one of the VERY BIG DEALS regading EVE Online is that we pretty much have one server (really single shard with multiple servers for those of you who prefer the old school MMO way of describing things) for all players to play on. EVE has close to 250,000 accounts, and all 250k players play on Tranquility, which really isn’t that tranquil if you consider all the Alliance battles we have going on all the time (not to mention pirates and the like… they are, believe it our not, people, too!). Single shard allows all players to have the opportunity to play together, which is an extremely shocking concept, apparently, in the MMO industry, which tends to fall backon the multiple shard idea of “we really can’t/won’t spend the time figuring out l337 technology like EVE does, what with it’s StacklessIO and EVE64, and so we’ll just have our players fragmented across various shards called “Muttonchop” and “Dingo Baby Eater.”"

EVE, therefore, is relatively painless in its downtime. When ops needs to add something, they’re not running around trying to get stuff uploaded on hundreds of hundreds of servers across several different continents; they’re simply battling snowstorms in one location.

I’m currently checking out Warhammer Online, which is an MMO by Fairfax, VA developer [EA]Mythic. I’m really enjoying my time in WAR. Mythic has brought some things to the table, such as public quests and open Realm v Realm combat, which makes me smack myself on the forehead because these are such obvious design elements it shocks me that they’ve never been seen in a major MMO launch before. These are duh mechanics, as in “duh, why didn’t you think of this before.” This is because I am, truth be told, dumb.

As I write this, it’s 7:13 in the AM on a vaguely snowy Sunday. The previous storm’s ice and snow still blankets the area, and my heat has been working overtime for the last few days. During the week at this time, I can be found working: answering petitions, checking out the forums, abusing my boss… typical stuff. But it’s the weekend, my weekend, and I tend to do whatever I want with it. Normally, that’s either read or play games (which is, coincidently, exactly what I do when I’m not working!). But now I write. And in a bit I will read. Why?

because fucking Warhammer Online is undergoing an emergency server downtime to hotfix their bugs [Update: they estimated 4 hours, but it took half that time. bravo]

See, if they were cool, like EVE Online is, they wouldn’t have people across a couple of continents scrambling around installing server updates on hundreds and hundreds of machines for several dozens of shards. They’d have launched with similar technology that EVE has that would severely limit the number of shards required to handle their customer base, and would have very cool technology that would help limit severe lag in super busy hubs.

Mythic is not CCP, so I’m now waiting FOUR HOURS to play their stupid game! At least I dinged 22 right before downtime began =P

and my boss. truly.

i’ve been blessed with a great job, one that i really love and enjoy tremendously. i work with a great team of passionate, smart, intelligent, funny people who also love their job. and i have a great boss who is amazingly wonderful. and i’m not saying any of this because: my job performance review is due or because my contract is up for renewal at the end of the month =P

i’m actually saying this because it is true. for years i heard nothing but how great the company is from Val, and i always took it with a grain of salt. but i can totally see that she’s not as completely insane as i thought she was. and that ccp is a fucking great company to work for.

case in point: a UPS delivery. my birthday is sooner than you think, and in general i don’t celebrate it. always something crazyfuckedup happens. for my 24th, katia and i went to the movies (i think we saw kate winslet’s first film) and found out my grandfather’s cat’s head got squashed by a car. that’s a good summation of pretty much all 36+ birthday’s i’ve witnessed in my lifetime.

so generally i play the bday downlow. i rarely ask for gifts, and am happy if i get a phonecall from friends and family.

therefore i was quite surprised when i was woken up late this afternoon by some pretty severe pounding at my door. it was the UPS guy with a delivery for me. only i hadn’t ordered anything. the box itself was not only extremely HUGE, but extremely light. that was because it was holding a large gift box. it took me a second to realize what it was, because i was fairly unawake still. I opened the card, and this is what i found:

Happy Birthday! You’ll fit more images on this card. - Christian

ohmygodwhatthefuckbarbeque

i’m still shocked, surprised and other “s” words. this man is amazing… he got me a 16 gig SD card for my new camera!

but i’m ahead of myself. here’s the unwrapping…

this big box isn’t full of empty, but it is full of more unwrapping

yay! happy birthday!

thank you SO much, Christian. this is the best present EVAR! and thank you for being such a wonderful and surprising boss

well, not really a saga. more of a chronicle. i’m not going to be here long enough to do any viking dramatic battles with great gods and mythological beings.

as many know, i’m in iceland because of my work. this is not only my first trip to reykjavik, but only my second trip outside of the US. unlike my first trip, which was to paris, i am not a tight ass, high strung, omfg they don’t speak english asshole. i’m taking it all in stride, which is really great and refreshing for a general douchebag like me.

i arrived quite early saturday morning. because we had some turbulence throughout the flight, i didn’t get a chance to sleep, but it was really a nice flight despite that. i don’t fly too often, but my flights have always been plagued with delays, mostly of the passenger kind. everyone takes their sweet ass time getting to their seats and fighting with the overhead compartments and whatnot, so take off usually takes a while. icelanders are no joke. they get to their seat, stow their shit, and we’re off. my flight actually arrived ~45 minutes earlier to keflavik than scheduled. nice.

the road from keflavik to reykjavik was, well, dark. despite arriving early in the morning, iceland is subarctic, and so sunrise wasn’t due for a few hours. i was shocked/amused/offended to see a subway sandwich shop, although i think my response was more tempered by that fantastic fucking subway i got the night before (a feast… that’s actually what it’s called: feast). the drive was about an hour or so through what i believe is fields of long-dead lava. there were few buildings, and even less trees, on my way to the city. i did pass some sort of large metal refinery complex, which i believe is a big industry here. and many bonus stores. bonus is a chain of discount supermarkets, and i’m completely in love with their mascot: a large piggy bank. iceland, from my little experience, is filled with quite a lot of rather cool logos.

when i got to the hotel on saturday, i was surprisingly met by val. she wasn’t expecting to see me, and i wasn’t expecting to see her, so after checking in and putting my suitcase in my room, i joined her for a great and very welcome breakfast in the breakfast room. then i went upstairs, unpacked, and promptly fell asleep. she woke me up to see if i wanted to go to the office, but i opted to sleep a few more hours. around 1p or so christian called from the desk, and after stumbling around my room, i made my way downstairs to have lunch with some of my  co-workers.

it was an american style restaurant. i had a chicken burrito, which wasn’t a real burrito, but tasted good. the highlight for me was that i got to meet Dr. Eyjo, who is the game’s economist. he is a brilliant man, and i’m greatly impressed with how he has legitimized MMO games simply by existing. with us at lunch was also ned and kelley, who i’ve met before and emailed from the home office in nyc. it was an extremely good lunch.

then i got a walking tour of sorts to the office, along reykjavik’s waterfront to the wharf where our building is located. being from a city of islands, i’m most comfortable by the water, and really enjoyed the walk, especially because all these great boats were docked. val pointed out a really great irony: a whale watching boat across the dock from four whale hunting boats. iceland is a great place for such dichotomies

photos don’t do the office justice. it’s an amazing place filled with IKEA, large windows and decks that overlook the harbor. i loved seeing the very “fleet” of ships that participated in the infamous [wikipedia: cod wars] docked right outside our office. one ship is actually on blocks, and because we were at low tide i could see this. the ship itself is in great disrepair, rusting and weeds growing on her deck, but i was amazed at it’s majestic beauty. i’m weird like that.

before sunset, we treked to a supermarket (not Bonus, but i forget the name). if this is a typical icelandic supermarket, wow. it was clean, filled with large aisles, but overall much smaller than your typical american supermarket. it was clean, everything was in its place, and efficient. this  is a great country

i wound up sleeping on sunday for pretty much the entire day, except for breakfast, getting dressed (which is how i know that i didn’t really intend to sleep ALL  day), having my room made up etc. i was a little tired, and wanted to nap for a few hours because it was one of those lazy, rainy sundays. but i wound up sleeping pretty much until 10p or so, and couldn’t fall back to bed, no matter how hard i tried.

that would have been a good opportunity for me to check out some lazy icelandic culture, but the tv in my room doesn’t work, and there’s no alarm clock for me to check out what goes over the airwaves. yes: a hotel room without a click. i don’t understand this either. i hope to get my television fixed today so that i can watch the election results, or whatever.

monday was my first day at the office proper with other co-workers, and it was a little overwhelming seeing so many people and whatnot, in part because i haven’t worked in an office in YEARS. i got to meet nic, who is one of our forum reps (meaning: he and i are teammates), and phil, who works in our shanghai office but is not a CCP employee. (he’s also an american living in shanghai, so i had a shitload of questions for him, and still do! nic is british living in guatemala, so i have less questions for him, heh).

lunch was some sort of fish stew thing, so i happily stayed down at the desk that i’m squatting at. dinner was with phil, nic and val at a fish and chips place across the street from the office. i only had chips, which completely shocked the cook because i’m probably the only person ever who’s requested fish and chips without the fish this apparently jinxed out meal. the waitress arrived at our table with glasses and soda bottles for phil and val, and promptly broke a glass. then val’s soda exploded when she opened it. sorry for the jinx, guys.

on my way back to the hotel i took some night photos. not many tho. since this is my first trip (of hopefully many, knock on wood) i’m really just doing the hotel-office-hotel tour.

many have asked about the weather. is it cold? yes, but it’s kinda like NYC in december, so it’s been perfectly easy for me to deal with the chilly wind. rain has been visiting quite often, and the streets have been slick with north atlantic rainfall. in fact, it’s raining right now. but icelandic weather is notorious for quickly changing, so one moment it could be a fine mist, and the next moment the sun breaks through the ever-present clouds, and then it starts raining up. clouds and wind. that is how i’d describe icelandic weather. but it hasn’t penetrated my soul (yet?).

i also quickly appreciated those who have been born and raised here. this is a rock that really demands that you’re rugged, hearty, and loving it. seriously. every native here that i’ve met has just had the best disposition. iceland is a country filled with just wonderful things, and if it wasn’t that i know that the weather gets much, much colder, and the days considerably shorter, i could totally see myself living here.

the game programming class is tasked to hand in a second game project next Thursday, and I was going to hand in a newer version of Outlaw, but while I have movement down, as well as collision detection, i don’t actually know how to “fire” a gun yet. so i came up with the idea of Space Hookers, a scroll game.

here’s the basics that I pasted in response to Christian’s query on facebook:

yes! the emperor has come and made a surprise visit to your sector. his fetish is to hire prostitutes and read them Vogon poetry. When they respond negatively (and they always do), he air locks them.

You are a lowly space garbage collector, and you’ve been tasked to collect the “debris” in your jalopy of a space garbage ship.

All the while avoiding asteroids that for some reason I tossed in for the heck of it

I will preface this by saying that I am not a Daily Kos reader, although I am aware of its presence. I am, however, a progressive liberal, which will probably mark me as a target, but so be it.

The subtitle of “Taking on the System” is “Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era.” While Moulitsas does provide some bullet points on what one should or shouldn’t do in order to be a proactive citizen in the United States, he limits these “rules” to the start of each chapter, as a sort of here’s-what-you-want-to-do brief guide. He then uses examples of situations, both political (e.g. campaigns) and cultural (e.g. Fiona Apple’s “Exquisite Machine” album debacle), which demonstrate successfully, or unsuccessfully as the case sometimes is, the “rule” in question.

This is what actually made the book interesting for me. I was thoroughly interested in reading Moulitsas’ take on recent political and cultural history. While liberally slanted, he does toss in a positive conservative example here and there, making the book a bit more balanced than I think some more liberal Kos fans might appreciate.

I do have to wonder where this book will be five, ten years from now. Will it just be some forgotten manifesto that has no bearing on the future, or will it simply be used by the occasional cultural scholar as they research how people thought about their era. My feeling is that “Taking on the System” will be used in the latter form. Regardless, I found the book interesting and entertaining in the current era.

there’s a lot of squawking about david blaine, the so-called stuntman who likes to say he’s a magician or illusionist (he’s neither). people are pissed off that he’s taking breaks at pre-determined times, rather than struggling thru all 60 hours of hanging upside down straight.

getting into guinness has given me some insight into this so-called controversy. the guinness book of world records requires all endurance participants to take short 10 minute breaks at specific intervals. for example, if you’re trying to make/break the record for the longest time playing poker (which the author did), you have to take a 10-15 minute break every two or three hours, else the GBWR will disqualify your attempt, even if it’s successful, because you are putting yourself at serious risk. the same is true for, say, distance rolling an orange with your nose on your hands and knees, and, no doubt, hanging upside down for an unreasonably long period of time.

now, i’m no fan of david blaine. i think he just does stupid shit for attention. he’s most probably a mashocist. who else would entomb themselves in a block of ice, or hang upside down, for any period of time, except for this moron. but to me, if the GBWR allows a person who is trying to make or break a record the opportunity to take short breaks for excretion of wastes, stretching yourself out, and taking in a little gnosh, then that’s not cheating at all. that’s playing by the rules. even for morons like blaine.

I primarily picked up this scanner because I want to digitize my photos via their negatives. I was also pleasantly surprised by some of the other things that I can do with this scanner as well. But first: putting it together.

It’s fairly easy to set up the scanner. Simply take it out of the box, plug in the plug to power the top of the unit (if you’re using this to scan negatives, you’ll need this backlight, for everything else you can keep it unplugged), plug in the power cord and get the USB ready. Note: there is a lock that covers the USB, probably to help protect it if you were going to be traveling a lot with you scanner (who would do that, I don’t know, it’s too big for easy travel), so you will probably have to slide that over so you could access the USB port. Be sure to take off all the blue tape, both outside of the unit as well as on the inside cover of the top. Also note that the inside top cover has a lock as well; this is for the scanner head, and you may have to unlock it prior to actually scanning (I did).

Before plugging in the USB to my computer, I installed the various driver and application components on the CD. This actually took a lot longer than expected. I have a fairly fast PC with a 52X ROM, and it took close to five minutes to install the various applications (Creativity Suite, FineReader 6.0 Spirit (an OCR program), the scanning application and the User’s Guide). There is also an accompanying CD with Adobe Photoshop Elements (4.0 for Windows, 3.0 for Mac), but as a Photoshop CS3 user, I didn’t bother to install this.

Registering the product is fairly easy. The unit’s ID can be found on the back left of the unit. Be warned that you will be taken to a Web page offering a discount on an unrelated product with a big download button; you don’t actually need the product and don’t need to download more stuff.

Since I purchased this primarily for scanning negatives, this was what I first tried with the unit. The scanner comes with two holder plates, and you can do 35mm film negatives and slides on one plate, and medium film on the other. I was scanning 35mm color negatives, and so I placed them in the appropriate holder and snapped on the top of the holder. Scanning the negatives straight away is fairly straightforward. You simply press the scan button on the front of the unit. This will start the Epson Scan application, and you’ll be able to set various things that will allow you to get the best scan possible (more on this below).

I’m going to take a break here and detail the error I made in my first attempt to scan negatives so that you, kind reader, do not make the same mistake. After putting the negative holder on the glass, I removed the reflective back from the top of the unit to expose the light area (fairly simple to remove it and put it back on, even has a handy little handle at the top, too). What I didn’t notice was that each section of the holder has a letter corresponding to where you should place the tab on the corresponding indent on the unit. 35mm negatives use the “A” section, and I had placed the holder on the “C” section. I kept getting an error message saying that it couldn’t see that there was a document to scan. This confused me for a bit, and I wound up using the Home and Professional modes to see if I could get my negatives to scan. When I had unchecked the thumbnails feature for preview, I saw that only the slides area was being scanned. I then realized my error, and adjusted the position of the holder on the tab indents accordingly. The top unit only has a small glass area for the top light, and so the scanner, obviously, will only scan that small area. You can actually see this in the photograph of the unit on the Amazon page. Once I corrected my error, I had no problem scanning my negatives.

Back to the Epson Scan application. There are three options for you to choose from: Auto, Home and Professional. Auto simply auto-detects the type of document you are trying to scan and uses default settings to produce the preview of the document. Home and Professional are for photos and negatives. The difference between the two is that Professional provides you with more options to choose from so that you can get the best scan you require for your needs. Unless you’re into heavily working your photos, your best bet is to go with the Auto feature.

Scanning photos and documents is also quite easy. You need to make sure that the reflective piece is on the top of the unit. This will also ensure that your document does not move around on the glass. Scanning, again, is simple as pressing a button.

I wanted to try out FineReader with this unit, as well as the PDF button. For FineReader, I loaded up the program, and pressed a button within it (Scan), to get the document scanned and loaded into FineReader. I was easily able to get the OCR to work nicely with the document without problem.

For PDFs, I simply pressed the PDF button. This brought up a different PDF-specific application with a different dialog than the scanning application. Because the unit does not have a feeder, you will have to manually scan individual pages yourself. Creating the PDF then requires you to simply press the finish button; the document is then placed in your My Pictures directory if you are a Windows user. It would be nice to be able to state where you want the file to save, but that’s a minor flaw.

I also attempted to import a scan within Photoshop. I’ve done this before with other scanners, and Photoshop had zero issues with the scanner application, and everything worked smoothly.

There is a third button for email, by the way, however, I don’t have email set up on my machine and so I did not test this feature out.

I’m very pleased with this product. I found the scans to be quite sharp, and the scan process to be intuitive. I can see a novice with scanners not having too much of a problem with this unit, save for the holder issue I discussed earlier.

(btw, i got this for free from the Amazon Vine program that I belong to.)

I just learned Dutch Flash artist extraordinaire Hans Hoogerbrugge (http://www.hoogerbrugge.com/) has finally published a book and DVD combo focusing on his work called Modern Living. Hoogerbrugge is well-known for his Modern Living series (2001 - http://www.hoogerbrugge.com/ml/), Nails (ongoing - http://nails.hoogerbrugge.com/), and the extremely odd Hotel series (2004-2006 - http://www.hoteloscartangoecholima.com/). His art can be macabre, confusing, and yet always amusing.

I’ve been following his work for years, so the news that his book is finally out, and includes a DVD, totally makes me happy.

Firstly: whichever marketing “genius” decided to promote this book as a retelling of Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” should be publicly humiliated. After reading the first chapter of the book, the reader, especially if he or she has even the slightest knowledge of Chaucer’s classic, will clearly see that, aside from the fact that this book takes place in the Middle Ages in England, and a group of strangers wind up traveling together (towards completely different locations) telling each other the occasional tale, “Company of Liars” has nothing to do with Chaucer and his stories. Trying to push this circle into an ancient square only does “Company of Liars” a disservice. It deserves to stand on its own two feet.

Having gotten that out of the way, I loved reading “Company of Liars.” Karen Maitland does an excellent job of bringing us into the world of the Black Death and our heroes, nine strangers who band together in an attempt to outrun the plague. Each character, a Camelot (our narrator), a master musician and his pupil, a magician, a journeyman painter and his pregnant wife, a crippled storyteller, and an extremely odd runecasting child, are all wonderfully fleshed out and unique. Each has an extreme secret they hold close to their breast, and as the story progresses they are somehow inspired by circumstance (don’t want to spoil too much) to reveal their secret, sometimes clandestinely, right before their mysterious deaths. And along they way they are hounded by a never-seen wolf who is tracking them, haunting them with cries in the night.

At first I wasn’t sure if I would like the book. I had once taken a nightmare of a class in university where we read Chaucer in the original (hence my admonition at the start of this review against the unnamed marketer), nor do I have much interest in the period of time in which the story takes place. But I could not help but be enchanted by the wonderful writing and how Maitland subtly encourages reading with her glimpses of mystery that inspires the reader to wonder what secret a character is keeping.

I rather enjoyed reading American Savior by Roland Merullo. I found it to be an extremely entertaining read, and while the literal doubting Thomas theme did irk me a bit as it threads through the entire novel, it didn’t detract from what is an extremely timely novel.

Jesus has returned to earth and, dismayed by how the United States has used Christ’s message and distorted his teachings. He has revealed himself five months before a general national election and tossed his hat into the circus that is the run for President. He chooses thirteen disciples, all from the Top Ten television city called West Zenith (get it… our civilization is just past its zenith). Russ Thomas, a jaded, cynical local news television journalist, his fiance and family (including the wonderful Stab, Russ’ brother living with Down Syndrome) the two families affected by the two miracles Jesus performed as a way of introducing himself to the world (Russ covered them on the news), and Russ’ boss and girlfriend are all hired to work for the campaign. They are amateurs, which is perfect for Jesus, who is going out of his way to not play the politics-as-usual game.

We follow the campaign across the country through the eyes of Russ, Jesus’ security chief and former television reporter, who has been chosen by Christ to pen a book based on the campaign and his observations of Jesus (aka a Gospel). As mentioned before, Russ is a doubting Thomas (literally: his last name is Thomas), which, while at times a bit annoying, presents Jesus in a clearer light than had he been a complete believer. He presents a likable Jesus, one who is more teacher and guide than a religious figure. This results in a novel that is not at all preachy, which one may assume it would be considering its topic.

At the same time, I have to wonder about the longevity of the title. Certainly, in a major election season, it is topical. But how will the book fair years from now? Will it be a novel of the times, or one that’s completely forgotten down the road. I hope the former, as this really is quite a good read.

school began the other week for me. unlike previous semesters, where i normally take two classes, i was forced to take only one at Hunter. my meager funds were eaten up when i had gotten sick last May/June and so i could not afford to take a second class. so this semester I’m taking Game Programming, a Media Studies class. It focuses exclusively on ActionScript, which is the Flash scripting language.

Angela Ferraiolo is my teacher. she was also my teacher last semester for Concepts in Gaming. i like her, she’s good. and she had worked with the late, great Westwood Studios on Earth and Beyond, so that’s fairly cool, too.

I also opted to take a C++ Game Programming course at the Game Institute. They offer reasonably priced online courses specificly of interest to game programmers of all levels. Because I’m a member of the International Game Developers Association, I was able to get a small discount. But the course is so inexpensive that it doesn’t really matter much. i think i paid something like 104 bucks total, and that includes the course textbook and CD. that’s pretty much a bargain, and i hope it winds up being worth more than the cheap price.

in addition to school, i’m also looking for work. i have a meeting on wednesday with a company. i won’t reveal details, including the name of the company, here. but it is for a gaming company and it’s for a short term contract.

in other news, i visited my mom the other day. i’ve not seen her in about 14 months. she lives out in jersey city, and i live all the way out in bumfuck queens, so the trip can take anywhere between 2.5-3 hours via public transport. that’s two buses, two trains, if you’re counting.

she looks much, much better from when i last saw her. she’s gained weight, and is pushing past 140 lbs. (we’re naturally skinny people). she doesn’t have parkinson’s, but she has the shakes, and there’s been a noticable decline in that. she’s still on oxygen tho, but that will be for the rest of her life, considering that she has <50% lung capacity left from almost 50 years of smoking cigarettes (i think the number is somewhere around the 30% range). ma got this bitching flat screen in her room, and the house looks immaculate thanks to maureen, her cleaning woman/friend. and most of the cats, she has four, at least sniffed me a little. so it was a very, very positive visit.

i had meant to go the week before, which was actually the first day of class for me at hunter, but it turned out that not only did i not have any cash, the debit card was too low for me to use it, so i wound up having to go home, despite getting all the way downtown to the PATH station at the world trade center build site. that’s all i could afford. meh

My Custom Van is, if not one of the funniest, then THE funniest book I have ever read. Each of these fifty or so essays produced not a chuckle, not a polite laugh, but deep belly laughs, the kind that bring tears to your eyes.

I admit to being a complete and utter fan of Black’s appearances on the VH1 “I Love the…” series of television specials. Black’s humor is biting and well-timed, with zingers that will get you in the gut. Thankfully, he’s an equally talented writer with a wonderful imagination. Who else but Michael Ian Black would: wonder what would happen if he colored his personal area with a magic marker? write letters to a squirrel, or to the first girl he ever intimately encountered while at sleepaway camp? Or even pen some of the most obnoxiously funny “erotica” ever to land on the page?

While I certainly got fifty kicks out of reading this book, I can definitely see how some readers might not be as amused. I think Black’s humor might not be for everybody, but I’m not exactly sure what makes me think that. But if you’re the kind who enjoys a quick romp through a tome written by a guy with a unique sense of humor and point of view, perhaps you should check this book out. You may actually find yourself with a yen for eating fudge in the back of Black’s custom flokati and bamboo covered van.

I’m really liking this scooter. As an older person looking for quick, self-propelled transportation, I found this to be much better than your standard kick scooter, and safer than a skateboard. Turns and carves nicely, and the wide board makes it easy to place your feet in various positions.

I did have a little problem where my kick foot would occasionally hit either the back or front wheels, but I think that’s simply because I’m not used to this yet. The scooter is a bit heavy to be carrying around, and I agree with other reviewers: the plastic wheels do make for a slower ride, requiring more kicks than a scooter or skateboard would. I’ll be switching out the wheels to 70mm longboard ones soon, so hopefully that will help.

My real gripe is the bar. Because it needs to be pulled out all the way, there’s nothing actually keeping it in position when folded as it would for a kick scooter. This makes the Fuzion a bit unwieldy, especially when combined with how heavy it is.

Dungeons & Desktops is a very rich and detailed look at the history of computer role-playing games. Matt Barton takes us on an extensive journey, beginning with the genre’s roots in tabletop games, to its early years on mainframes and BBSs. We’re then given a tour of some of the most beloved CRPGs of all time, such as Richard Garriott’s Ultima series (a personal favorite) and The Bard’s Tale. Barton even explores Japanese console RPGs, as their explosive popularity with gamers in the 90s has had an acute effect on modern CRPGs. The book concludes with the future of CRPGs in the form of persistent massively multiplayers, such as World of Warcraft.

What makes D&D (hah!) a treasure is that Barton doesn’t just pay attention to the hits and genre influencers, but also the misses, such as Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (which Barton calls the worst CRPG ever) and games which never got their due, such as the great Planescape: Torment. The MMORPG section could have used some better fact checking (e.g. EverQuest’s realm is called Norrath, not Narrath, and Asheron’s Call 2 was shut down years ago), but otherwise the book is quite spot on.

Fans of gaming history will really appreciate this book and may rediscover some long-forgotten classics. I know I have. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go play some Universe.

after ryan…

and in no order…

• Joust
• Seven Cities of Gold
• TIme Pilot
• Temple of Apshai
• Ultima II
• Satan’s Hollow
• …

screw it, here’s a big list off my facebook page…

Tempest, Ms Pacman, Ultima Online, Zork, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, anything by Infocom, Adventure, Asteroids, Popeye, Chip’s Challenge, Burgertime, Zelda, Super Street Fighter 2, Krusty’s Super Fun House, Donkey Kong Jr., Dragon’s Lair, Galaga, Punch Out, Ghosts and Goblins, Joust, Satan’s Hollow, Pitfall, Lemmings, Miner 2049er, Pirates! (the original, tho the remake is ok), Seven Cities of Gold (the original), Sim City (all of them), Sim Earth, Oblivion, Hidden Agenda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Agenda_%28game%29), Spy Hunter, Tron, Time Pilot, Defender, Zeus: Master of Olympus, Populous, Pandemonium, Tomb Raider, Mario Kart, Castlevania IV, Planescape: Torment, Baldur’s Gate, Ultima II, Civilization 2/3/4, Alpha Centauri, Welltris, Pokemon and Pokemon Pinball, Mario 64, Silent Service, Ghostbusters, Karate Champ, Shadowrun, Pinball Construction Set, Pipe Dream, Star Wars (coin op), Temple of Apshai, Dragon’s Lair, Emperor Dune, Dune II, Montezuma’s Revenge, Mr. Do!, Pole Position II, Crazy Climber, Tutankham, Zaxxon, Elevator Action

Despite author Mort Zachter’s frustrations at his own family, who are the subject of this book, Dough is a heartwarming tale of discovery and understanding.

Uncles Harry and Joe run a bakery in New York’s Lower East Side. They don’t actually bake — they sell day-old bread. Open 7 days a week, including blizzards, Joe and Harry close the shop only for the high holy days. To most, including Zachter, they appear to be extremely poor, hardworking men struggling to make ends meet. Zachter’s parents certainly are: they live in a one bedroom apartment where a young Mort is forced to sleep in the kitchen, his head cooled on hot summer days only by the fridge he uses as a headboard.

The truth about Harry and Joe is that their penny-pinching ways have resulted in them being multi-millionaires, a fact Zachter learns only after Uncle Harry (Joe being long dead) moves in with Zachter’s parents, who care for him as Alzheimer’s takes hold of the beloved joke-telling uncle. A chance phone call and a case of mistaken identity results in Zachter learning about Harry’s account of $1 million from a broker. He quickly discovers that there is at least $5 million more.

Zachter takes us on his journey of discovery. We are taken back to the glory days of the bakery, where even his mother, Helen, works for break, cakes and cookies as payment. Zachter struggles with the truth of his uncles’ wealth, resenting the fact that while his own family struggled to survive and he, as an adult, struggled financially to support his own family, his uncles never helped to relieve their family of their financial burdens.

Dough is wonderfully written, easy to read and quite absorbing. We never do learn how Harry and Joe really did make their millions, and on occasion the question does tug on the reader’s mind. But that’s the point: Zachter doesn’t know either, and as many questions linger for him as they do for us.

Getting Into Guinness is a fascinating look at not just the history of the Guinness Book of Records, but also author Larry Olmsted’s tales of two attempts to break records of his own. We’re told of Sir Hugh Beaver, managing director of Guinness (the brewery) and his interest in producing a book filled with trivia that could be used to settle factual disputes in British pubs. We’re also told about twins Norris and Ross McWhirter, trivia obsessives who became the first editors of The Book. Olmsted also shares the tale of the most official Guinness record holder, Ashrita Furman, who has done everything from finger snapping his way into the record book to doing forward rolls on the same path Paul Revere took to warn the American revolutionaries of the coming of the British.

Each of the above, including the author’s stories, are fascinating tales of human endurance and drive, and Olmsted does a wonderful job exploring the fascinating world of record breaking… but there’s a problem. Olmsted, while obviously a talented writer, seems too used to writing for magazines. At times the book feels as if it is an extended magazine article meant to inspire the reader to go for the record of sitting on the toilet while reading a rag. That’s not to say that Getting Into Guinness is boring — it’s not at all. It just seems as if Olmsted padded his word count by being repetitive creatively. We’re treated to a number of facts repeatedly, almost to the point of ad nauseam. Olmsted also opts to tell some truly fascinating record stories in the appendix, when they would be much better served in the main portion of the book.

Padding and repetition aside, Getting Into Guinness is a wonderful read and is recommended to all trivia lovers.

Chicago is the first novel I’ve read by Alaa Al Aswany, Egypt’s best-selling author, dentist and political activist. Chicago tells the tale of a number of Egyptian medical students studying in Chicago on an Egyptian government scholarship, several expatriates, and Americans. The themes are as vast as the great city: racism, prejudice, class, love, religion, politics.

Chicago’s greatest strength is that it presents to the American reader a glimpse into a culture that is not only foreign to (most of) us, but on that has been distorted by the media. Aswany surprised me, particularly on two of the above themes: sex/love and politics. I never expected a novel geared towards a predominantly Muslim audience to be sexually promiscuous (with sharia consequences, of course), nor one that would so openly criticize Egypt’s current despotic administration, the effects of which are displayed heavily in the novel, particularly with Nagi, an Egyptian student-poet who was once a political detainee, and General Shakir, a convincingly evil and sadistic part of the secret police machinery who takes pleasure in the human rights violations he commits. Another character of note is Shaymaa, a devout Muslim woman student who falls in love with fellow student Tafiq, and is faced with the needs of love and the conflicts in brings with her religious upbringing.

The problem with Chicago is the translation, especially during the first fifty or so pages of the novel. Much of it makes Chicago seem like amateur fiction, as if Aswany was writing a short story for a fiction workshop at some community center. The translation is clumsy and stiff, and at times I found myself wondering if I should bother finishing the book.

Ultimately, what won me over is Aswany’s presentation of his own culture, particularly the way in which the predominance of Islam influences the choices the characters make, in addition to Aswany’s strong and daring political views. Had the translation been better I might have given this 3.5 or 4 stars, however, once can’t really escape the effects of a poor translation when considering the quality of fiction.

woodward avenue, ridgewood queens… where i grew up:

a view of my block in cambria heights, queens: