i miss being a kid

today, at red robin, celebrating sean's birthday, i went to the men's bathroom.  as i got there, i found it being held open by a man who looked to be on his way out.  i stood outside for a little bit, thinking he was going to leave soon, and 'cause i knew he wasn't holding the door for me.  after a short amount of time passed, i went ahead into the bathroom, and lo and behold..

in there was a little boy who had just finished doing his business at the urinal, and he was repeatedly and rapidly flushing the urinal.

the dad: come on, it's time to go, you flushed it enough already, and it's this guy's turn.

little boy: -reluctantly backs away from the urinal, watching the massive amounts of water-

the dad: come on, he's gotta go pee!

little boy: -finally walks away towards his dad, forgetting to wash his hands because he was clearly still thinking about the urinal and how he wanted to flush it more-

i miss being a kid.

and it's not over yet!

after i come out of the bathroom, the same little boy is holding the door of the women's bathroom open a crack and looking into it.

the dad, to someone nearby: oh, he's such a peeping tom!

the dad, to the boy: hey, if you're going to look in, you gotta go inside, too!

i hope i wake up in six hours

just woke up super thirsty.  went to the fridge in the garage.  (my parents recently cleaned out my room, so they fridged some mountain dew cans i was collecting.)  i find a mountain dew voltage.  expiration date june 21, 2010.  i drank it.

mountain dew is always a good idea.

Faster Than Light is a wonderful indie game where you command a ship, with your own crew members, and take it through the galaxy on a mission. You’ll encounter other ships, do battle or bargain with them, and upgrade your ship+crew along the way.

After 45 hours played, I beat this game for the first time today. It’s not a long game, rather, it’s arcade-style, so when you die, you lose, and then you restart. Each “round” takes at most an hour, less if you die, obviously.

I bought it about a month ago when it was on sale for $5, and it’s on sale for $5 again, for this weekend!

I highly recommend it. It has a wonderful space theme, leaves a lot of room for planning, analyzing, optimizing, and micromanaging. It has lots of fun choices to make, different strategies to use to venture through the galaxy, and strikes that wonderful balance of luck and strategy. This game is different every single time you play it.

Also, I like that the game is challenging. Now, I would certainly call myself a gamer, and I know my way around game mechanics and strategies, so believe me when I say this isn’t a walk in the park. This isn’t even like a mile run. This game is tough! When I say I beat the game, I mean on Easy mode. I played Normal mode a few times when I first got it, switched to Easy mode shortly after, and haven’t gone back yet. The difficulty of the game is a welcome breath of fresh air, considering how many other games these days baby you or walk you through them. This game gives you a very intuitive and in-depth tutorial, making you think you’ve gone it, and then you venture off into space and your ship gets boarded by Mantises that slaughter your crew. Space is so unforgiving. (Restart!)

I am most impressed by the polish of the game, as well as all the little details that have gone into making the experience immersive and enjoyable. There are nine different ships, each with its own room layout and secondary layout, six+ species of crew members, tons of different weapons and ship augmentations to pick from. There are bunches of things to unlock, achievements to do to unlock them, and the sense of progression is fantastic. You can even name your ship and starting crew members! (Top choices for my space crew are Maverick, Goose, and Iceman.)

This game is on sale this weekend for $5 (off the regular price of $10), and I highly recommend that you pick it up if you want to experience a fun, creative, polished, replayable, and challenging game.