John Gushue . . . Dot Dot Dot

Monkey business: How a balloon game can pop away a day

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, Nov. 26, 2009. Click here to read more Surf's Up.]

I’ve been trying to clear a few hurdles with my work this last week, but have been falling prey to a little vice that’s hard to resist. I can keep my hands off the cookies, can resist the call of a trashy TV show, but have had a hard time ignoring a bunch of little monkeys with darts, bombs and glue-guns.

Bloons Tower Defense 4
“Bloons” is a well-established franchise on the web, at least among cheap (i.e., free) and easy-to-play games. This is the fourth iteration in the series, and it’s pretty sophisticated. If you’re new to tower defence games, they follow a pattern: you establish towers, or weapons, along a route to defeat some kind of invaders. In this case, the invaders are balloons – hence the title – and your weapons involve monkeys. And darts, bombs, planes, glue, tacks and all kinds of other fun stuff. This series is more complicated and varied, with more patterns, skill levels and upgrades.

And, as I said, it can become a major drain on your time. I think I’ve invested (I can’t bring myself to say “wasted”) a few hours over the run of the last week or so. Because the games can run on for dozens and dozens of turns, I recommend registering (it’s free) so you can save a game for later resumption.

A final point: I was loading Bloons the other evening when my son took notice. “I didn’t know you knew this game,” he exclaimed, evidently unaware that grown-ups can definitely compete with the kids for mindless online fun. I don’t know whether my stock had risen with my son, or my credibility as an adult had sunk. I didn’t worry about it, and got on with my game.

Elsewhere this week

Santa parade
The Downtown Santa Parade in St. John’s is this Sunday; click here for route and bus information, photos and more. A suggestion for the sponsors: let parade users post their own pics to the galleries, or create and then link to a feed at a service like Flickr.

Starbucks Drinks Simplified (Kinda)
Ever been dazzled or confused while overhearing the sometimes-complicated drink orders at a Starbucks? This unofficial page collects the many, many drinks you can apparently order from a barista. (Good luck getting a ristretto, evidently.)

50 Most Important Recordings
Year-end lists are one thing, but we’ve already been seeing a lot of decade-recapping lists, of movies, cultural points, etc. In its review of music in the Oughts (it says something about a decade when people don’t even agree on what to call it), NPR opted not to list the best, but the most influential. How else could you explain the inclusion of both Arcade Fire and Britney Spears?



Best commercials
In a similar vein: From AdWeek, an interactive feature on some of the best television advertising – that is, the ones not created to appear on Super Bowl broadcasts. Some very clever work here; my vote went on Cadbury’s fascinating ‘Gorilla’ spot, featuring a gorilla drumming along to Phil Collins. This is just feature among many; click on the banner to go to an index to explore other materials.



Aldous Huxley vs. George Orwell
Here’s a thought-provoking illustration about the dystopic visions of Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, with a compare-and-contrast text borrowed from media critic Neil Postman’s still-relevant 1985 work, Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman, who died six years ago, published the book long before many of the technologies depicted in the pictures shown here even existed, but his message is as clear as ever.



Star Wars status updates
From College Humor, a set of five faux Facebook status updates, with comments from various characters in the Star Wars universe. See why Obi-Wan Kenobi, for instance, jumped in with a rapid comment when Luke Skywalker got stoked with romantic thoughts about Princess Leia, or how a stormtrooper had remorse after a battle with the Ewoks.

John Gushue is a writer in St. John's, and is currently on leave from his job with CBC News in St. John's. John is on Twitter right here.

A grand day for a walk

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009. Click here to read more Surf's Up.]

The evenings are dark now, but that hasn’t stopped our family from trying to get out when we can for a healthy walk. The first site on this week’s web tour is all about the St. John’s-area network that has transformed how many of us spend our leisure time. 

Grand Concourse
The Grand Concourse is an ambitious project launched by philanthropist Paul Johnson and his family’s foundation, and now includes a network of trails and guided walks that crisscross the city and into neighbouring municipalities. Many of the trails are old and well-established, but have been upgraded to terrific shape because of the Grand Concourse’s work.
 
The website underwent a recent overhaul, and has plenty to offer, including suggestions on walks of varying skill levels and lengths, with complementing maps and photos. Among other things, it makes good use of mashups with Google Maps, so you can get a good idea of where a given route will take you.
 
While it’s nice to see a more robust web presence, I’d suggest a few things. For instance, it would be terrific to be able print simple, clean sheets on each hike. As well, the organization could develop a greater sense of community by inviting participants to get involved, and using user-generated tools for photo-sharing, hike descriptions, etc. After all, the Grand Concourse, which holds not just one local gem but many, is all about public participation.
 

Elsewhere this week

Scribd
Scribd is fast becoming a popular application all over the web, probably because it’s easy for users. It produces Flash-powered embeddable documents, which means that rather than linking to a PDF, you can put it right in your blog or website, and the reader can see scroll or tab through the whole thing. The document can be as a big as a book or as small as a brochure; that’s up to you. Better yet, it can be shared, which can help let your content move around the web, if you’re cool with that. It’s a handy way to bring something like a PowerPoint presentation to the individual level, as well. Heavy users range from major publishers, like technology gurus like O’Reilly Media, to small businesses. 

Photoshop Disasters
Photoshop Disasters made the news this fall when one of its routine posts – they all involve errors and distortions that somehow made their way to print – royally ticked off fashion company Ralph Lauren. The blog had merely pointed out that a particular model has sci-fi-style proportions, winding up with an impossibly skinny waist. When other sites, including the wonderful Boing Boing, raised hackles, Ralph Lauren went to its corner and had a boo-hoo. Fortunately, Photoshop Disasters is still plugging away, pointing out the sublime and ridiculous.

Swampland
Time magazine may never be able to shake its image as being stuffier than a starched shirt, but that hasn’t stopped it from running a political blog with plenty of bounce. Swampland is a collaborative project by the magazine’s writers, with frequently updated posts on each day’s political news, with an unsurprisingly hefty emphasis on Washington. (It’s not called Swampland for nothing.) I subscribe to the daily email alert, for reminders to check out new content.

Snapbird
Because Twitter’s in-house search system only allows seven days of access, along comes Snapbird, which lets you comb through many weeks of tweets – as long as they were made by friends or those you’ve marked as favourites. A handy tool for locating something you read weeks or months ago.

Little Wheel
Imagine a robot world where the machines have been sleeping, for lack of a better, word, for 10,000 years. A lightning strike reanimates one of them, and in this charming little game, your job is to get everything back on the go, one step at a time. If you’re confounded, you can take a little cheat and click on Walkthrough … but I bet you’ll love figuring out as much as you can on your own.
 

John Gushue is a writer in St. John's, and is currently on leave from his job with CBC News in St. John's. John is on Facebook right here. John is on Twitter right here.

Out of the archive

[Surf's Up, as published in the St. John's Telegram on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009. Click here to read more Surf's Up.]

Memorial University is full of archival treasures. As a student and as a journalist, I’ve had the good fortune of being able to take advantage of its many resources, particularly the peerless Centre for Newfoundland Studies. 

You don’t have to be on campus to gain access to some of the treasures. Indeed, a good few of them can be seen on your screen, whether you’re in Portugal Cove or Peru. 

Memorial University: Digital Collections Initiative
Most people in the province have at least heard of the Terms of Union, but how many have read them? Through the Digital Collections Initiative, you can see the original text, page by page. That and scores of other documents have been scanned and made accessible, with new material still coming in. You’ll see boat designs, interviews, historical records, materials from professional groups … the list goes on and on. 

I was particularly intrigued with copies of Sir Wilfred Grenfell’s magazine Among The Deep Sea Fishers, which helped spread the Grenfell word far from the shores of Labrador. Yes, it’s not like seeing the real thing, but even at the university, the alternative before these pages were scanned was microfilm. Even better: I was able to download what I want as a PDF, so I can look at it later, at my leisure. 

Have a look around. There are some gems here. 

Elsewhere this week 

Ulysses Seen
James Joyce’s great novel is being adapted in a graphic-novel format, available on this still-developing website. Some Joyce aficionados may be offended to see the novel’s characters and events (all of which unfold on a single Dublin day in 1904) depicted like a comic book, but others ought to be impressed by Robert Berry’s adaptation, which is bold, imaginative and really entertaining. To augment the experience, each page is linked to a readers’ guide. Let’s hope Berry and his collaborators have the stamina to continue.

Cotweet 
Is your company or organization using Twitter to communicate with its audience or employees? To allow multiple users to access a Twitter account, consider Cotweet, which has become popular with companies huge and small. Among its features are a keyword-monitoring tool and an ability to assign tasks to particular employees. 

Dig Hole 
If you dug a hole from St. John’s straight through the planet, where would you end up? As it turns out, it’s in the ocean south of Australia. This is an application that makes a fun mashup with Google Maps; plot one point anywhere on Earth, and see where the end point would be. 

Inside Rock Band 
How did Rock Band launch and turn so quickly into a pop-culture phenomenon, far beyond what people (even its creators) imagined a videogame could be? And how did the Beatles version come to be? The Chicago public-radio program Sound Opinions offered some unique insight on its latest show, available as a downloadable podcast on this link, with an interview with Greg LoPiccolo, who not only helped develop Rock Band but also helped concoct rival game Guitar Hero. 

Photofunia 
Set yourself on fire ... or at least a jpeg of yourself, or of anything else, for that matter. Photofunia has some cool ways to play with your own image, from casting your mug onto a stamp or a full-wall poster or a television set or … well, you get the picture. So to speak.  

Can't You See I'm Busy? 
"Boss mode" (or variant) is a phrase that was invented about, oh, a few hours after the first PC-based game was introduced. I remember seeing a keyboard-shooter game that ripped off Asteroids in which hitting a function key brought up what looked like a spreadsheet. Can’t You See I’m Busy adapts Boss Mode, except that the entire screen for each of the three games looks like either a spreadsheet or a text-based program. 

John Gushue is a writer in St. John's, and is currently on leave from his job with CBC News in St. John's. John is on Facebook right here. John is on Twitter right here.

Saving our pennies for Wii Fit Plus

We bought a copy of Wii Fit last summer, and although we've fallen off the wagon a bit, it's been a popular game in the house. It's more than a game, of course; while our son has balked at the balancing exercises we've been trying to get him to do, he gladly moves through the Wii Fit routines. Indeed, balance is what many of the activities are about, and the introductory yoga moves went down surprisingly well.

Wii is prepping Wii Fit Plus for a fall release, and I imagine we'll get it (if and when we can find it - Wii Fit itself was pretty hard to track down). From the trailer video below, I like the upgrades that include making a customized workout out of the various elements. On the fun side, the new games look like a hoot that mom and dad can play with the kid. Everyone wins.

Penguin Diner

I blame my son for this one. Penguin Diner is a game made for kids, but grown-ups can get sucked in, too. Penny is a penguin who works in a series of diners; her job is to get her customers seated, take their order, deliver them when they're up, collect tips, and keep the traffic moving. Fed-up customers will not only tip less, but storm out.

Attractors

You don't have to know anything about the laws of attraction and physics to have a few minutes of fun with this drag-and-drop game. Move the circles about and change the angles of the boards to see how falling drops change.

Holy crimefighting cake, Batman!

We use a merit-demerit point system in the house, to keep the eight-year-old boy moving in the right direction. If he does something well (especially without prompts), he earns a point; naughty behaviour takes a point away. It's worked well, with the kid earning points for a variety of things. His current objective: A Lego Batman game. By coincidence, I came across the above - which, believe it or not, is a cake made to celebrate the game's recent launch.

Pick up valuable office skills in World of Warfare, etc

From Eric Eggertson's blog Common Sense PR, I saw a post called Everything I Know about Business I Learned Fragging N00bs, which connected dots that some might not see close together: online gaming, and building a successful business career. The World of Warfare and the World of, um, Work may not be that far apart (and definitely aren't, on the account of a friend of mine who actively and covertly combines both from his desk).

A royal crime scene

For chess fans, and hapless players like me:

As seen here.

White Dwarf

A quick, easy to play game, White Dwarf has you collect green balls quickly, then dispose of them by touching a red one ... while avoiding the red ones. Cool.