My legs are so sore. Ouch. As you can surmise from the title, I ran in the Tel-aviv marathon this morning. I only did the 10k run, but it sounds better if I omit that tiny little fact and just say ‘Marathon’, doesn’t it?
Fellow runners included Tomer, Eitan, LiorG, Oshri, Udi&Guy and about a bazillion other people whom I don’t know. At the starting line right next to me though, was this girl in very fashionable running clothes, with full make-up and earrings, weirder and weirder…
I read a lot of blogs. A lot of blogs. My google reader currently lists 70 subscriptions. They are divided between things that interest me professionaly (programming, graphics, internet thingies) and my hobbies (cooking, photography, roleplaying, computer games). You can always see my shared items here, but I thought I’d list some of my really favorite blogs: Continue reading
I watched the last episode of Battlestar Galactica last night (season 4 episode 20), 90 minutes of sci-fi goodness. I’ve been watching BSG since 2005, always in bursts. I watched season 1 and 2 back to back, then season 3 all at once and now season 4 in twelve days. It is in my opinion the best TV series ever, does that sound too much? I think I’m pretty much backed up by all the script awards they’ve won, and by the fact that everyone I turned onto the series became a big fan.
So now I walk into a desert of no sci-fi shows, in my canteen only a two seasons of Startrek: Enterprise which is like taking sugar water into the desert with you.
(sniff)
I came back with a very interesting book from the Eurographics conference. It’s called ‘Dungeons and Desktops‘ and its insanely geeky. It covers the history of computer role-playing games from their inception in the early 70′s and up to toda’ys World of Warcrafy madness.
It starts by trying to establish what differentiates computer role-playing games as a genre, looking at traditional role-playing games, and similar genres such as action games and adventure games. I think the author manages to define it pretty well, as games in which the character/characters have an open-ended advancement system (i.e. go up levels) and in which the resolution system is based upon a fixed set of rules (and statistics).
Reading the book is really bringing back memories of games I played as a kid (and well, as an adult), such as Phantasie III: The Wrath of Nikademus, and Might&Magic 4-5: The World of Xeen.
I even downloaded Phantasie III (it runs in DOSbox, a DOS emulator). You know the saying that “you can’t go home again”? Well they were totally wrong because this game rules, even 20 years after I first played it.
Go 80′s!!!
