I’ve been writing for the past two weeks or so. I set a quota for myself and up until yesterday, I had made it every day. I did so even though I was playing my favorite games too– Civilization V, Battle Supremacy, and Plants vs. Zombies. Then I bought this little game from Steam called Game Developer Tycoon. Yesterday I missed my quota. Now I have to write twice as many pages today.
Game Developer Tycoon is a fun little Tycoon game. It is even more fun as a review of the history of video games, starting after the first video game crash when Atari, Intellivision, and Colecovision disappears (just before the first Nintendo system) and going right on up to (and beyond?) the iPhone, iPad era of today. I played three games and I’m hooked.
But NOT TODAY! I have to write twice as much today to make up for yesterday! Curse you Game Developer Tycoon! Curse your $3.99 price that lured me into your tycoony trap!
I was driving home from chauffeuring my daughter to work today and I started reminiscing about our last trip to Mexico, which was about ten years ago. We went on a cruise with our kids– ages 15 and 12. While we were there, the kids saw these street vendors selling cheap little wooden sling shots. So we bought a couple and brought them home with us.
You should have seen the way the border guards checking us in reacted. You would have thought I had bought my kids a .357 Magnum and a syringe full of heroine. “What kind of parents are you?” Pretty good ones, I think. My kids never shot out a window or a streetlight. They never shot a person or an animal. We put up a couple of targets in the back yard and the kids played with their slingshots for a couple of weeks until they got tired of them.
I don’t know what the moral of the story is. Maybe it’s “watch your kids.” Maybe it’s “judge not lest ye be judged.” Whatever it is, I just wonder how so many drugs, weapons, and illegal immigrants are getting with these geniuses at the checkpoints. Maybe they are retired now and they were the cream of the crop.
I’m really tired of Facebook. One of the big problems I’ve always had with it is that everyone you friend is suddenly equal. The kid you went to school with in 2nd grade is now at the same level as your best friend of ten years or you grandmother. And people post the stupidest shit!
So I’m thinning down my Facebook friends list, and I’m doing it like this: You post something stupid, I’m unfriending you. Simple as that. Inaneness I can handle, but outright stupidity, no. Post that the world is flat, you’re unfriended. Post that astronauts never landed on the moon, you’re unfriended. Post that G.W. Bush is the greatest president since Lincoln, you’re unfriended. Post that you are “literally dying” to see the next Star Wars movie, you’re unfriended.
Family is safe. I’ve got a few nephews who post some goofy stuff, but not stuff that would be categorized as stupid. Besides, you’re stuck with family. In-laws though….
Astrid Maxxim and her parents, Roger and Kate Maxxim, are characters in the book series Astrid Maxxim – Girl Inventor. The series is written for adolescents, but I hope anyone can enjoy it. Both Roger and Kate are named for good friends of mine– unrelated and unknown to each other, but whom both helped me with my writing.
Roger Maxxim is a brilliant scientist and inventor with a definite bit of the mad scientist in him. Kate Maxxim is a hard-nosed CEO, who is nevertheless dedicated to running Maxxim Industries the way her father-in-law envisioned.
Astrid is the main character in the stories, and along with her friends, occupies most of the plot, but it was important for me that she have a loving family (as do all the kids in the story). On the other hand, Astrid’s parents are a bit of a role reversal, as her father is the more nurturing of the two and her mother is more of the disciplinarian.
City of Amathar 