The Diary of A Simple Man

On Wednesday I "graduated" from physical therapy. I still need to exercise my elbow, and it's not 100% yet, but it's a lot better.

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Last weekend Teri and I went to King Richard's Fair with her brother, his fiancee, and some of their friends; we were the designated drivers. Unfortunately we couldn't bring Sebastian. He's never been there, but he would have loved it. We saw a guy selling ocarinas with a songbook for both Zelda and Majora's Mask; if Sebastian knew, he'd go absolutely insane! But they were too much money to buy this year.

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Alan Greenspan has magnaminiously agreed that he screwed up on the whole "self-regulating finance companies" idea. I had to comment over at the Washington Post:

And how does Mr. Greenspan propose to pay us all back? All the working-class Americans who were left behind while his policies fattened the wallets of those who (he is now shocked to discover) were robbing us blind?

Somehow, I don't think he has an answer for THAT question. Which is a pity, because now it's the only question that matters.

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Over on Askville, a right-wing idiot asked "If Obama gets elected, how would he respond to an attack by Iran?". In the details, he answered his own question: Obama would be clueless and pathetic. My sarcasm mode suddenly clicked on, and I wrote this comment:

He would say "HA HA HA! I am an Evil Muslim! Go ahead and destroy the infidel dogs, my Muslim terrorist brothers!".

Then he would cook and eat a white Christian baby on live national TV. And he'd nuke the entire United States for dessert.

There. Are you happy now? Have I fulfilled your twisted fantasies?

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Askville seems to be dying, by the way. All the moderators and management have simply disappeared - they haven't been seen for a week or more. Spam is running amok, in large part because Askville/Amazon itself is apparently using a new "Bonus Question" system to allow MTurk users to gold farm - real cash - on Askville. They're churning meaningless questions created by bot to gain $0.03 per question. There may be some sort of search engine gaming going on as well. Many people have stopped answering questions, and most of the activity there is now on the discussion boards. But there's a strong general impression that the management wants all the old users, all the people who enjoyed seriously answering and asking questions, to leave. We're interfering with the commercial aspects of the site.

There has been some chatting about setting up a non-commercial answering site lately.

Brr! I'm freezing. Time to go to bed!

I finished The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess on the Wii two nights ago.

Don't worry, I'll throw any spoilers behind a cut.

But I think it's safe to make some general comments, first.

First of all, it's a great game. We spent over 150 hours playing it, and we definitely haven't exhausted all of the side quests - not by a long shot!

Second, I do think that it's very well-designed. There were challenging puzzles, but it was almost always possible to solve them with a bit of observation and hard thinking. The combats and bosses were easier than I expected (or feared), but that was fine with me; it allows me to think that I'm a great warrior. :D

Third...it's a surprisingly romantic game. Not in the classic sense, but it seemed to me that there was a lot of strong emotion built into the plot; so much so that the ending really stayed with me, and I'm thinking about it still. In fact, that's why I'm writing this.

Okay, time for the cut.

SPOILERS AHOY!
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Unfortunately I doubt that Nintendo will do a direct sequel, and I suspect we won't see Midna again.

Okay. Time to start on my new leaf.

Something informative? Let me see. Does anyone here play Zelda, the Legend of the Wind Waker? I found a pretty neat way to destroy those floating burning skulls. Normally you use the Deku leaf to blow out their flames, and then use the Skull Hammer or the Master Sword to crush them. But the problem is, sometimes when you get too close they come at you fast, and you can miss with the wind from the Deku leaf.

But the skulls that are surrounded by blue flame have the effect of stopping you from using any item, including the Deku Leaf, when they touch you. In which case you have to run like hell until the blue flame goes out.

What I found is rather amusing: you can use the Hookshot to target the skulls at a considerable distance. If you hit them, they're pulled towards you with incredible speed. And the physics of the game have been well-programmed; the high-speed pulling actually blows out their flames (of whatever color). So when they reach you, they fall onto the ground and you can smash them. Of course, if you don't smash them quickly enough they regain their flames.

Unfortunately I doubt that anyone here plays Zelda: TLotWW, so this post was probably a waste of time and effort. Sorry! I'll try to think of something better.

You see, the problem is that I don't HAVE much information. Or at least, not much that's interesting.