Shareware for the birthday...

Happy birthday to ladymondegreen and shipwright and metaplasmus...

Oh, and to me. For the next 10.5 months, fiddledragon and I are both prime. It's been a wonderful, if sometimes frantic, year, and a wonderful, if sometimes frantic, week. I have a number of very shiny projects in the pipeline that I'm really excited about (which is why I'm still awake right now).

My family has been really awesome in the gift department this year. My parents got me a shiny, adorable digital camera and have also ordered me (although I think technically that's for Chanukah) a shiny, adorable laptop. And, continuing the nerdity, what I've been getting myself has mostly been shareware games — or rather, a few weeks ago I was bored and downloaded a lot of indy shareware games, and this week I reminded myself that it's my birthday and if I like a game I should register it.

A couple of the games I really like are multiplayer games. Since these are indy shareware games, there aren't always random people online to play with, so in the interests of fun I'd like to encourage others to try them. In addition, one of the games features a quite significant volume discount for group orders. Here they are:

Once Upon a Time (no relation to the card game) is a fairy-tale themed four-player capture the flag princess game. Although realized in a real-time 3D adventure/combat idiom, its well-defined, compact, and balanced scenario plays like a board game. A typical match lasts 2-5 minutes. When you can't find four humans, decent AI players will automatically fill in. This game is available for Mac and PC. The free demo features unrestricted play on one map (the full game has four, plus a story/tournament mode), and the full game costs $15. I've already registered this game, and since the demo offers nearly unrestricted play, you may as well check it out.

Galcon is a fast-paced, real-time Risk-like game of conquering the galaxy — not the in-depth sort with tech development and economics, the quickie sort with fleets of ships zooming across the galaxy in a tide of conquest that's over in 5 minutes. From the disabled menu items taunting me with their shiny thumbnail screenshots, it looks like there are a lot of modes and fairly open-ended mod potential. This game is available for Mac, Linux, and PC. The demo allows play in the most basic mode, with multi-player access expiring after three days (which is a little bit annoying). Most interestingly, a quite significant volume discount is available on group orders of the full game, which is a primary reason for my making this post: the first copy is $20, the next two are $15 each, and any beyond that are just $10. Thus, the more of you buy this game, (a) the more people I can play with, and (b) the less we all pay — win-win! So, who's in?

Very unkosher deep-fried Chanukah party 12/8

Dear friends,

The month of Kislev is upon us, and that means that Chanukah is coming, and with it, in commemoration of the miracle of the oil, my annual excursion into the art of deep-frying. Last year, there was far too much food for two people to eat, and there easily could have been even more, so this year, you are invited to my first-ever...

Very Unkosher Deep-Fried Chanukah Party

When: Saturday December 8th, after Shabbat (including havdalah) (i.e. around 5:30)

Where: My apartment in Waltham, very near Brandeis

What: Festivities will begin with havdalah, the simple ritual marking the end of the Jewish Sabbath. Then, the wok will be heated up. Songs of the season will be sung, and games will be played, but, really, it's all about
the...

Food: Some selection of the following items will be immersed in 375-degree organic soybean oil for your eating pleasure:

* pappadums
* potato, winter squash, carrot, and beet chips, fries, and/or tempura
* tofu
* vegetarian wontons of various flavors
* fish tempura
* local, seasonally available, sustainably harvested cold-water shrimp

In the main round of deep-frying, the vegetarian items will be prepared first, and the shrimp last, for those who will eat food prepared in a non-kosher kitchen, but not food that has been fried in the very same oil as shrimp (which seems like a reasonable position to me). Almost all items will be wholly or partially local, organic, and/or fair trade, but (as with kashrut) no guarantee of overall purity with respect to any of these standards can be made for any particular item.

Some non-deep-fried items, in particular salad and gazpacho, will also be available.

For those concerned about the healthiness of deep-fried food, you should be aware that properly deep-fried food (which I hope mine is) absorbs very little oil while it is cooking, and is in fact much less oily than pan-fried food (like latkes).

If you would like to come, RSVP. If you are interested in bringing a
potluck item, including items-to-be-deep-fried, feel free to do so and
please let me know what you are thinking of bringing.

[ edit: Further updates will be sent out by email, so please include an email address if you RSVP here. Comments are now screened. ]