1 Apr

• Hey, April Fools backlash backlash. You know what really needs defending? The status quo. Somehow it's always in imminent danger!
• Stingray X-Ray: http://imgur.com/RZZQt

2 Apr

• Roommates made too many pancakes. Again! There's something about pancakes that makes people consistently overestimate how many they want.
• What The Barber of Seville was missing was some dude playing rock beats on a trap kit: http://bit.ly/et16N0
• Robot bird: http://bit.ly/fBrQ1X

3 Apr

• "Firm responsible for running the Deepwater Horizon has given its top executives bonuses for its 'best year' for safety." http://j.mp/eKFlMU
• Growing up ugly: http://bit.ly/hqqEI0 -- "I didn't get the life I wanted. I got something way better."

4 Apr

• http://i.imgur.com/vuMAQ.jpg -- The baby has laser eyes. I'd panic. I'd also put a colon between "about" and "babies."
• How to meet the girl of your dreams, using only a falconer's glove: http://i.imgur.com/qeNtz.png
• How to [trivially] sharpen and reuse disposable razor blades: http://bit.ly/fVxEvz
• Jonathan Blow talking about and demonstratively playing Braid and prototypes for an hour and a half: http://bit.ly/gfQNNS
• I can't believe "copy con" still works under Vista. (I can't believe I sometimes still use it.)
• Four NES Mario games, one controller: http://bit.ly/gmf9aQ (Tool-assisted run.)
• Remember the Project Dolphin distributed-narcissism project? No? Well, imagine this, but 10 years ago and now-defunct: http://whatpulse.org/
• Project Dolphin's client couldn't see keystrokes going to a DOS window. That's why I switched to Emacs from QBasic's built-in text editor.
• By far the best feature of an "encyclopedia anyone can edit" is that it can include everything that anyone cares about. Why not let it?

5 Apr

• Reducing Bribery by Legalizing the Giving of Bribes: http://bit.ly/hbNPP5
• Man, I remember Another World as this super-epic cinematic experience, but it's 15 minutes long if you don't die: http://bit.ly/guGtjG
• Final Form dudes give an interview about Jamestown over at Game Set Watch: http://bit.ly/fPZvyL

6 Apr

• Photos: Golden Ray migration. http://bit.ly/gkprEZ
• People use the minor third interval in speech to express sadness: http://bit.ly/bJ6Q23
• How the music industry gets their piracy data: http://bit.ly/hnzCmB
• "When our bedrooms were once haunted," a music video created in Flipnote Studio for the DSi: http://bit.ly/hxW7mZ

7 Apr

• This Gamasutra article must've been written for, like, three people in the world: http://bit.ly/g6EO7j
• @westquote If the other half turns out to also be plutonium, don't follow the assembly instructions.
• When Harry Met Sally 2, starring Billy Crystal, Helen Mirren, and Mike Tyson: http://bit.ly/gUwBtY
• "How To Steal Like An Artist (And 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me)" [about making art] http://bit.ly/gPwPu2

8 Apr

• The Wason selection task: People suck at formal logic except "when the rule has to do with cheating and privilege." http://j.mp/dDX2dY
• Two-part interview with Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford about the creation of Star Control 2: http://bit.ly/i9zOxp http://bit.ly/gDPQNr
• Finally set up a proper dentist appointment. I gotta say, I'm almost going to miss compulsively tonguing my fucked-up half-tooth.
• http://bit.ly/gJGWob -- "Our artist just quit. Instead of hiring a replacement, I bought this CD-ROM of royalty-free animated clip-art!"

9 Apr

• The unexpected consequences of building your own Huey Hog: http://bit.ly/fvyRlo
• BART service apparently suspended indefinitely due to "police action"? I gave myself like 45 minutes of margin to get to the airport.
• I guess by "indefinitely" they meant for a minute and a half.
• In San Diego until the 25th.

10 Apr

• Never trust anyone over 32.

11 Apr

• Today's can't-fail startup idea: dentist specializing in bling teeth made of LifeGems. "Got my whole family in here!"
• If you don't give your Cofagrigus a nickname, the Pokemon naughty word filter won't let you take him online.
• Similarly, Rock Band 2 wouldn't let me call my band "The Green Grapes." (But "The Green Grapists" was A-OK.)
• Tomorrow's can't-fail startup idea of the day: middleware company that maintains a list of non-naughty words so you can *not* filter them.
• New French law makes it a terrible idea to do business with a French web site, or to start a web business in France: http://j.mp/fnLjT4

12 Apr

• You've heard of MagiQuest, the PvE, high-fantasy re-skin of laser tag? You got your LARP in my local shopping mall! http://j.mp/egQt64
• MagiQuest is probably much less well-designed and/or written than, e.g. WoW, but much more appealing, because of the way it's structured:
• It takes, like, one hour a month, stuffed with awesome, to be looked-forward-to. Instead of drowning you in a background noise of near-fun.
• Moot point, though. You know how as an adult male, you can't go anywhere near children without being excoriated as a pedophile? Yeah, that.
• New Humble Indie Bundle; this one is mostly Trine: http://bit.ly/htGWyX
• Watching Alex play Trine. Was just thinking I really ought to buy it, then remembered I already had.

15 Apr

• "The Best of Sexual Harassment Stock Photography" http://bit.ly/i0ftXe
• http://j.mp/hCCbKD I wouldn't have thought it necessary to put my name and address on a wall safe in case it got lost, but what did I know?
• For your consideration, a penguin being tickled: http://bit.ly/dGhucs
• Dueling La Jolla restaurant bands outside mom's window. Lounge singer in the nearby italian place; rock band in the bar across the street.

16 Apr

• The potato ARG is neat, but mostly I'm twitching at the idea of hearing another pastry-related catchphrase repeated for the next two years.
• (Also, not to rain on the parade further, but Skynet was supposed to become self-aware in 1997, not three days from now.)
• On the other hand, clever variations on established memes are always welcome: http://bit.ly/gPSfv7
• I would've sworn this gun range would sell me earplugs, but nooo.
• Every dude in the San Diego metal scene -- or maybe just every dude at this concert, I guess -- has the same build, haircut, hat and gait.
• Makes it hard to find the guy I know here who has that build, hat, haircut and gait.
• Some of my best friends are metal fans! They just all look the same is all.
• Joke's on me, he wasn't even wearing the hat today.

17 Apr

• So we get Portal 2 a whole two hours early? Does the lack of results for all the potato-sack marathoning seem like bad PR to anyone else?
• Not that I can play it anyway. If I had my desktop with me I'd probably be collecting potatoes, and be actually annoyed rather than bemused.
• Just a little sleep deprivation adds up to serious cognitive impairment, and you don't notice from the inside: http://j.mp/eX9eAD

18 Apr

• http://j.mp/dXtBb3 "The two biggest videogame publishers have been unofficially-but-officially sabotaging traditional game industry press."

19 Apr

• Rands' Summer Intern Field Guide: http://bit.ly/i0CV2c
• Like genetic diversity, diversity of phonemes in a population's language decreases with distance from Africa: http://bit.ly/fLecMV
• Portal 2 co-op was awesome until they put spoilers for the single-player campaign in the credits!
• So far single-player is pretty sweet too. Not perfect like Portal was, but a lot more ambitious. (Why can't we be satisfied with perfect?)

20 Apr

• All three of Final Form Games discussing the design and development of Jamestown on a podcast: http://bit.ly/f1ukKs
• I'm pretty sure April 19th, 2011 isn't an actual date. It just doesn't ring right.

21 Apr

• The problem isn't so much that Dropbox *will* give your files to the government. The problem is that they *can*: http://bit.ly/hXaLWx
• Details on Mario 3DS: more Mario 64-like than the Galaxy series; out this year. http://bit.ly/ewvcmG
• Max Mathews, computer music pioneer, dead at 84: http://bit.ly/gjEqNu
• Your iPhone keeps track of where you've been: http://bit.ly/hqZ1t5

22 Apr

• "Appelsap is een non-alcoholische drank gemaakt van appels." I wonder if the Dutch Wikipedia page for water specifies it's non- alcoholic.

23 Apr

• Can't decide whether the first or the last moment of Portal 2 is the best gaming moment of the year.

25 Apr

• Girl on train saw my "going to try science" tee; told me about her 7-year-old daughter blowing up the bathroom with some chemical concoction

26 Apr

• The story that bridges the gap between Portal and Portal 2: http://bit.ly/eWqd0G
• All of Jordan Mechner's personal journal entries from 1985 to 1993, when he was making Prince of Persia: http://bit.ly/BAAvu
• Portal 2 spoilercast with writers Erik Wolpaw, Jay Pinkerton and Chet Faliszek: http://bit.ly/evIHhj
• http://j.mp/ecyDAb "[For Tron Legacy], I was asked to record myself using a unix terminal doing technologically feasible things."
• RT @mikelreparaz Just called bank to get PSN-linked debit card changed, and was told they'd been notified Friday it had been compromised. Did Sony know then?
• Out jogging. Stopped to pet a cat. Hipster-looking girl asks me to hold her bike and compliments my shirt as she kneels to tie a bootlace.
• Is this what the hu-mans call "flirting"? Should I start working on a line for the next time I hold someone's bike?
• "When Microsoft upped the 360's RAM to 512 megs, Bethesda literally threw a party. It was the happiest I've seen some people here ever."

27 Apr

• Commentary nodes are disappointingly sparse in Portal 2. Also, replaying feels like a chore in places. That never happened in the original.
• Portal's puzzles exactly covered the possibility space of one elegant mechanic. Portal 2 adds a bunch of mechanics and a bunch of filler.
• In other words, Portal 2 feels like a video game. That that's disappointing says a lot about the original.
• @thealawson That sounds like flirting material to me. I should have tried quoting it back at her.
• @mrasmus I tend to agree. Longer almost always means more filler, and less energy to make each individual moment perfect.
• (Come to think of it, part of what makes the commentary playthrough feel like a chore is that they turned off saving and checkpointing.)
• @mrasmus I sort of take issue with the very idea of long-form storytelling in games. I can't keep track of a story over 10 hours.
• @mrasmus I love Max Payne 2's writing, played it a dozen times, but I can't tell you even the broad strokes. ...Maybe that's a bad example.
• @thealawson I'm not, by my sense or your definition. Are there hipster forums I could go to for earnest advice about hipster flirting?
• @thealawson As long as I'm allowed to frame them as coming from someone other than myself.
• @thealawson I'm usually inclined to let cultures define themselves, but I'm honestly unsure if anyone self-identifies as a hipster.
• @thealawson Yeah, I'm still not sure how that happened! And just a little bitter that it didn't happen while I was still in high school.
• Squier strat guitar controller arrived suddenly. Maybe they sent me a "backordered" notice rather than a "now shipping" notice by mistake?
• Still need to get the MIDI adapter; I expected more warning.

28 Apr

• Computational double-entendre identification: http://bit.ly/mqnnAV
• Ribbon Hero 2: http://j.mp/eFcZeP "Very few gamification projects invest in the extensive prototyping necessary to identify their core loop"
• I wonder whether I'd get a discount on coffee from the "pour excess coffee here" bucket.
• Instead of just informing me I've plugged something into an audio jack, why not *play some audio*? Great feature of dumb audio jacks: audio.

29 Apr

• John Mellencamp's "Hurts So Good" started playing on the radio just as they injected the anesthetic.
• I'm guessing the perception of a root canal as the worst possible thing predates the invention of anesthetic. I mean, it wasn't *amazing*.

30 Apr

• Tonguing my new proto-tooth feels like plasticine.

On Twitter: @mogwai_poet