Cubed

Turns out, I'm not the only one.

The NYT documents the triumphant return of the Rubix Cube.  Here's an image of my cube, bought last summer in the depths of dissertation writing.  I can reliably solve it in about two minutes.

Up up, down down, left right, left right, BA BA, START!

After trashing video games the other day, I learned a little bit about the collector's world of console video games. Apparently there's some serious money in ultra-rare video games. Here are the top 10 most desirable games, including the holy grail, the Nintendo World Championship Gold Edition, only 26 of which were ever produced.

Video Games: A Personal Hell

As someone who played endless hours of video games a kid, I have grown up to be someone who wishes I hadn't. No offense to people who like games, but it's just not my idea of fun anymore, especially in social settings (damn the Wii).

But I did get a little excited during when, during the Super Bowl, I saw an ad for a video game based on Dante's Inferno. Not that I really want to play it, or that I expect it satisfy my literary expectations. But, from my nerdy PhD standpoint, it seems cool nonetheless.

So I was a little disappointed by the NYT review of it:

It should be clear by now that the story in the game has almost nothing to do with the story of the poem. There is no reason this game could not be set in any of the hundreds or thousands of generic hells that have hosted video games over the years. What Electronic Arts has done, quite transparently, is appropriate Dante’s brand to use as a light marketing skin on top of the God of War clone the company so clearly wanted to make.

And so images of Virgil spout lines from the poem at you once in a while, and Dante’s ranged weapon appears as crosses of light, but there is no heavy religious imagery and never any real sense of horror or torment. There are, however, a lot of bare female breasts. There is even a giant Cleopatra demon who spurts knife-wielding unbaptized children out of her nipples.

I can't tell whether to be disappointed that the game takes little more than its name from Dante, or to be excited that it features Cleopatra shooting "knife-wielding unbaptized children out of her nipples."

Electoral Judo

Needless to say, blogging will continue to be super slow as I read for my exams and obsessively read about the election. In the meantime, give yourself a little break and take out your election angst on the other party: Kung Fu Election. Enjoy.

Thanks to Hannah for this.

Repent: The End is Near

Ut oh: This could spell the end of my goofing off (and end my reign of total lexicographical domination).

Facebook asked to pull Scrabulous

Facebook has been asked to remove the Scrabulous game from its website by the makers of Scrabble.

The Facebook add-on has proved hugely popular on the social network site and regularly racks up more than 500,000 daily users.

Lawyers for toy makers Hasbro and Mattel say Scrabulous infringes their copyright on the board-based word game.