Weird moods

I know that everyone gets into weird moods - odd emotional states seemingly unprompted or unrelated to one's surroundings. Some people will become sad or anxious for seemingly no reason. I do this sometimes. More often, it seems, I get bizarre urges to play certain types of computer games.

I've been on a huge space strategy game kick lately - like spending two entire nights looking for a good free online game that fit the bill (I'm currently trying Atorian; we'll see if its pace ever picks up). I'm still looking, so if anyone has suggestions for the browser-based or similar space/scifi game, please let me know. Oh and while I'm thinking of online games, I've been having a good time with Shogun Wars. It's very simplistic, but well-executed and fun. Not sure when the next season starts but it's still quite viable to join up now if you want; I'm on there as Blackfish.

I've also dug out a few older games in the process...I tried Haegemonia: Legions of Iron for the third time or so, and I just cannot get into it. I mean I knew from the get-go that the voice acting was beyond godawful; I could forgive that because it was made in Quebec. But it feels like 80% of my game time is spent leaning on the fast-forward button, waiting for techs to research or ships to build or something to HAPPEN, and this seems to go slowly even at the max 4x time compression the game provides. So, I think I'm done with that game, again. It's pretty, but it really does just fail.

So I picked up Galactic Civilizations (the first one) for $10 at Target a few days ago, and it's pretty fun so far. It has a really weird sense of humor, but so far I like it much more than the demo of GalCivII that I couldn't get into a few years ago. So that's most of what I'm playing right now, asides from the requisite WoW time and going rather slowly through HL2: Episode 2.

Oh! Good news from the Arctic front: Polar Bears May Not Be Fucked After All. Since polar bears appear to have survived (as a distinct species no less) at least one earlier and warmer period of global warming, there's at least a little hope for them. Of course, that only holds if we come out of this warming cycle without creating the runaway greenhouse effect that is the real threat.

So let's protect our polar buddies, because otherwise who will supply the armor-wearing, sentient ursine warriors voiced by Ian McKellan in upcoming movies based off fantastic fantasy trilogies? I'll have to post more about His Dark Materials (and specifically The Golden Compass) later; that deserves its own post. Suffice to say, Hillary and I are really looking forward to the movie, even if I've heard some rumors that they changed some key aspects of the books to bow a little to pressure from the Church. Pansies. Anyway, I'll probably review the movie after we've seen it.

And speaking of movies, Razor. Yarr. I don't want to say too much since I'm not sure who has and hasn't seen it yet, but I was pleased. There was one notably hokey part which kicked me out of the usual Battlestar mindset, but then I got back in and was happy with the rest of the movie. What did other people think? Certainly an ominous ending. And an amusing thing I noticed: the guy who played the Hybrid was the voice of the narrator and the Bentusi in the Homeworld games. That made me happy inside.

Finally, something I treated myself to online: the Valve store. I really couldn't pass up the chance to have an Aperture Science parking permit in my van, and "Dog is my Copilot" is also rather clever.

I promise not to wait a month and a half before my next post.