Game review: Trivial Pursuit - Bring On The 90s Edition

Doesn't everyone love a good game of Trivial Pursuit? I don't get to play the board game very often so I was really excited when I saw Trivial Pursuit - Bring on the 90s Edition on Big Fish Games. The game plays like any typical Trivial Pursuit game. In the one player edition, you play against a teddy bear. I chose to play the Intermediate level but it was still really easy. I managed to win two full games before the 60-minute trial finished. While the game was enjoyable, it was pretty boring by the second game. Every move has an animation that you are unable to turn off or skip past. The teddy bear throws a little tantrum every time you get a question correct or he gets one wrong. These aren't really enough to make you want to quit mid-game but you definitely get your fill of them by the end of the first game. At least the questions in this version are good. They are perfect for those of us that were too young in the 80s to full enjoy that edition of the game.

Give the game a try. That first round is always entertaining. Just don't expect this to be a game you'll play over and over again.

Favorite Friday

I always seem to run out of things to say on Friday. So I have decided to start a new weekly feature. Favorite Friday. Every Friday I will post a video that I really like. It may be a music video; it may be a performance by an awesome band/artist; it may be something silly. Whatever I happen to come across that I like a lot. The first video I would like to post is a performance of Perfect Blue by L'arc~en~Ciel at their Grand Cross Conclusion concert in 1999. I absolutely love this song and I think is an awesome performance:

Dancewear

I haven't talked about it a lot on here but I dance. Not club dancing or anything. I'm currently taking tap classes on Monday nights. When I was in high school, I took jazz. And when I was really young, I took both tap and ballet. My daughter is currently taking a tap and a ballet class as well. So I've bought my fair share of dancewear. I seem to remember having to wear big ugly tutu's for class when I was a kid. However, my daughter ballet class outfit is just a simple pink leotard with a pink skirt. I wouldn't really call it a tutu because tutu makes you think of a lot of nylon netting. This is just like a skirt with enough room for her to move. It's a lot nicer than anything I had to wear. I'm jealous.

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Music review: Do As Infinity - Get Yourself

Artist: Do As Infinity Members: Tomiko Van, Ryo Owatari, Dai Nagao Album: Deep Forest Release date: 9/19/01

English translation: Losing myself, I grope around in darkness... It's all reckless trial and error.

I wonder how everyone else is doing?

Let's get yourself -- Let it reverberate, your soul at its utmost limits. Try again -- Break that wall down again and again.

Getting what I deserve, being forsaken -- Changing myself now is better late than never.

Are we OK just being here?

Let's get yourself -- Scream until you break down and Change your way -- Head into the changing future from your past.

Let's get yourself -- Let it reverberate, your soul at its utmost limits. Try again -- Break that wall down again and again.

Let's get yourself -- Scream until you break down and Change you way -- Head into the changing future from your past. About the song: Definitely not one of my favorite DAI songs. It has a good sound but it's a bit strange. A lot of DAI's songs have this smoothness to them that is missing here. The song is a little on the jerky side which makes it difficult to get wrapped up it. This would be one of those songs that you put on when you don't really want to listen to the actual song but you need something upbeat to keep you going.

Christmas cards

It's that time of year again! When everyone starts collecting addresses and buying their Christmas cards. At my full time day job, we've already bought our corporate holiday cards. I believe we got Patriotic Christmas Cards this year. Luckily, I'm not the one in charge of purchasing the annual holiday cards and gifts for our clients. The Gallery Collection is having a Christmas cards scholarship contest for high school and college students. The contest runs until January 15, 2008. You can submit artwork, photographs and computer graphics for your entry. I know I have some creative readers out there. I hope some of you qualify for this contest. It would be really neat to know someone who made the artwork on a greeting card.

Not Just Mama!

Tina, who is a really awesome Australian stay-at-home mom, runs NotJustMama.net. With a husband and five kids running around, she has the typical "I'm more than just so-and-so's mom!" syndrome that I think all mothers go through. (I know I have!) So she started her blog to help her remember who she is. I wish her a lot of luck. Not just with finding herself but also taking care of five kids full time!

Game review: Val'Gor - Dark Lord of Magic

A couple of days ago, I played Val'Gor - Dark Lord of Magic. This is a Spot The Differences game with a couple of mini-games tossed in. Some of the mini-games include putting a puzzle together and word searches. I really did not like this game. As a matter of fact, I disliked it so much that I didn't even finish the 60-minute trial version. I quit at about the 30-minute mark. Some of the Spot The Differences parts aren't too bad but some of the levels are almost impossible. There are "cursed" levels where Val'Gor shows up and makes both pictures pitch black. While this makes a hidden object game a little more difficult, it makes trying to find differences between two pictures impossible. You have to memorize the pictures in order to figure out where the little tiny difference is. And since the difference is usually a shadow, the blackness of the level makes it frustrating to play. There must be some other way to make this type of game fun and exciting without driving the player away.

Vacations on the beach

I absolutely love traveling. Sadly, I don't get to do it nearly as often as I'd like to. I think taking a trip for some Egypt holidays would be pretty cool. I've never been outside the United States so pretty much any trip to another country would be interesting for me. How awesome would it be to be relaxing on a beach in Greece? Then again, my husband doesn't really like warm weather so he'd probably hate a week on a beach. Though it's not like we'd spend the entire week being beach bums. There's always shopping and sight-seeing and all that fun touristy stuff. I can't wait until we're in a better spot financially so we can travel all over the place.

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JDorama review: Hanazakari no Kimitachi e

Title: Hanazakari no Kimitachi e Also known as: HanaKimi Translation: For You In Full Blossom Broadcast date: 7/3/07 - 9/18/07 Genre: Romantic comedy Cast: Horikita Maki, Oguri Shun, Ikuta Toma Plot: Ashiya Mizuki (Horikita Maki) is a Japanese girl living in America. When her idol, athlete Sano Izumi (Oguri Shun), stops competing in the high jump, she moves to Japan to attend his all-boy high school in order to make him jump again. What is good: Ikuta Toma steals absolutely every scene that he is in. What is bad: It seems that Oguri Shun can only play one type of character. Letter rating: A Overall: I really enjoyed watching HanaKimi. While I started watching the show because it starred Oguri Shun, Ikuta Toma stole my heart. He was able to pull off goofy yet heart-warming at the same time. I'd like to see him in a ton of other projects. I was a little disappointed in Oguri Shun's performance. I've seen a couple of his roles now and they all seem to be exactly the same - a cute yet distant loner. It would be nice if we could try something a bit different for once. Sadly, I don't have much to say about Horikita's Ashiya. Sure, the character was determined and charismatic but she just didn't seem to come together totally. It was almost as if we, the audience, were missing something about her.

I would like to see a special episode though. I won't give away the ending for the show but it definitely leaves an opening for an awesome one-shot special. This is definitely a show that everyone should check out.

Game review: Fashion Fits!

I wasn't planning on playing Fashion Fits! based on just the name. It sounds like some sort of fashion designer game. Well, it's not. I decided that I had to jump into the game and if it turned out to be terrible, I'd at least be able to warn you about it. Fashion Fits! is a time management game based on the exciting world of retail. Your heroine, Francie, gets a job selling clothes at a big box store. You get to do thrilling things like stock the floor, empty the fitting rooms of leftover merchandise and ring up customer purchases on the register. Unlike a normal retail peon, you do get to make choices on upgrades for the store. However, some of the upgrades seem to give you more work to do.

While this isn't a bad game, it isn't particularly exciting either. It's basically the same annoying jobs you can get in real life without getting money in your pocket. There are different types of customers which, obviously, require various levels of service. A lot of the customers leave clothes in the dressing room for you to clean up while a few of the customers pick what they want and try to get out as soon as possible. It's your job to try to make sure that you, as the only employee of the store, can make everyone happy while keeping the floor stocked with product. I found it rather difficult to juggle absolutely everything. You can upgrade the floor displays to hold more stock and you can add more fitting rooms but that really just leaves you with more displays to fill and fitting rooms to clean. None of the upgrades I was offered included hiring an extra employee. You can make Francine walk faster but that doesn't accomplish a whole lot when the sales floor is filled with demanding customers.

You might want to give the game a try if you like time management games. It is possible that I just hate retail so much that it has seeped into my opinion of it. However, I don't think I've ever had to work a busy sales floor on my own without any help from anyone. That would completely suck and this game proves it.