See Settlers of Catan on MS Surface at Origins

This just in: Catan for the MS Surface will be at Origins, June 22 - 26 (next week)!

VERY exciting news, I've been hoping to see Catan playable on the Surface since the first time I heard about the technology.

UPDATE: And here's a video!

Ten Geeky Things About Lorien

Here it goes: I was tagged by Rosalind to be given a blog award started by Angela at High on Life.

The Geek Girls Unite Award

Here are the rules:
1. List ten geeky facts about yourself and…
2. Pass this award onto your favorite female geeks!

So here you go, a TMI bonanza of 10 geeky things about Lorien!

1. Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — I won first place as Arwen in a Lord of the Rings look-a-like contest on theonering.net


2. I have a #3 top score on the Twin Galaxies MAME category for Timber


3. Created a virtual catering company in the MMO Asheron's Call, Cragstone Farms...which eventually led to my working for Turbine, Inc. on the online community team for Asheron's Call 2 and The Lord of the Rings Online


4. Along with 2 friends, did the audio and content for the Leetspeak Word of the Day


5. I'm making an independant documentary about designer board games


6. Attended a Bruce Campbell book signing once where we all stayed up till 2 AM with Bruce, chatting and giving him our cellphones to make prank phonecalls to our friends


7. Went to Boston University for Marine Biology largely because Hooper in Jaws was from "the oceanographic institute on the mainland" and BU had an internship program in Woods Hole (home of the oceanographic institute on the mainland)


8. Started the Boston University club for Magic: the Gathering, and met my husband, a tournament M:tG player, that same year


9. Visit Funspot regularly, and my copy of The King of Kong is autographed by Walter Day and Joel Hedge


10. Have a retro gaming room with NES and Atari 2600 consoles, and one day I WILL beat Solaris!

Master Chief?

Uhhh... my friend Justin just linked me to... uhhh...

Arcade classics filmed in lego

PS - if anybody has any tips for beating the final stage of the Black Bass (NES), I would love to hear them! Techniques, mind you, not cheat codes. :p

Programming NES games

I've got this sinking feeling that I may not be able to master programming Atari home brews. I think it really codified while I was reading an article on Retro Thing about Nolan Bushnell and the Atari games that came out with the Atari Jr.

In the late 80's, Atari created a smaller & cheaper 2600 ("the fun is back for under 50 bucks!") to compete with Nintendo's NES. The release of the Atari Jr. was flanked by a few new releases from Atari themselves. These games were subcontracted to Bushnell's Axlon company (after he bluffed Atari that his staff had the chops to program for the notoriously difficult 2600). Luckily one of his programmers, Steve DeFrisco, was clever enough to work his magic to create the last few official games for the 2600.

I knew about the 2600's reputation for being hard to program, as I've been reading David Crane's really cool 2600 Magic app on my iPhone. I may have thought at first that since the graphics were simple, the coding must be equally simple. I was wrong about that. Oh, so very wrong.

So I'm reading this Bushnell article and thinking to myself, "C'mon now, are you REALLY going to figure this stuff out?" And really, no, I'm probably not.

And besides, I'm utterly obsessed with NES at the moment. Hmmm... I wonder if people program homebrews for the NES? It would be totally innocent to Google that, right?

And lo, 98-026, a college course on programming for the NES, taught at Carnegie Mellon in 2004. I'm afraid to even click on the "Development tools and resources" or "Assignments from the class" buttons, but it's too late anyway. The idea has a foot-hold. This is trouble.

Super Mario Crossover

I don't even know how they did this, but don't question it. Just go play SMB as Simon from Castlevania. Or Samus...



There is audio, FYI, so be careful at work.

Black Dynamite

Last night we finished watching Black Dynamite, and I had to share.

The film was made in 2009, but it was made to look and feel like a medium-budget amateur 70's action film, and they went to TOWN on that. It's full of intentional blunders and nuances that give it a delightfully authentic feel. From the occasional boom mic in the shot to the visible cut edits and horrible dialog, this flick delivers:


Go here to watch it in its full HD glory)

It's available on Netflix, and even though the plot gets ridiculously goofy, well... that's because it's supposed to be. I highly recommend it! I will probably buy it, and I hope the director does an encore.