Observations

I had about an hour to explore in-world tonight, but three crashes later and I decided the Linden Gods were giving me advice about how to spend my time. Some days are like that. What can you do? Work on something else… like typing this.

After Christmas, when more crap comes into the house, I invariably get into the mindset that stuff needs to exit. I don't want to become one of those people profiled on "Hoarders," with towering piles of junk blocking exits to the house, rescue personnel holding their noses at the stink as they attempt to extract my bloated body from the mess.* Consequently, I've been making piles of things to go in the trash, go to the recycling people, and to go to one of the charitable organizations that periodically comes by to pick up stuff. The problem with this type of cleaning is that it's quite tedious to go through piles of paper, piles of books, piles of clothing, piles of linens, piles of whatever and make decisions…far easier to throw it into a corner and deal with it later, which is how the piles arose in the first place.

I've been shedding New Year's traditions one by one, it seems. Once upon a time, I stayed up past midnight, a bottle of champagne in one hand (well, a glass in hand, bottle in fridge) and Dick Clark on TV. That went by the wayside some years ago when I realized (a) I couldn't really stay up that late any more and (b) there wasn't much point in it anyway. Another tradition was to get up late on New Year's Day (hoping the hangover wasn't too bad) and watch the Rose Bowl parade and college football games. Having New Year's Day fall on a Sunday this year scotched that plan, too, courtesy of the Sports Scheduling Gods. So I went shopping instead, picking up, among other things, a new coat and pair of gloves. The day wasn't a total loss.

Also on the bright side: no annoying midnight fireworks from the local children. (Plus one adult, apparently. The neighbors have complained about a guy in a different neighborhood who sets off fireworks whenever he feels like it and spooks the dogs around here. I'm hoping the police had a stern talking-to with him.) Seems like a silly habit, and in the past no two people could coordinate on the time, so "midnight" stretched over about a half hour.

I've been dealing with an annoying muscular problem of indeterminate cause and even more indeterminate cure. Periodically, the muscles in my right shoulder and neck tense up, causing really irritating spasms in my neck, just under my jaw. I've been doing stretches to strengthen the area and increase flexibility, I've been spending less time sitting - particularly at the computer - and less time typing. Of course, for someone whose job and leisure activities largely revolve around computers of one sort or another, the cure is almost (almost, I said) worse than the disease. I'm hoping rest helps.

Now that the holiday season is over, it's back to work five whole days a week. Life is tough, eh?

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* I haven't actually seen "Hoarders," but this seems like the type of show that's on these days.

Relationships are Complicated

It didn't surprise me to see that there were potions - one labeled "I Love You," the other "I Hate You" - to convey emotions, it was that it took vats of the stuff to work.

Spinsterhood. There's a lot to be said for it.

Difference Engines, Large and Small

Should one need a great many calculations to crunch many numbers, a full-sized Difference Engine is always useful. Should one need to crunch difficult-to-open nuts, this size Engine also comes in handy. Note the convenient dial on the front, to measure the steam pressure on the unit.


Of course, having the Engine is not always enough. Sometimes, one wants to communicate with other Engines out there in the world. For those occasions, one needs a connected telecommunications device:

For those times when a large Engine is simply not practical, a smaller, more portable size is often a suitable alternative.

Let it not be said that the 19th century lacks in technological achievement!

Rearranging the Deck Chairs

Buying and selling big chunks of land in Caledon appears to be continuing at its frenzied pace. Perhaps it's just my imagination, or perception warped by experience and the passage of time, but it seems to me that there wasn't nearly as much large-scale land churn when I first came to Caledon - say, prior to the Openspace sim debacle. In my experience, there was always a fair amount of buying and selling individual parcels - people came to Caledon and wanted land, left Caledon and sold land, moved to a different part of the realm, or wanted more land (read: additional prims) where they were, and hence acquired parcels as they became available. I don't recall many duchies changing hands, however.

Nowadays, it's practically a non-event. You, too, can be a Duke or Duchess for a week! I've joked about the Curse of Rothesay before - and Rothesay itself was a result of the Openspace fallout - but things have gotten out of hand. In the past week or so: Miss Urquhart sold the duchy of Westmoreland to Mr. Michigan; the Nachts sold the duchy of Cafall to Mr. Goode, and I heard that Miss Marenwolf acquired enough land to merit the duchess title. This follows on the heels of several other island duchies rising from the depths around Caledon, along with at least two others who have become cumulative land-holding lords and ladies.

This is not a criticism, mind you. As a user of the skies and water around Caledon, I appreciate the willingness of civic-minded folk to pay the tier on these open areas, and those who accumulate large land holdings generally use that land for purposes all can enjoy.

It becomes difficult to remember all these titles, however, and which of our fellow citizens is Lady Piddlepuddle this week. (Indeed, if it were not for the name tags floating gently above everyone's head, acting as the electronic equivalent of a loyal aide whispering names into his master's ear, I would often be grasping for names, much less titles.) More to the point, these frenetic land movements may signal an unhealthy restlessness among the natives that does not bode well for the longer-term survival of our fair nation.

Along those lines, I'll note that Miss Virrginia Tombola announced that she is closing her long-standing shop in Eyre, Cheval Verite, and seeking her fortune on distant shores (i.e., leaving SL). Although I prefer the comforts of motorized vehicles - and I prefer transportation that requires no cleanup afterward - Miss Tombola's horses are magnificent creatures, and we will miss both her presence and her talents.

Steampunk Showcase?

I don't normally look at the "Showcase" tab under Search, but I happened to do so tonight, only to find quite a number of Victorian and/or Steampunk vendors listed, including:

• Mako Magellan
• Grim Brothers
• BlakOpal (somewhat misspelled as "Black Opal")
• RFyre/Silent Sparrow/Bare Rose (okay, not really Steampunk, but popular in these parts)

and, though not a vendor and perhaps not really Steampun, but a fellow traveler,

• Immersiva

Good to know these fine folk are getting some recognition, even if I still can't figure out how that tab is compiled!