It was a bad day. A lot of bad stuff happened. And I'd love to forget it all. But I don't. Not ever. Because this is what I do. Every time, every day, every second, this: On five, we're bringing down the government.

Overhead, Without Any Fuss, The Stars Weren't Going Out

Doctor Who, Season 5, Episode 13, The Big Bang

To quote the Doctor himself (from The Doctor Dances): Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once, everybody lives!

Or as Mrs. Doctor put it (from Silence in the Library): Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives.

I may have had problems with one or two of the mid-season episodes, but the beginning and the ending were note-perfect.

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Sims 3

Yeah, I'm a little late to the table on this one.

I bought it the day it came out, and the expansion packs as they came out, and in between frantic dashes to the bathroom I've been playing it a bit over the last couple of days.

Verdict: Needs salt.

I haven't explored the expansion pack features yet, but compared to Sims 2 with its final count of 9 expansion packs and 9 "stuff" packs, there's a lot less goodies to play with in the core game.

On the other hand, the graphics are certainly better (unless you enable anti-aliasing on an ATI graphics card and then look at a tree) and you can move about town in real time - the entire town is one continuous area, and you don't go into timestop when visiting other parts of the town the way you did in Sims 2.  (Apparently you do go into timestop when you go overseas in the World Adventures content, but I haven't tried that yet.)

It's still not SimsVille, which is what I always wanted; the town is too small, and you have little interaction with your sims when they're at work.  The professions from the Ambitions pack corrects the latter, so I'm going to try that next as soon as I get Kei and Yuri promoted to astronaut.  (They've already made International Super Spy.)

What I really want is a game that simulates an entire socio-politico-economic system at the level of the individual.  Sim City is too top-down; The Sims is too small scale.  Civilization, good as it is, is far too top-down and abstract to really explore the cost/benefit of policies - the cost/benefit is right there in the manual.

On the other hand, if I take my sims to China, I get to kick other sims in the face.  If you've ever played any of the Sims games, I'm sure you've had that urge.

Oh, and EA?  The prices on the Sims Store are insane.  You need to cut them by about 80% if you want it to be a success.

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Steam Are At It Again

Tropico Reloaded (Tropico, the Paradise Island expansion, and Tropico 2 Pirate Cove) is going for $3.39.

Civilization III Complete (Civ III plus two expansion packs) is $3.74.

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Tim TAM

I will be at TAM Australia in November.

Tickets went on sale on the 20th, and apparently are nearly sold out already.  It's their first event in Australia, so I guess it's hard to judge the size.  Shame for the people who don't get to attend, though.

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Antepenultimatum

Doctor Who, Season 5, Episode 12, The Pandorica Opens

The Doctor and Amy respond to a distress signal being broadcast from Stonehenge, as relayed via Vincent van Gogh, Winston Churchill, the Doctor's imprisoned future wife, Queen Elizabeth X, and finally graffiti'd over the site of the oldest writing in creation because, being the Doctor's future wife, Professor Song already knew he would find it there. 

Upon arrival they find a prison cell, the Pandorica of the title, reputed to contain the most dangerous being in the Universe.  Also, this being 102AD, a Roman legion - and River Song posing as Cleopatra, as her future self will have had promised to Amy's past self in the future.

The most dangerous being in the Universe being something of a draw, and the distress signal being busily broadcast in all directions in four dimensions, they are not too surprised to discover that the Earth has been surrounded by a vast array of alien ships, including Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Terileptils. Zygons, Atraxi, Slitheen, Judoon, Sycorax, Nestenes, Chelonians, Draconians, and pretty much everyone else with a battle fleet and a bad attitude.

To say anything more would be a spoiler.

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Gotta Love Steam

Today only, the original Mass Effect for $5.

Yesterday, I picked up Mirror's Edge, also for $5.  That's the perfect price for Mirror's Edge, which is an entertaining but somewhat shallow game.  Mass Effect for $5, though, is a bargain.

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Penguins

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