Courtside!

A week ago, I got to watch an NBA game courtside. And when I say courtside, I mean right up against the playing surface, close enough that a trip and fall could mean bad news for me. While there may be more proof if someone had recorded the game, the image on the left is the closest I have (click to enlarge). That is a screen grab from the game summary, showing the back of the head of yours truly. Granted the game wasn't that great, but I learnt things from the experience that make it truly memorable.

The biggest was that all the players looked surprisingly human. It must have been the distance and the angle, because you could see the tense walk, the relaxed stroll, and the rush after a score, writ large on their faces. And most surprisingly for me, the relief when they pass the ball on to the star on the team. You can actually sense the difference between the confident play by the star and the "hot potato" passes that get to him. I had always imagined that the commentators made it up - never realized the body language could be so loud.

Everyone, and i mean everyone, wipes their shoes before coming on. There is an unobtrusive pad tucked behind the column where everyone - the stars, the kids, the cheerleaders, the performers, and the corporate honchos - has to wipe their shoes before entering the arena. And the side effect of this obsessive cleanliness is the familiar squeak-squeak of shoes on wood.

If you are ever scheduled to do anything during a big game, prepared to never be ready for it. Say you are a playing a one-on-one with another guy in a sumo suit. One second you are walking through the entrance and the next thing you know, a mascot is flying in the air towards you to knock you on your behind. Or say you are scheduled to show up on television and wave while the voice in the air talks about something you represent. One minute you have a guy in a suit chatting inanities with you, telling you stand just so and face that way. And the next you know there is a blinding light on your face and a camera from halfway across the stadium zooms in on your pores. Talk about deer in a headlight.

Down on the court, in spite of all the din in the stadium, the players can actually hear each other and the coach. The fans makes it difficult, but it is not half as bad as the television makes it feel. And when you can hear each other, guess what else works - heckling. When you are sitting that close, and yell someone's name out - it is pretty hard for them not to turn in response.

The players wear enormous shoes. With no innuendo, if you leave your foot stretched too far out, it is only a matter of time before a throw-in results in your toes being squished out from under you.

And last but not the least, staring at cheerleaders is uncomfortable when you are close enough for them to look right back at you. Gawking is best accomplished via the Jumbo Tron. Moreover they all wear too much makeup.

Quaint Wooden Puzzles

There are very few advantages to being dragged to a T.J.Maxx for a post-holiday shopping spree. The last time, however, was an exception. There is apparently a whole class of puzzles out there that is wooden, three-dimensional and works without the need for any controller. Siam Mandalay, is the company in question that makes these fun wooden puzzles. I picked up a box of 6 such puzzles, when we should have been rug shopping.

Among the easiest of the lot is the Cube puzzle. It is basically a three dimensional Tetris, that involves dropping pre-built pieces into a 3x3 cube. A similar puzzle is called the Radius. Deceptively difficult, it involves assembling four parts built from cylindrical arcs, into a 4 unit high cylinder.

Things started to get more interesting with the next puzzle - Hidden Passage. Made up of 12 pieces, it is a complex interlocking cube, that involves sliding pieces back and forth to disassemble and assemble. Similarly there is the other puzzle called Shooting Star. Made up of 6 identical pieces, it is both a challenge to disassemble (you have to believe you are not going to wreck it by trying) and a greater challenge just to visualize prior to putting it together.

Then the two (as yet) unsolved pieces. Lock it Up is wooden prison for a tiny wooden sphere. The other puzzle is, for some reason, called Newton's Comet. Bearing scant resemblance to the original, it instead looks like square version of the shooting star that feels so fragile that anything you do to it, could destroy it.

I know that the word "Genius" is generally abused. The puzzle maker, for one, refers to anyone that can solve them as a Genius. Whether they mean it in jest is another question, but whoever first visualized these puzzles, in my opinion, is nothing short of a Spatial Genius. Now how about that trip to T.J.Maxx?

Angry birds, clueless pigs

The game Angry Birds, seems to be all the rage now. It is the top selling game on iTunes, and one of the most successful free games on the Android platform. It has apparently been downloaded 50 million times, and is responsible for 200 million fewer minutes of productive human existence each day. The game style itself is not new, but of course the execution of the game is snappy, beautiful and addictive. Yet, how many of us have paused to consider what we are really playing?

Apparently someone has, and made this video as proof.

You Sir, are under Siege

Stumbled upon this simple flash based game over at Armor Games. Sporting a nice physics engine, and a simple game play, this was a good way to waste an hour of one's time.

Sieger is a siege game where the aim is to use projectiles to knock down a castle and kill all the defenders. Sometimes there are hostages that need to be saved, and treasure that needs to be looted. The fewer the shots the better.

I am guessing this is the first of a series of time-wasting activities today. Now if only I can get to the "Brilliant Victory" medal in all of the sieges.

Update: With a bit of perseverance and cheating on 2 sieges later, we have complete brilliance in victory.

 

Update 2: Apparently I caught the bug for crushing castles. Found another game called Crush the Castle 2 on the same site. This one is a tad tougher and involves the use of a weighted slingshot.

But fear not - determination prevailed. In the battle of man vs. Crustania, man won. And all is well with the world.

The Guild

I stumbled upon "The Guild", via their hilarious music video called "Do You Wanna Date My Avatar" (at the end of the post) and their blockbuster sequel "Game On"

The Guild is the story of six online gamers, who discover life IRL (in real life) to be very different from their successful online exploits. The story is told from the point of view of the principal character Codex, who goes by the name Sid otherwise. A dedicated gamer, Codex is nevertheless racked by doubt about not having a life offline. She is pursued ardently by Zaboo, who transitioned from a clueless mama's boy into online gaming and Codex.

Leading the guild is Vork, a sad bald man in real life who, apart from taking care of his sick grandfather, devoted himself completely to the cause of the online gaming team. Bladezz is the youngest in the group, still at an age where being a gamer automatically does not make it a social impediment. Yet, with a painful sibling and overbearing parents, he finds solace in acting his age with the rest of the group.

Tink or Tinkerballa is the second girl in the group. Seemingly the most normal of the lot, she nevertheless displays a cunning ruthlessness in real life, to the discomfort and enlightenment of her fellow gamers. Finally there is Clara, who is also known as Clara, and is a mother of three young kids. Balancing her maternal responsibilities with the demands of gaming prove difficult for her, and she naturally chose gaming; over parenting or her half-sister's wedding.

The six eclectic characters begin the series with the first meeting outside of their quests in the unnamed (presumed D&D) MMO. Season One, deals with the introduction of the characters, followed by the story arcs of Zaboo's freedom and the pwning of Bladezz. Season Two, follows the story arcs of the stunt guy in Codex's apartment along with the epic party that follows. That is as far as I got to before I decided to post. With each episode lasting between 4 and 8 minutes, an hour tomorrow should take care of Season Three.

Returning to the previously scheduled programming, here is the music video that was responsible for this post.

Typeracer

Continuing with today's trend of posting about useful sites, here is another that I just stumbled upon - TypeRacer.

TypeRacer is a website where you basically race against others, by pitting your typing speed and accuracy against theirs. Every race starts off with a random excerpt, about a paragraph long and some randomly chosen opponents. The excerpts are selected from books, poems or even song lyrics.

One word at a time is highlighted in the excerpt, allowing you to type it correctly in a text box. If you make a mistake, you cannot proceed till you correct it. Once you type in the correct word, it disappears from your text box, the next word in the excerpt is highlighted. The first one to complete typing the excerpt wins.

The site, randomly pits you against opponents who are in the same typing speed range as you to keep things interesting. You can instead choose to practice yourself, or race against specific people.

As it turns out, I apparently type in the 88.5 percentile range. So the question is am I going to practice long enough to start making an appreciable difference in the type racing rating of mine.

The Order of the Stick

While xkcd and Cyanide are self-contained strips, other webcomics have taken taken the route of epic fantasy - literally. My favorite example of such serialized goodness is The Order of the Stick - a.k.a. OOTS.

The Order of the Stick, follows the adventures of a team of warriors who are battling the great evil of Xykon. And while they are on this quest, they are constantly fighting monsters, dealing with silly detours, gaining XP points, leveling up all while making wise-cracks about the nature of role playing games (Dungeons & Dragons in particular).

The OOTS is led by Roy Greenhilt, an uptight warrior with an enormous sense of duty in fulfilling his father's last wish. Much of the comic is dedicated to the growth of Roy as the leader of the rag-tag band. Supporting as second in command is Haley Starshine, who excels as a scout because of her skill in deception.

Belkar Bitterleaf is a dwarfish, selfish, oafish and dangerous halfling. In addition to being extremely bad in his skills, he keeps the rest of the order on its toes by being highly unreliable.

Durkon Thundershield is the healer of the team. And the ponderous, capable dwarf who is just as likely to address ye olde self, as bring down the lightning of Thor.

Elan and Vaarsuvius are the single-word named duo, forming the rest of the team. Elan is a simpleton. Able to infuriate with his puns and songs than actual fighting, while Vaarsuvious is a self-centered, arrogant and condescending gender-ambiguous wizard.

If you like role playing games (RPG), you probably have already heard of this comic. Even if you have not heard of RPGs, the comic more than stands for itself beyond the arcane lingo of skills, checks and levels. Ignore it, and in no time you will start to realize what those terms really mean.

At the time of writing this, there are a total of 743 episodes available. Everything you need for hours of role-playing, comic fun.

Psychic octopus

This is hilarious. There is a psychic octopus, born in the UK and moved to Germany, that predicts world cup match winners - with amazing accuracy.

The question of course is - has anyone with a coin competed with it to see how better the octopus fared against a coin flip.

Achron

Ooh, nerdy RTS game time! Just stumbled across a game called Achron. It is set like a typical strategy game, with units, objectives, commands and opponents. But, the key difference is that units and players can move through time as they go about trying to defeat their opponents. Here is a quick introductory video...

Here is another that shows both players taking the option of going back in time to thwart each others' designs. So much fun!