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Heh every time I get one conference trip ironed out another pops up that I want to get to.
Internet Librarian is the choice this time. It looks really exciting and interesting, plus I’ve heard nothing but praise for it from the LIS blogosphere.
With a little luck I’ll have a full time job lined up by then (after graduating in August), maybe even one that’d pay me to go!
I’ve found myself with some unexpected free time this week, while classes spin up into full speed.
I decided to fill it with Lego Star Wars for the XBox.
This is a brilliant game, one of the best all-ages titles I’ve ever played. The concept is simple: What if everything in Star Wars were made out of legos? Crazy, I know. But it works in some strange indefinable way.
The game (also available for the PS2 and Gameboy) very faithfully recreates episodes 1 through 3. I managed to finish episodes 1 and 2 in a few days, but refuse to play the third until I’ve seen the movie. I still hold out vain hope that it will be good. But that’s a rant for another time.
LSW is not a hard game by any measure. You run around the levels as any one of a plethora of legoized Star Wars characters, blasting or light sabering your way through lego obstacles and enemies. I especially enjoyed how use of the force is implemented. Since everything is made out of legos, the force simply rearranges them into various helpful forms (or in some cases makes objects dance around amusingly while Cantina music plays). There’s a bit of puzzle solving involved, though nothing that will stump you for too long.
The game also boasts a surprising amount of humor, especially in the cut scenes. And being legos, the violence in the game is greatly toned down. Enemies don’t burst into splatters of blood and gore – they fall apart into their component legos.
Considering that the vast majority of Star Wars games have been somewhat less than great, Lego Star Wars is extremely welcome. It appeals equally to kids and adults, though there are a few levels that I can’t imagine a child getting through without adult help. I got very frustrated in the cursed podrace level, and I imagine it would be even worse for a young’un. Speaking of podracing, I’m now convinced it was only put in Episode I to provide an easy level design for every Star Wars game made since. And it has never been implemented well in a console game that I’ve seen.
Ahem. Back on track. If you don’t have kids of your own, LSW is probably a better rental than a purchase. While there is some limited replay value in unlocking some secrets once the pretty quick main game is complete, it isn’t overly compelling. But I do admit the prospect of unlocking and playing as Lego Darth Vader holds a certain allure.
I seem to be having problems with my RSS feeds on the site today…. they’re showing up blank. Are they working for anyone else?
Then again those of you who read my posts through RSS won’t see this if the problem is indeed widespread. Hmm, conundrum!
I just finished upgrading to WordPress 1.5.1. Pretty painless process, really. But there’s a big security hole that the upgrade fixes, so I recommend you do it yourself.
But please leave a comment if something on the site is busted.
I love comic strips. In the internet age, I don’t even have to buy a newspaper to get to them. Mostly.
Until recently, Berkeley Breathed’s newest strip “Opus” was print only. And a lot of papers don’t even carry it. Breathed was the creator of the classic Bloom County and a couple other strips in the past, and the weekly Opus carries on the characters.
To make a long story short, the Washington Post now posts the strip every week!
Oddly, the strip is still not carried on any of the main syndicate web sites, like Uclick.com. You can only find Opus on the Washington Post’s customized version of the UClick interface. They have dozens of other strips listed on the main UClick site, but Opus is the only one I’ve ever looked for and failed to find.
As a side note, the May 8th Opus deals humorously with e-books, check it out!
Amazon has introduced a somewhat odd new feature.
On any page for a book included in the ‘search inside the book’ feature, you are presented with a list of Statistically Improbably Phrases.
SIPs, as Amazon calls them, are phrases unique to this particular book – they don’t show up very often in other works.
Sort of interesting to look at from a trivia standpoint, but I’m not sure of any practical uses.
Here’s the SIPs from a book I picked up used at Barnes and Noble tonight, The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century:
The broadcast flag’s introduction has been stopped!
This is a great victory – essentially the flag would have allowed broadcasters to mark what could and could not be digitally recorded. Everything from your Tivo to the ability to download TV shows would have been affected.
I can’t remember where I ran across this tidbit this morning, but here ya go. The new President elect of the ALA, Leslie Burger, has a blog!
I’ll be really interested to see how this plays out leading up to and during her term. I wonder if the topic of blogs will ever come up between her and Michael Gorman – that’d be interesting to hear.
After some last minute mixups and shenanigans, my plans are finalized for ALA next month! I’ll be arriving in Chicago on the afternoon of Thursday the 23rd, and leaving late on Sunday the 26th. I’d love to stay longer, but can’t afford to miss any more classes.
P.S. I’m talking June here, not May.
Read this interesting Washington Post article on “Computer Rage” and the booming industry of data recovery.
It’s amazing the things people don’t back up. The article even mentions one recovery of 12 unaired The Simpsons scripts!
It also amazes me that I do some of these tasks (only the basic ones of course) for a student worker’s salary, a tad less than the $2000 commanded by big time data recovery specialists. 🙂
