Roller Coaster Tycoon

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Dunno why, but had a random urge to go play one of my old favorites - Roller Coaster Tycoon. It's rather old, but it's still fun. It's just lucky that it runs (with proper compatibility settings) on my laptop as I haven't had much luck installing the expansions. Also lucky that the original was always the most fun. :P

If you've never played this game and get a chance to, I highly recommend it, especially if you are a fan of simulators. The main goal is complete the various scenarios in the parks the game gives you (such as "Have 200 guests and a park rating of 600 by October 31 Year 1") but it's also a lot of fun for just building roller coasters and watching the little people be morons - a bit like Sims in that regard.

And yes, the people in this game are quite stupid. One thing you should make sure to remember is to never make paths that are more that one square wide. Why? Because people will get lost on them. Seriously. They just wander around in circles. But it's quite funny to do on purpose even if a bunch of lost guests is horrible for your park rating.

Another thing to keep in mind is to never let your Handymen mow the grass. Yes, your employees are just as stupid as your guests and if you let them mow the grass THAT IS ALL THEY WILL EVER DO. Of course, this doesn't apply in parks without grass, but that's a small minority. Sad thing is, I've never even found a use for mowing the grass. Fortunately, handymen are the only employees with such a problem.




Here's a fun screenie. Though under normal circumstances your guests will object to paying $12 for anything, when it rains they WILL pay that much for an umbrella. Sure it's mean, but it's a pretty easy way to get that starting loan payed off. :P

It's that December time of year!

Let there be snow

We've got our first real snowfall out of the way. Nature had great timing this year. It started snowing on December 1. How's that for awesome? It didn't really accumulate until a few days later (ground too warm I bet) and now it's wonderfully snowy when I look out the window. The video clip I linked to is how I've been feeling the last few days (when I'm not sniffling, darn head cold...). It's from an old Christmas movie called "Frosty Returns", which has pretty much nothing in common with the original Frosty movie, but the song tends to get stuck in my head from time to time. :P

If you've seen the counter on the right side column, you'll see I beat NaNo once again! I'm quite impressed with myself this year. I wrote more than half of it by hand, though that took me until pretty much the beginning of week 4. And when I realized that I'd need to rush like crazy? I managed like 20k over the course of 4 days. Including the last day where I wrote over 7k! Can't you believe that? I still can't. I've still got a bit of story to go of course, which means I'll have to find some energy to actually pound out a conclusion. I want that free proof copy this year.

Only downside to hitting December is that it means I really need to start focusing on any Christmas knitting I want to get done. I have one item that I have to get done because the recipient knows about it. This person is rather picky, so it was just safer to ask about colors and patterns. Of course, that was months ago and there's not a lot that's been done on it since then. Thank goodness it's technically being worked on by two people, but I've done the most. Then again, the amount of work done total is rather pitiful so I guess it doesn't count. Other than that, I'm probably going to stick with small things for everyone. My hands actually still ache a bit from my 20k sprint, not to mention like 3 weeks of writing with a pen when I'm so not used to that.

I've also decided to start an "Obnoxious Christmas Sweater" for myself. There's been a few threads on Ravelry that were talking about them, and I just couldn't get it out of my head. I'm not going to stress about finishing it in time, but it would be cool to wear the thing to Christmas breakfast with the family. I'm not following a pattern, just basing it off a store bought sweater I love.