Cancer + Gambling = Feel Good Story

Okay, this does not happen every day:

A Buckinghamshire man diagnosed with terminal cancer is to collect a second winning payout of £5,000 after betting he would stay alive. (BBC News)

I don't really approve of gambling...and I sure as shootin' don't believe in cancer, but the two combined can make a great story.

As the spokesperson from the betting agents points out: "Never in 30 years in the business have I been so pleased to pay a winning client £10,000."

Jon, I hope you make it to next year, and your £100,000 payout.

Lori

Game Night Fun

Okay, I'll admit, I'm a game fan. I've clocked some hours in roleplaying games, Civilization...I played Civilization when it was, gasp, a board game!

I was terribly depressed after going into a gaming store in the late 90s, asking if they had any bookcase games...The young guy in the store looked bewildered. "Bookcase game? What's that?"

Ah well. I enjoyed the marathon gaming sessions as a 20-something, and now that I'm a mumble-mumble-something, I enjoy my evenings of drinking wine and playing games with friends.

Which brings me to the new game in my repertoire, ZapIt's GameWave.

Before we go any further, as I've mentioned before (here, here, here and here), I'm into the whole phenomenon of word-of-mouth marketing...I get samples of products, and chat about them -- with full disclosure of course.

Well, I received a GameWave unit through BzzAgent.com and to be completely honest, I'm thrilled with it! I like my games competitive, but without rancor, and that is exactly what we get with this unit.

I've had a couple of game evenings with friends so far, and they were definitely successful. Luckily, the most successful game so far is the one that comes free with the unit, "4 Degrees", a trivia game. What really works is that all of the games are played by everyone all at once, as everyone has a remote that works independently. It's a very neat concept, and all of the games are familiar ones, with mutations that take this everyone-at-the-same time idea to a new level.

Tips
If you do some looking around on the site (GameWave), and you're interested in purchasing one of these units, here are some things I've discovered:

• The unit comes with 4 remotes, and most of the games can only accommodate 4 remotes. No need to upgrade with the extra 2 remotes until they have more games that can use them.
• Other BzzAgents have had problems with the unit and its interaction with plasma TVs. But, they've also reported very good customer service -- so check before you buy, to see if it is (still) a problem.
• The Bejeweled clone game, "Gemz" is cool, but definitely needs a larger TV if you want to play with opponents. I won't even bring it out when people come over...my TV is too small!
• If you are interested, let me know, 'cause I can toss a coupon your way. Email me at loricat at gmail dot com.

Enough of the product-praise. I think my regular readers understand that I wouldn't give a good review of anything if it were shite...I've panned books and products in my time.

Back to your regularly scheduled absurdities...

Lori

Neutral Good

Years ago, I was a devoted AD&D player. And I thought then, as I do now, that the character alignments were under-utilized. People would often just play their characters any which way they wanted, without caring about an overarching motivation. I once very carefully tried to play a truly neutral character, aiming for some chaos in there -- my character truly did things that I would never have done. The funnest character ever.

Anyway, found a great geek blog where the alignments are partnered with comic book characters. It's a lot of fun...

At least I think so!

Lori