-Money cannot buy happiness but it’s more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle.
-Forgive your enemy but remember the bast ard’s name.
– Help someone when they are in trouble and they will remember you when they’re in trouble again.
-Alcohol does not solve any problems, but then again, neither does milk.
-If you’re too open minded, your brains will fall out.
-Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
-Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a mechanic.
-Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
-If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before.
-My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.
-Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.
-It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.
-For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.
-If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.
-Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
-A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
-No husband has ever been shot while doing the dishes.
-A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
-Middle age is when broadness of the mind and narrowness of the waist change places.
-Opportunities always look bigger going than coming.
-Junk is something you’ve kept for years and throw away three weeks before you need it.
-There is always one more imbecile than you counted on.
-Experience is a wonderful thing. It enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
-By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.
-Someone who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world.
-Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused.
-When you eat a candy bar or have a wonderful dessert, have a diet drink. The calories are cancelled out by the diet drink.
-I love deadlines…especially the ‘whooshing’ sound they make as they fly by.
-When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.
-What was the greatest thing before sliced bread?
-A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.
-The cost of living hasn’t affected its popularity.
-How can there be self-help ‘groups’?
-Is there another word for ‘synonym’?
-The speed of time is one-second per second.
-Is it possible to be totally partial?
-What is another word for ‘thesaurus’?
-If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
-It’s not an optical illusion. It just looks like one.
-Is it my imagination, or do buffalo wings taste like chicken?
-Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue.
-Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
-Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
-Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors, and miss.
-Cooking lesson #1: don’t fry bacon in the nude.
-Drive carefully. It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.
-Eat a live toad in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.
-If life gives you lemons, squeeze the juice into a water gun and shoot other people in the eyes.
-If you’re not part of the solution, be part of the problem!
-If you can’t be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
-If you can’t beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing.
-If you lend someone $20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
-If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple of car payments.
-If you try and don’t succeed, cheat. Repeat until caught. Then lie.
-It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
-Never buy a car you can’t push.
-Never pet a burning dog.
-Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you don’t have a leg to stand on.
-Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
-Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
-The early worm gets eaten by the bird, so sleep late.
-There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives.
-There are very few problems that cannot be solved by orders ending with ‘or die’.
-When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
-Everybody is somebody else’s weirdo.
-If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously not understood the danger you are in
Archives for 2012
Rules for a Happy Life
Those who play together, stay together – study
A study from Brigham Young University (BYU) has revealed online role-playing games like World of Warcraft both negatively and positively impact marital satisfaction.The study looked at 349 heterosexual couples, dividing the respondents into two groups: one in which both spouses gamed, and the other in which only one spouse gamed.
For couples in which both spouses play, the study found 76 percent said that gaming had a positive effect on their marital relationship, particularly couples who interacted in-game.The average age of the respondents in the nationwide survey was 33 years, while the average marriage length was seven years. Of those couples in which only one spouse gamed, 84 percent were the husbands; of those couples where both gamed, 73 percent of those who gamed more were husbands.
Via au.gamespot.com
ClassRealm: How One Teacher Turned Sixth Grade Into An MMO
Video games and education. Two passions in my life that I tend to keep separate. I’ve been on the learning side of education for the last 16 years, but last fall I made the transition from student to teacher. I was dead set on bridging the gap between my life as a gamer and my life as a teacher before the school year even started. I plastered the walls of my classroom with posters of Link, set up Mario action figures across my desk and crafted 8-bit sprites all over my board. My sixth grade students loved that I was interested in video games — just like them! As sixth graders, most of the boys in my class were more focused on Call of Duty and Madden, they had no knowledge of the magic of platformers, RPGs, or adventures games.I wouldn’t be as well read as I am today if it wasn’t for video games.
As I was describing my video-game-related teachings to my buddy Courtny, we began talking about incorporating gaming into education. Why not? I probably wouldn’t be as well read as I am today if it wasn’t for games like Pokémon Red and Blue. Games that relied on text. How else would I have known a large Pokémon was blocking Route 12? Video games are surprisingly helpful in school. They often promote reading, help students think through problems, and give players a sense of accomplishment to strive for. Courtny and I weren’t the first to think of gamifying a classroom, but maybe we could come up with the best system to date.
Via www.kotaku.com.au
Students Enter Virtual World of Finance (Second Life)
Students at Maine Endwell High School have entered in to a virtual world in order to learn about financial planning for their future.
Visions Federal Credit Union provides this free educational tool.
Maine Endwell is the first school in New York State to use the game, Modoh Island.
“Our hope is that eventually it will be something that the teachers can use to supplement their classroom without our hands on in it,” says Colleen Barton, Youth Educator for Visions Federal Credit Union.
To play, students create an Avatar and start with $10,000 dollars.
They have to make choices from buying cars to paying school loans, and buying or renting a home.
“I just picked the basic schooling and I was just careful about the car, and I picked a smaller house, cheaper and cheaper car. Smart decisions for then and now I can get a nicer car and house,” says Julie, an 11th grade student.
Via www.wbng.com
EVE Online offers lessons for the financial crisis
Uh-oh! Another big bank is the subject of a depositor run amid charges its chairman has run off with customers’ money. Thankfully, this scandal is only taking place in Eve Online, a space-age virtual reality created by CCP, a games developer and Iceland’s coolest company. But Ebank’s troubles in the ether may offer some valuable lessons for earthly banking and regulation.
Eve is one of the more successful so-called massively multiplayer online games. Some 300,000 people – as it happens, nearly equal to the population of Iceland – pay $15 a month to navigate characters that pilot inter-galactic spaceships, manufacture and trade goods, mine resources and enter into big alliances – or bloody battles – with one another.
Central to Eve’s strategy, players develop economies within an “anything goes,” free markets framework that allows them to expand their fleets, buy weaponry and equipment and bolster defences. Indeed, Eve boasts 66 different marketplaces for some 5,000 items, with more than a million transactions a day.
Enter Ebank. Because players often do not have the interstellar credits – abbreviated to ISK, also the official abbreviation of the Icelandic krona – they need to expand their fleets, an enterprising player created a bank that would accept deposits and lend to players who would pledge assets, like their spacecraft, as collateral.
Via www.telegraph.co.uk
Ultima Returns as Browser-Based F2P MMO Strategy Game
Electronic Arts and Aeria Games have jointly announced the launch of Lord of Ultima, a new addition to the Ultima franchise that can be played within a browser.Following the successful launch of Battlefield Heroes and Need for Speed World, Lord of Ultima is the latest, and third, title Aeria Games has released from its multi-game deal for EA’s portfolio of Play4Free games.”Set in the legendary Ultima universe, the game transports players to the new world of Caledonia where players aim to grow their capital on the path to glory,” reads the description. “By exploring new continents and forging a vast empire, players will master the art of diplomacy and trade as well as the military activities of spying, plundering, and conquering enemy cities. Players can mark their place in history by attaining the mighty and feared status as Lord of Ultima.”
Via www.tomshardware.com
Growing old, kicking and screaming
A couple in their nineties are both having problems remembering things. During a checkup, the doctor tells them that they’re physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember ..
Later that night, while watching TV, the old man gets up from his chair. ‘Want anything while I’m in the kitchen?’ he asks.
‘Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?’
‘Sure..’
‘Don’t you think you should write it down so you can remember it?’ she asks
‘No, I can remember it..’
‘Well, I’d like some strawberries on top, too. Maybe you should write it down, so as not to forget it?’
He says, ‘I can remember that. You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries.’
‘I’d also like whipped cream. I’m certain you’ll forget that, write it down?’ she asks.
Irritated, he says, ‘I don’t need to write it down, I can remember it! Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream – I got it, for goodness sake!’
Then he toddles into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes, The old man returns from the kitchen and hands his wife a plate of bacon and eggs.. She stares at the plate for a moment.
‘Where’s my toast ?’
An elderly couple had dinner at another couple’s house, and after eating, the wives left the table and went into the kitchen.
The two gentlemen were talking, and one said, ‘Last night we went out to a new restaurant and it was really great.. I would recommend it very highly..’
The other man said, ‘What is the name of the restaurant?’
The first man thought and thought and finally said, ‘What is the name of that flower you give to someone you love?
You know…. The one that’s red and has thorns.’
‘Do you mean a rose?’
‘Yes, that’s the one,’ replied the man. He then turned towards the kitchen and yelled, ‘Rose, what’s the name of that restaurant we went to last night?’
Hospital regulations require a wheel chair for patients being discharged. However, while working as a student nurse, I found one elderly gentleman already dressed and sitting on the bed with a suitcase at his feet, who insisted he didn’t need my help to leave the hospital.
After a chat about rules being rules, he reluctantly let me wheel him to the elevator.
On the way down I asked him if his wife was meeting him.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘She’s still upstairs in the bathroom changing out of her hospital gown.’
A senior citizen said to his eighty-year old buddy:
‘So I hear you’re getting married?’
‘Yep!’
‘Do I know her?’
‘Nope!’
‘This woman, is she good looking?’
‘Not really.’
‘Is she a good cook?’
‘Naw, she can’t cook too well.’
‘Does she have lots of money?’
‘Nope! Poor as a church mouse.’
‘Well, then, is she good in bed?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why in the world do you want to marry her then?’
‘Because she can still drive!’
Three old guys are out walking.
First one says, ‘Windy, isn’t it?’
Second one says, ‘No, it’s Thursday!’
Third one says, ‘So am I. Let’s go get a beer..’
A man was telling his neighbor, ‘I just bought a new hearing aid. It cost me four thousand dollars, but it’s state of the art.. It’s perfect.’
‘Really,’ answered the neighbor . ‘What kind is it?’
‘ Twelve thirty..’
Morris, an 82 year-old man, went to the doctor to get a physical.
A few days later, the doctor saw Morris walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm.
A couple of days later, the doctor spoke to Morris and said, ‘You’re really doing great, aren’t you?’
Morris replied, ‘Just doing what you said, Doc: ‘Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.”
The doctor said, ‘I didn’t say that.. I said, ‘You’ve got a heart murmur; be careful.’
One more. . .!
A little old man shuffled slowly into an ice cream parlor and pulled himself slowly, painfully, up onto a stool… After catching his breath, he ordered a banana split.
The waitress asked kindly, ‘Crushed nuts?’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘Arthritis.’
Ball State University buys out Blue Mars platform
It’s fair to say Blue Mars has had some challenges over the years, but it looks like it’s about to go to an even safer pay of hands, with Ball State University buying the platform:
Under Ball State’s terms of agreement with Avatar Reality, the university will begin to fully operate Blue Mars for non-commercial purposes, expand upon the source code, increase its research and academic initiatives, and enhance the community of Blue Mars. In addition, Ball State will continue to deliver original content on Blue Mars as it has done in the past. “I am really excited about the future,†Phil Repp, Ball State’s vice president for information technology, said. “Through our division of Hybrid Design Technologies, Ball State will further our position as a national leader in hybrid worlds and their applications to mediated learning technologies. Our reputation in this discipline is such a perfect fit to our institutional history of innovation in teaching and learning.
Read the rest at over at the superb dwellonit.taterunino.net
Linden Lab acquires experimental game studio LittleTextPeople
Spotted this little snippet on Gamasutra:
Second Life developer Linden Lab has acquired the experimental game studio LittleTextPeople, which specializes in exploring the emotional possibilities of interactive fiction.This marks the first acquisition for Linden Lab since former Sims developer Rod Humble took over as CEO in 2010, and falls in line with the comapny’s new strategy to experiment with game design and develop products beyond Second Life. LittleTextPeople, founded by writer Emily Short and Maxis veteran Richard Evans, has so far focused on the development of software that replicates complex social interaction. For instance, among its internal technology is a simulator that models social behavior and individual personalities.
The article goes on to talk about it’s great use in interactive novels. I can see a lot more usefulness beyond that – particularly in the education and simulation sphere. I doubt that’s the direction LL will take it however. You can also view the full press release here.
The pic on this post is from Botgirl Questi’s blog – check the brilliant pic out in full there.
Aussie R18+ legislation aiming for Jan. 2013 introduction
Australian gamers can expect to have an R18+ classification for games by January 1, 2013, according to the federal government.Federal Minister for Home Affairs Jason Clare today introduced the R18+ bill in parliament and announced the federal government expects the R18+ for games legislation to officially come into effect next year.Last month, Clare announced his intention to stick to former Federal Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O’Connor’s previous plans in introducing the R18+ legislation in the February 2012 session of parliament.Clare has stayed true to this plan, officially introducing the R18+ for games bill in parliament today.
Via au.gamespot.com
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