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Now that you're thoroughly relaxed from last week's game, it's time to up the ante just slightly. But don't worry, depending on what you do for a living, your boss might not notice that you're slacking.
Why? Because this week's free game starts with an Excel spreadsheet as a launching pad for puzzle-gaming antics. You might be able to get away with this for about 5 minutes before that nosy cubicle mate of yours goes squealing to the higher-ups. Jerk. Not that there aren't bigger wastes of time that are Excel related.
Till then, Excit challenges you to get the cursor from its starting point to the exit using only the arrow keys. Your cursor moves in any given direction until it hits something or is redirected by an obstacle. Things escalate quickly and before you know it one tap of the keyboard has the cursor flying around and transporting in ways you hadn't predicted. You can think you're way through them, but I used the trial and error method and have gotten to the last level (I'm stuck though).
If you think you can do better, click here and prove me wrong.
Is me baiting you making you any more interested in my blog post? (Fingers crossed.)
Enjoy.
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Digital broadcast TV:
KLRU 18-1
KLRU Create 18-2
KLRU Q 18-3
Grande Cable:
KLRU 9/309
KLRU Create 283 (Only available to digital cable subscribers)
KLRU Q 284 (Only available to digital cable subscribers)
Time Warner Cable:
KLRU 9/1541
KLRU Create 1542 (Only available to digital cable subscribers)
KLRU Q 20/255 (Only available to digital cable subscribers)
Wondering what the Q stands for? KLRU’s blog cites the kind of Q words one has come to expect from PBS – quality, quest, quirk, quintessential – but the Q word that gives away KLRU Q bleeds Austin: queso.
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It's desolate, arid country out here. Nothing much to see. Nothing much to do. Scrubby little knots of bone-brown brush and tufts of spiny desert thistle dot the landscape, which rises in slow-building slopes before descending down to flat patches of silty playa. All around are the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and above that, like whitecaps on a dead blue sea, are sprawling puffballs of cumulonimbus clouds, still and magnificent. One of them takes on the form of a rampant Chinese dragon, belching fire from a toothy maw as the scorching, 90-degree sun punches through it like the atom-splitting white flash illuminating Frenchman Flats, circa 1951.
According to my GPS, I'm standing dead-bang in the midst of Misfits Flats, Nevada, just outside of Silver Springs, six miles off IH-50 down a haphazard hardpan nightmare of a trail that barely earns the name Break-A-Heart Rd. ('Break-An-Axle Rd." is more apropos.) I'm roughly 30 outside of Reno, Nevada, proper, but it resembles nothing so much as Cormac McCarthy's The Road, minus the dread. In fact, it's almost peaceful.
This is where director John Huston, during the summer and fall of 1960, shot several key sequences of his dead-or-dying-in-the-west masterpiece The Misfits. There's nothing whatsoever to mark the historic cinematic event; no plaque, no signs, not even a calcified hoof-print in the dirt thin, shifting sands. But a sudden whip of nowhere wind bears silent testament to the ghosts that haunt this particularly uninviting stretch of Nevada range: Clark, Monty, Marilyn, Thelma Ritter, Kevin McCarthy, and Huston himself.
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The World Horror Society sure gets around: This year's convention was held in Winnipeg, next year's will be hosted by Brighton, England, and in 2011, the World Horror Convention touches down in our fair city. ("Does it help that Austin is home to the largest urban bat colony in the world?" wonders our friends at Slackerwood.)
You've got some time to plan – like we said, 2011 – but convention co-chair Nate Southard has already announced Sarah Langan (bestselling author of The Missing and The Keeper) as the guest of honor. Of the selection of Austin as host city, Southard had this to say:
“Texas has a long history of strange fiction, serving as home to such luminaries as Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, and Joe R. Lansdale ... Bringing the World Horror Convention to Austin is a natural. It’s a vibrant city with a taste for the eccentric and a love of the arts. Further, its central, southern location makes it convenient for travelers throughout the US, and visitors from abroad will have no trouble reaching us either.”
Speaking of Lansdale, he's profiled in this week's Chronicle; Lansdale's new Hap & Leonard novel Vanilla Ride hits shelves this Tuesday.
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Fans of Joss Whedon’s feature film Serenity (2008) and Firefly, the 2002 TV series that inspired it, first came together as the Austin Browncoats to share their fanaticism, but decided there was more to give than adoration. They turned themselves into an official non-profit organization, raising funds for good causes.
On June 28, the Austin Browncoats celebrate Joss Whedon’s birthday with a double-feature of Whedon’s Serenity and the web-sensation, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek. Proceeds from the one-day-only event will benefit one of Whedon’s favorite charities, Equality Now, an organization which works to end violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world. Kids Need To Read is the second recipient of the fundraiser, a children’s literacy program which supports Austin’s under-funded schools, libraries, and shelters.
Tickets to the event are $15 in advance, $18 at the door. Showtimes are 12pm, 5pm, and 10pm, and event organizers say they are quickly selling out.
For more information and to purchase tickets online, go to www.cantstoptheserenity.com/austin or visit www.alamodrafthouse.com.
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We've covered a lot of ground since starting this column a few months back. Assuming you've read every post religiously, you've enjoyed a bit of free-internet-gaming whimsy, some frustration, and even mouse-demolishing click-fests. But what about you anti-gamers who avoid pulse-raising action and search for more bliss-inducing tech? Well, boy, did you choose the right week to start caring about my taste in online games.
This week's game is called flOw, and the name alone should give you an idea of the game's yogic possibilities. We reviewed the game when it appeared for download on the PlayStation Network, but little did we realize that there was a free (and slightly simplified) version floating about the internet just waiting for cheapskate gamers like me. While the PlayStation version does have more graphical frippery, the online game feels like the grad-school thesis gone oh-so right that it is. Lord only knows what the thesis was about. From the intuitive controls to simple objectives (if there is one) the game is a breath of fresh air … underwater.
Take control of a swimming organism and explore the deep while ingesting smaller organisms that cause rapid evolutionary changes in your creature. As you dive deeper and you gain more strength and size you may notice that the once harmless floaters are becoming a bit more aggressive. Go on the attack or just lay back and enjoy the environment.
The people behind flOw have since released a similarly (if not infuriatingly more) peaceful game for PlayStation3 download called Flower. I think they should have called it blOw, but I'm no marketer.
Click here to play flOw and hope no one notices that it's being offered for free and take it down.
Word to the wise: If you're goal is to beat the game (i.e., reach the bottom) you might be in for a long haul and there's no saving your game. The game can also be a bit buggy. You might want to experiment with checking your e-mail while playing before getting too far along. I learned that one the hard way.
Enjoy.
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Marc Savlov from Austin, Texas here. I have something I have to say to you. It might hurt a little, but just remember: it's not me, it's you.
Anyway, when I'm not off visiting my widowed and lonely mother up in, um, you, I'm doing the film thing way down yonder in the 512 for The Austin Chronicle. There's generally no shortage of cinema to pick from at home, but I noticed that your theater and video store selection was, how shall I put this? "A mite slim."
You see, earlier today I decided I would go and rent your classic drama The Misfits from one of your many splendid corporate DVD rental facilities. As all the world knows, John Huston's magnificent western elegiac was shot right here in good old Reno -- that's you! -- and then I thought mabye tomorrow I might go visit some of the original shooting sites once trod upon by the likes of Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and Monty "The Right Profile" Clift.
Now, I don't know how you do things here but I figured that, just like in Austin, I could ring up your local VHS (R.I.P.)/DVD rental joint and have them hold me a copy. No problem, right? The Misfits is only the most legendary, sexy, and downright cool Sierra Nevada-centric film about the Death of the Great American West ever made and, hey, I'm already in Reno. Your video stores probably have 20-plus copies just waiting for outsiders like me to wander in and rent them. What could possibly go wrong?
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Oh, Edie Falco, you've got me crushing like a crushed up Percocet.
Nurse Jackie is almost as addictive. Everybody and their doctor (and my fave, Belinda Acosta) has written about the new Showtime show, so I'll spare you… save for my ear-to-ear grins realizing, for example, that Eddie, the hospital pharmacist, Jackie's lunch-hour shag pal, is played by the same dude who played Father Phil in the Sopranos. And that the guy who plays her husband once had a small part in one episode as a Moltisanti. And that in the premiere, when we first see Jackie and her BFF, the droll Dr. Eleanor taking a meal at a fancy restaurant, it could have been Carmela at Vesuvio. And the mere sight of Anna Devere Smith wasted, with her face smooshed up against a window made me guffaw. Out loud. Very loudly. Almost as much as the Valley of the Dolls theme.
And that recurring food stuff, what's that about? Pancakes happen twice in the pilot, and Heineken and pudding make two appearances each in the second eppy. (UPDATE: Third episode: Chicken Soup!) Food stuffs and product placements, I have my eye on you.
I'm hooked. Sure, we all nurse our own brands of dysfunctional and lonely: No OC. No Veronica Mars. No Strangers With Candy. True love is so fleeting, yes? And somehow, I always manage to fall for these bleak, gorgeously flawed, huggably fucked up creatures… like Nurse Jackie.
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Filmmaker and Austin Film Society artistic director Richard Linklater weighed in on the ongoing Austin Studios fracas in an open letter in Persistence of Vision, the AFS newsletter. (Maybe fracas is too strong. How about a ruckus?):
"There have been a lot of rumors flying around over the past week about what is happening at Austin Studios and before things get out of hand, we all need to take a breath and get on the same page."
You can read the whole letter here. Hopelessly lost? Read this week's Film News column to find out what all the bustle's about.
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Sorry about the near impossible dork-out last week. Hope I didn't scare you off. Here's a consolation prize for the more casual gamer looking for simplicity and ease in their gaming experience.
This week's waste of time is Little Wheel by Fast Games. And, honestly, it really shouldn't waste too much of your time. The goal is simple and the game guides you easily from one challenge to another. It's much more about the art deco landscape and silhouetted art design. Little Wheel errs toward the artistic, skimping a bit on the gameplay and difficulty but, like I said, I'm going easy on you this week.
Tangent time: Silhouetted games are becoming quite the trend for handheld systems and downloadable content on the major gaming systems. From the rhythm-based Patapon (and now Patapon 2) for the PSP to the techno-infused trip of PixelJunk Eden available for download on the PlayStation Network. World of Goo brought the Wii a bit of shadowy physics to the platform and is available for download. And another WiiWare title to be released is the blissfully moody Night Game. I'm expecting some sort of motion-capture shadow-puppet game for all this new user-recognition technology being touted at the recently ended E3 conference.
Till then, click here to play Little Wheel. The load time is a bit lengthy. Why not get some work done while you wait.
Enjoy.
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