Soul Reaver

I'm not sure why, but I started up the old Sega Dreamcast and started playing Soul Reaver. I bougth the game used just before I switched mostof my game playing to PC, and let the consoles get dusty, so I didn't play it much back when Sega was still alive and kicking. Absolutely amazing game, despite being something like 7 years old. Even now, the graphics and gameplay are not sub-par.

Basically, it's a FPS with swords, not guns. And oh, your avatar is undead. If you've played Medi-Evil on Playstation I (I think there's now a version for PSP), it's a lot like that, but without the humor, maybe more like Tomb Raider with a sword.

While the game is full of hack-n-slash, it's really based on puzzles. Most of the puzzles are somewhat clever, though there's lots of moving granite blocks around.

New Terry Goodkind

Terry Goodkind's Phantom, the tenth volume in the Sword of Truth series, is coming out next week.

I started reading the series before it became a series. At the time I thought it to be a hard-hitting fantasy series with strong characters, a fresh look at good vs. evil, within and without. After the third or fourth book, I let the series slip away from me, and that was years ago. Do any of you know how well the series matured? Is it worth the time to catch up on more recent volumes?

She's always a pirate to me...

With the new spattering of pirateness running around after the new movie, I was inspired to filk a piratical version of a song. Hmmmmm...which song? I'm not sure why, but "She's always a woman" by Billy Joel came to mind. "She's always a pirate." Now, how to change the lyrics?

I looked at the lyrics, and realized, they already work pretty well, just change woman to pirate throughout.

Huh.

lyrics

Mid East escalation

For those of you who haven't heard, violence between Lebanon and Israel has gotten pretty bad. The basic story: Hezbollah (a terrorist group that is currently the political leadership of Lebanon) militants kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Israel is blaming the Lebanese government, and has launched an attack, hitting key targets in southern Lebanon and Beirut. Hezbollah has retaliated.

To make matters worse, Israel is claiming that the kidnap victims are being taken to Iran, which Iran denies.

Prior to the Hezbollah kidnappings, Hamas (another terror group, now the political leadership of the Palestinians) crossed the border from Gaza to do some kidnapping of their own. So Israel has violence on two fronts, is potentially threatening a third (Iran), and it wouldn't be surprising if militants in Syria and Iraq also get involved.

This is not good.