Commanders: Attack (360)

Just one mission completed today – Mission 14 – but it took TWO HOURS to finish. Not because it was especially hard, just because I kept running into traps and having to backtrack, wait, or rebuild my army. And yes, I totally overdid it again with my troops. Note to self: 9 heavy artillery units are not necessary to defeat one light tank.

Geek number spotting

I just got an email from some loyalty card points company telling me some offers they have and how many points I currently have. “Your balance is 3128 points” it said. The first thing I thought was, that’s odd – 3128 is the default port number for the squid proxy server.

Fun, polished and educational?

It would appear so. Questionaut is a charming, brilliantly thought out game for Key Stage 2 kids. That’s 11 to 14 year olds, or thereabouts. There are eight stages, each consisting of a point and click puzzle section, followed by multiple choice educational questions on subjects like maths, chemistry and English. Yes, it’s for kids to use to revise and stuff, but I felt compelled to play it to completion anyway. Hurrah for the BBC! Questionaut

Commanders: Attack (360)

Almost at the end of the main campaign now, with Mission 13 completed. It could have taken about 20 minutes to win, but once again I felt the need to stockpile tanks and artillery before converging on a single Super Unit. I had so many units to swoop in with, I actually blocked myself off from a useful attacking position. Tch. Thankfully, I killed it off anyway. Just two missions left now!

Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland (DS)

First off today I went and cooked a load of stuff using up most of my ingredients. Then I wandered round the map for a while picking more ingredients, and collecting some Snatched Pearls and other stuff of value. Selling these things, and more food, I scraped together enough rupees to make the tower grow another stage. This gave me access to Lon Lon Meadow, which is full of evil cows and mushroom things. Wandered round there for a bit, …

Commanders: Attack (360)

About time I caught up with this, I think. Put it on for a quick go, and then three hours later stopped having completed up to the end of Mission 12. None of the other missions were especially hard, but I do find myself spending longer on them than necessary because I like to stockpile loads of tanks and stuff that I don’t actually need, and take over ever building even if it’s not a mission target.

Making a Mac wake and sleep remotely

I’ve been having a play with the sleep options on my new iMac over the last few days. Since it’s replacing an always-on PC, I could keep this always-on too, but I thought I may as well make it sleep overnight and save the planet from global warming. As an aside, I don’t believe in global warming. But anyway. Things weren’t working right, as far as sleeping was concerned, and I asked about in uk.comp.sys.mac for some help. An interesting …

“Iif” statements with Yes/No fields in Access

I came across an odd thing today. I have a database with a numeric field and a Yes/No field. If the Yes/No is Yes, a calculation is done on the numeric field (in a query), otherwise a different calculation is carried out. Lets say the numeric field is “Hours” and the Yes/No is “Extra”, and the calculation is to multiply Hours by 0 (if Yes) or -1 (if No). This may not make sense here but does in the context …

New iMac!

A while ago, I was debating whether or not to ditch Windows and move over to a Mac full time.¬¨‚Ć Well, here’s the outcome: I’m still setting it up, but this new 24″ iMac will soon replace my now-ageing Athlon XP PC. Shiny!

Pinball FX (360)

Just a few goes this evening to try to beat my scores on the Nightmare Mansion and Extreme tables. Managed the former (and got two achievements too), but not the latter. Although I did manage to pick up another achievement on the Extreme one.

My 360 RIP, part IV

You may have noticed that despite my console’s apparent death, I’m still playing games on it. This is because only a few games actually fail to work, with others playing just fine. One of the working games is Tomb Raider Anniversary. At least, I thought it was. Until this morning, when I tried to play it. Turned on my 360, loaded the game (it was already in the drive), and started playing. Five minutes later, the game froze. In fact, …