Today we saw Corpse Bride and went shopping. I got three pairs of slacks, three mens’ shirts, and We Love Katamari.

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One of the things I have decided to get with my Blingo gift card is a new computer game. I don’t play games too often - I am usually more interested in the web - but I do enjoy them and I will go through periods where I spend a lot of time gaming. I play computer games more often than my PS2 games, but I enjoy both. For now though I’m looking at getting new computer games. I think these would all work with my computer, although I don’t know that I have the right video card for The Sims 2 so that might not work.

Anyway, I’m not sure what games to get, so I’m taking a poll. Bear in mind that I already have The Sims Deluxe Edition plus the Vacation expansion pack. I also have RCT2 and its first expansion pack - Loopy Landscapes, or whatever it was. Now for the poll! (Please feel free to leave supporting evidence in the comments.)

Edited: Fuck polls. Fuck all polls. Please choose from the following options and leave a damn comment.

• Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 ($33)
• RCT 3 + Soaked Expansion Pack ($59)
• The Sims 2 ($45)
• Playboy: The Mansion ($30)
• Sims Expansions: Unleashed + Hot Date ($20)

I sent in a request to join the Divinitas TCG last week and haven’t heard anything yet; the person who does the approvals said to go ahead and start collecting cards anyway. So I’ve started my Divinitas trading post…I only hope I’m doing this correctly! It seems to be dominated by 14-18 year olds - not unlike the quilting bee - but I’m giving it a try anyway. I’m nervous that I don’t understand all the rules, though, so if I can’t figure it out I will just step away from it. I really like the pictures though, and of course I love collecting things, so I’m hoping it will work out.

I have spent several hours today playing on Second Life. I got the $10 one-time-payment account because I certainly wouldn’t pay $10 a month for it, but I’m having fun so far with what I’ve got. I’ve met several interesting people and I got back in touch with two friends that I’ve known for seven years (through LambdaMOO) but haven’t spoken with in a couple of years because they’re not on Lambda anymore. One of them invited me to an Asian-themed “party” - I guess that’s how geeks who don’t actually go out still manage to have a fun, social Saturday night! (And yes, I include myself in that set.) Actually, now that I think of it, I haven’t read blogs at all today…I’ve been obsessing over SL! This could be dangerous.

I’ve been playing Katamari Damacy like crazy, thanks to Chris-O, and A has been watching me this whole time. She’s had the main theme in her head thanks to Eclipse and Malcolm pooling their resources to send me the soundtrack, and so she knows basically how everything works. I’m quite pleased to say that she’s picked it up herself now, and she’s completed Make a Star 1 and she’s working on Make a Star 2! We’ve been discussing KD a lot on MOO, so I posted about her playing and had the following exchange with P7:

A has just completed Make a Star 1 for the first time. This woman almost *never* plays a video game. Mwahahaha.

How sad that the holy grail - a chick who plays videogames - still has problems finding a mate who plays videogames.

Heh! Well, at least it means we’re not fighting over it. And now I have somebody to try two-player KD with.

I really am happy that she’s playing too. I like it when we can share fun things.

I rented a couple of PS2 games from Blockbuster tonight and I was surprised that they are $7 per rental. Videos are only $4.75, so that’s quite a difference for games! There were a lot of games I could have gotten, but I managed to walk out with only two. Because I also paid an old $4.22 late fee, I got a coupon for a free movie or game rental that expires at the end of February, so I’ll be back for another game soon.

Athens 2004 is the official video game from the Olympics, and the first sports game I’ve seen to have women’s gymnastics as an event. I actually do enjoy the sports games, from the old California Games with footbag and roller skating to another Olympic-type game that had a diving session I got pretty good at. I was very eager to try the women’s gymnastics event in Athens 2004, especially because the picture on the back showed it works the same way as Dance Dance Revolution. I did pretty well even on the hardest setting, but I was disappointed that the music and (performed) routine is always identical no matter what difficulty level or country you pick. The girl does the same stunts and dances no matter what, to the same music every time, so this gets old very fast. I’ll have to try plugging in my dance pad to see if I can do anywhere near as well that way; it’s not like I ever use the thing for DDR anymore. I figured out the rest of the gymnastics events and played them for a few minutes, and then I ventured over to one of the simple swimming events. There’s some minor button-pounding with the gymnastics, but the swimming (and probably track events, too) is entirely button-pounding. The controller isn’t designed for a lot of this kind of thing, so I got a cramp before one 100m swim was over and promptly switched games. (The codes for Action Replay MAX weren’t automatically in there, but when I checked there was nothing worthwhile in there anyway.)

The Sims: Bustin’ Out was a lot more fun. I didn’t bother entering the AR:MAX codes because it would have taken too long and I was eager to jump in and play the game. I played the “Bust Out” part of the game for a good hour and a half before I discovered the “Free Play” section of the game, and by that point it was time for bed anyway. But the graphics on this game were awesome…I’m so glad I have a PS2 now! The zoom/rotate function is a little hard to use, and both gameplay and navigation are nowhere near as convenient as they are on a PC, but I really like having goals to achieve. The most amusing part was seeing a goal of “Visit Dudley and use ‘SIGN LANGUAGE’ on him” - I couldn’t believe it! Of course it didn’t turn out to be quite what I was thinking, but the game was favorably rated by DeafGamers.com just the same. I’m looking forward to exploring the Free Play mode tomorrow night!

I still didn’t have a memory card for my PS2, so when I saw an EB Games store in the shopping center I visited on my way home, I stopped in. I also looked at the used games, and I picked up four. I got State of Emergency and Space Channel 5 for me, and GTA: Vice City and Final Fantasy X for my brother-in-law. (When he heard I was getting a PS2 he was very excited; he’s never asked to play my PSX but he was interested in those games for PS2… so I got them for him. He’ll have to borrow the machine, of course, but that’s fine - it’s just a short trip down the stairs.)

What bothers me, though, is the State of Emergency game. It has a blue sticker on it that says Property of Blockbuster Video Store #51087. The blue part is just where the words are, but the entire disc is covered by the label and there seems to be an ID tag (not RFID, but like that) or ink bubble under the blue part as well. Now, I know Blockbuster sells products from time to time. It would be extremely difficult to remove the whole label, and there’s a warning printed that says “removal of this label will make the disc unplayable” or something like that.

So they could have sold it as a used game without removing the label, and then the person who bought it later traded it in at EB Games. Or…could I have a stolen disc? Would EB Games have accepted it? It’s a mystery, and I’m not sure that I’ll bother figuring out the solution, but perhaps I’ll give EB Games a call tomorrow and see what they say.

Hooray! The FixMyPS2.com people dropped off my PS2 today. It’s a hand-me-down from Malcolm, and he knew it needed repairs but wasn’t able to do them himself. A had said she wanted to get me a PS2 for Xmas/birthday this year (or rather she relented after I begged her a lot!) and it turned out to be much cheaper to just get Malcolm’s old machine repaired. He had given me Crazy Taxi (along with a few old PS1 games), and I had bought THPS3, THPS4, and Theme Park Roller Coaster already at EBgames. The only problem I discovered is that I don’t seem to have a PS2 memory card! I could have sworn Malcolm included one with the console, but I can’t find it. So I’m just playing THPS3 without saving, because I enjoy the game enough that I’ll go back and get all those goals again when I do have a card. And you know which one I want, don’t you? Oh, you don’t? I want this one.

Also, we are going to be getting digital cable free for six months! A telemarketer called this evening and my wife talked to him and agreed to sign up. We’re not sure if we’ll cancel when the six months are up…we’re both fully aware that they’re doing this because they know people won’t want to go back to regular cable after experiencing the expanded channels and fancy TV guide of digital. So six months from now we’ll see how much it costs, and how addicted we’ve become to the new features, and then we’ll decide whether or not to keep it.