The joys of an overactive imagination

For my whole life I've had an overactive imagination. I'm often off in my own little world, dreaming up random scenarios, thinking about what might have been or what could be.

So when I get an email like this from Twitter, it send my mind reeling to some wacky places:

This is a notice that I have a new follower on my work Twitter account, where I mostly post neat stuff I either write or find about data analytics. What jumped out at first was that the person's name and description were entirely in kanji.

Then... I saw the Twitter handle @BulletCluster. Which has led me to believe this can mean only one thing:

I've been followed by a Yakuza crime lord.

I mean, it all fits. The violent name, the kanji, the really pissed off looking bird... it's all there.

Should I be scared? Maybe. Or maybe I can help this guy better understand his organizations data so he can create actionable insights.

The Egyptian coup is... unsettling

I don't know much, but I do know that a military coup deposing a democratically elected president is a very bad thing. For everybody, and especially the folks jammed into Tahrir Square who think this is what they want.

Trust me, it's not. Presidents piss off their people all the time, especially in this country. Our president, for whom I've voted twice, is currently really pissing me off about all sorts of things, mainly on his complete lack of leadership on some major issues. That's another blog post for another time.

But you've got to have faith in the system. Even if your president is a dick, you have to believe that the system in place will minimize the damage he can do, and at the next opportunity you can vote his or her ass out of there.

That's not what's happening in Egypt. What's happening there a group (admittedly, a large one) of malcontents unhappy with the president, and an independent military acting as a loose cannon.

It's going to get ugly, is my guess. Democracy is hard. But you've got to give it a chance.

I'm saying all this from my ivory tower, but ... isn't that what bloggers do?

Ahh yes, I remember these: thumb blisters

I'm not really a console gamer anymore. In my youth I undoubtedly put thousands of hours into my Sega Genesis and Sony Playstation, and as I've said before I've owned a console from every generation from Atari 2600 through now.

But most of my gaming gets done on a PC these days, and that's been true since Age of Empires and the original Warcraft. (I've actually moved past RTS games for the most part, but that's another post for another day.)

So Saturday's experience, where I played my Ouya until my thumbs blistered, is something of a throwback for me. And given all the flak that little console has gotten for no "killer" launch title, I was very happy to realized I had played away the better part of a day with just two games.

The first is Super Crate Box, a retro-style arcade game that is crazily addictive and really challenging. The gameplay is stupendously simple: collect as many crates as you can. Each crate contains a different weapon that you instantly equip. Baddies come at you fast and furiously, and one touch kills you dead.

For one thing, it's really hard. But you instantly respawn and start over after each death, so dying - which happens a lot - doesn't break your rhythm. Getting 10 crates and unlocking the next level gave such an incredible sense of accomplishment, I let out a whoop of excitement that scared the cat and puzzled the wife.

The graphics are decidedly 8-bit, but the soundtrack is brilliant and there are several little touches that show the game was well-crafted. Here is a gameplay trailer.

The second game was BombSquad, a Bomberman meets fighting game with lots of potential for multiplayer madness. I really enjoyed just playing against the AI, but had nobody around to play with (the cat said no, and my wife doesn't have opposable thumbs).

Again, gameplay is pretty simple. You throw bombs at each other. There is some hand to hand combat, and most of the games are played on platforms, so it's possible to knock opponents off. Still, the gameplay was positively addictive. The physics model is fantastic, the rag doll effects are very entertaining, and little things like the noises each character utters make the game very enjoyable. The graphics are crisp and attractive, and the soundtrack features rousing classical music like the William Tell Overture.

I played this for hours. If this game supported online multiplayer, it would be amazing. It featured a 1 hour free trial of full gameplay, and I quickly forked over my $4.99 after the demo was up.

It supports any number of controller formats, features a controller app for Android devices like phones or tablets, and I very much look forward to trying to blow up as many as eight of my friends.