Inexplicably Wasting Time with Flash Games

I’ve been on a kick with flash games lately, for no particular reason. It is a taste I will acquire from time to time, typically while waiting for more commercial games to either be released or end up in my hands. (For the record, Disgaea 4 can’t come out soon enough, even though I still haven’t even played the poorly-reviewed third installment.)

The best flash games I typically play involve some tongue-in-check humor. For example, Rebuild has you rebuilding with other survivors after the zombie apocalypse. It’s a pretty standard grid-based, turn-based strategy game, but it has multiple endings and a fun amount of randomization. Each game lasts a couple hours, and I’ve played a couple times, enough to get all the badges on Kongregate.

Also high on my list is The Space Game, and its sequel, Missions. Both are simple resource allocation slash tower defense games, except, of course, IN SPACE. If the Muppets have taught me anything, it is that things frequently improve whilst in space, such as Pigs in Space.

I think the simplicity of all three of the aforementioned games snares me in. One of my all-time favorite games is Warpath, which is a fairly forgettable resource management game. It came out for Windows 3.1, and despite a new edition in 2000, it still looks and plays pretty much exactly the same as then.

The game is incredibly repetitively, which makes for a calming rhythm – You mine empty planets, and then put colonists on them. They make money for you, which you can use in a variety of ways: buy weaponry to take over enemy planets, turn them over to your side by buying influence, or invest the money back into your own home planets. The whole thing was basically a very basic version of Master of Orion, or a streamlined, not-crappy version of the space portions of Spore.

The odd thing about all of this is that I’m now far more into various casual games than when I was paid to review them for one of my friend’s sites. And speaking of that, it is weird to see snippets of my reviews from years ago used to poorly cite articles on Wikipedia, like here.
The Rebuild photo comes from this site.

You know I don't speak Spanish, 12 Corazones!

I have no freakin' clue what is ever happening on 12 Corazones, but I really wish I spoke Spanish so that I could enjoy it, or that the subtitles worked on my television so that I could understand what the heck they're saying.

As best I can tell, it seems to be some sort of dating show. However, whenever I'm actually watching, the crazy host (pictured above) seems to be kissing some dude on the cheek, or shouting exaggeratedly, while the audience hoots and hollers. It's like a Spanish mix of Jerry Springer and Married, With Children, and it's all a mystery to me.

I even read the Wikipedia page, and I'm still not entirely sure what is happening. Also, they downplay some of the craziness going on. And also, I feel like every show could benefit from having a Nicaraguan astroanalyst. And also also, the same thing goes with the roulette wheel of kisses. This would really spice up those speed-dating seminars you see.

p.s. A mini-commercial rant: Is there any chance at all that the new Wanda Sykes or George Lopez shows survive more than a year? I feel like both have had about 20 different television shows, and none of them have worked out. In baseball, this would be equivalent to constantly starting Miguel Cairo or Juan Pierre, and convincing yourself that this time, it'll be different, and that it'll pan out. How many times do Sykes and Lopez have to fail before they stop getting work? Meanwhile, somewhere, the casts of Arrested Development and Firefly are wondering

The picture comes from this site.

The Wikipedia groupthink

[Left] The first result on Google Images for "wikipedia monster." Thanks to this site for providing it.

Over the years, Wikipedia has morphed from a quirky, somewhat-encyclopedic place that I could find out everything I ever wanted to know about Top Chef, Top Cat and Topps baseball cards to some weird organization paralyzed by a collective mind. Just in case you can't tell from the wording I've used, and the title of this entry, I'm somewhat against this shift.

Slate reporter Chris Wilson has done a couple good articles, here and here, which show that a small percentage of Wikipedia users are responsible for the vast majority of the edits to the site. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing – The accuracy of Wikipedia has improved as a result, and silly (but funny) things like Stephen Colbert getting everyone to change the elephant page are edited out pretty quickly.

The downside has been an adherence to some destructive policies, namely, the elimination of trivia and fancruft from articles. Maybe it is just because I have a journalism degree, but I think this is the new weak spot of Wiki's collective editing mind. While trivia sections, by their definition, are not important information, they are interesting. I like reading quirky little facts in articles about obscure subjects; they help flesh out characters, whether you're reading a novel or an encyclopedia entry. I understand that the editors are shooting for a collection of objective fact, but why not shoot a little higher and go for a collection of interesting, objective fact? It seemed to work out quite well for Hemingway, when he was a journalist, and George Plimpton.

Because the groupthink has been given the edict to cut down on the trivia, Wikipedia is now a less interesting place for me to visit. Oh, sure – When I want to read up on a certain subject, it and Google are still the two sites I consult first. But it has traded the sheer, utter depth it used to possess for a sort of quasi-professionalism. There didn't seem to be much thought given to the idea of integrating tidbits, regardless of how small they were, instead of making “yes no” value judgments.

And getting personal for a second, looking at some of the edit histories for Wiki's most active editors can be downright scary, in terms of the time devoted. While there should be some praise given for what is an altruistic deed – contributing to a common encyclopedia for all of the Internet to use – I feel that the personality type of such an editor is showing through in the writing. If you have the time, and more importantly the drive, to do so much editing, then creativity and art are probably secondary concerns, and I definitely think this is reflected in the current quality of articles.

Writing orgy

[Left] This picture doesn't have anything to do with anything, but I enjoy it. Maybe you will too.

At times, I'll just go into ridiculous writing sprees. The fact that I'm working a fairly easy slacker job at a driving range right now helps – I sit around for three or four hours, so unless I want to stare out at the grass, it leaves plenty of time for typing, reading or writing by hand. (Yes, I still do that from time to time.)

In a way, the lack of Internet is a good thing, because it forces me to be productive. I sometimes liken myself to Bill James, the baseball statistics pioneer who worked long hours as a security guard. When I read about that, my mind immediately thought, “So he was like me, and had plenty of down time to just sit around and think about baseball statistics.”

When I'm at the range, I am ridiculously productive, and I'm not sure why. As an example, in the previous three hours, I've typed 2,500 words. Most of these words were for three professional pieces that I'll actually be paid for and that people will actually read considering me a “professional” as they read it. That statistic doesn't include this entry, whose 200 words (as of this sentence) I typed in about five minutes.

However, these sprees lead to tremendous lows, and I'm not entirely sure why. For example, when I'm at home I'll often just stare at the empty Word screen for a minute or two, and then immediately find something else to busy myself with. Sometimes, it is in a productive way, such as playing a video game that I'll review later, moderating and posting at the Adam Carolla Show message board, or catching up on some decent journalism at Slate.com. But often, it's just sloth and wasteful on my part – Replaying Final Fantasy 4 or Earthbound for the 700th time, reading on Wikipedia about the X-Men, picking through Roger Ebert's archive for reviews on films I've already seen.

As I just suggested, these moments make me feel a bit slothful and wasteful, but should they? They sort of provide a subconscious reinforcement of my existing thought pattern and generate thoughts for my “idea bank,” for lack of a better term. If my writing and blog entries are full of random wanderings that people seem to enjoy, should I be trying to curb that rambling instinct in what I do in my “free” time?

... This is a sort of abrupt place to end an entry, since I normally go much longer, but that's the extent of my thoughts on the matter. I suppose I should start typing new. But maybe I'll play a game of Tetris instead. (See what I did there?)

My 1960s and 1970s double

In high school, my friend Eric stumbled upon this album cover, Nilsson Schmilsson, from Harry Nilsson. This is notable for a reason - He looks freakishly like me when I grow my hair long and don't shave. Still, not a horrible thing to be related to a guy who hung out with John Lennon, and I kind of like his write-up on Wiki, outside of the whole hard drug usage thing. What say you, blogosphereorers?