For those Doctor Who fans in the United States, last night was the premiere of The Sarah Jane Adventures on the SciFi channel. People who have watched the original series of Doctor Who know Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen) as the companion for the Third and Fourth incarnations of The Doctor. After she left The Doctor, Sarah Jane was back to everyday normal life. Can a companion go back to "normal" life? Sarah Jane decided that she would help aliens who have crash landed on Earth instead. The first episode of the series ran for an hour and a half. Supposedly, people say that the show is "kiddified." However, I didn't find that to be true. Yes, the show is not as dark as Doctor Who but then again Sarah Jane isn't a TimeLord nor is she the last of her race. It's not as sexually charged as Torchwood but then again Sarah Jane said she couldn't find a man who was better than The Doctor. There are still aliens and gadgets and fighting. They are all just done in Sarah Jane's way. (I thought the Sonic Lipstick was cute!) I'm looking forward to future episodes and I hope that the show doesn't get written off as "childish" or something.
A new newsletter for TGW
The Geek Within has a newsletter over at Yahoo Groups but I am terrible at updating it. I was thinking about giving Zookoda a try. Supposedly they are aimed directly at bloggers, unlike Yahoo Groups which is better for discussion groups. However, my problem is that I just forget to write a news letter and I'm not particularly sure what I want to say when I do sit down to write it. I mean, all my content is on the website so I don't want to just copy/paste what I write here. That would be detrimental to the whole idea of driving traffic to the website. I suppose I don't really have anything to lose by giving Zookoda a try, right? At best, I love the service and everyone will know when to come back to the website to read new content. At worst, I hate it and delete my account. It does look like Zookoda is a part of PayPerPost, which is a service I like even though I haven't used it in a long time. From what I could tell, PPP had a good idea of what would help bloggers become successful businesspeople.
Here is the sign-up form for my subscription, though it will take me a little while to figure out how to put any content into the subscription. Be the first to sign-up and....see if I can figure this out....
Hopefully this will be a lot better than the Yahoo Groups. I think I can customize it to update by itself, which will be a LOT easier for me. I know I'll forget to do it if I have to manually update it. Cross your fingers for me!
Game review: Escape The Museum
While it may not seem like it, I did stop playing casual video games for a couple of days. That meant that I had a lot to catch up on. I decided to start with Escape The Museum, a hidden object game. This was probably the most interesting hidden object games I have played in a long time. Instead of just being a straight-forward game requiring you to find a list of objects in a location, there are different levels to each location. Your character has been trapped in a museum by an earthquake and she is trying to get to her daughter, located in a different area of the museum. Unfortunately, parts of the museum have been badly damaged by the quake and, therefore, you need to figure out a way to get to the next room. This is the part that makes the game interesting. You do get a 'shadow list' - where your list is just shadows of the objects you need - of objects that you need to open the door. In some cases, it's the key to the room; in others, the objects work together to lift a heavy object out of the way. Of course, some of the objects are needed to interact with objects in the room in order to find ANOTHER object. For example, you'll need to find a coin to use in the soda machine to get a soda to spray on an electrical box to short out the door lock. See? You need to do a little more thinking for this game!
There are also traditional hidden object pieces in the game. The museum curator will call you on your cell phone asking you to save some of the museum pieces. Then you will get your traditional list of objects to search for. I found this part to be a little more difficult than other hidden object games. Mostly because some of the items were so small, it was difficult to see them - especially in some of the messier rooms. But you can always call for help if you need it.
I thought this was a really great game. It kept all of the aspects of a hidden object game but changed them up a bit to make it more interesting. This isn't a game that kids would be able to play easily. However, it is a good game if you are an adult looking for a little more oomph in your hidden object game.
Favorite Friday
Most people are familiar with the term "Rick Roll" nowadays. It's where you click on the link to a video and, instead of getting the video you were expecting, you get the music video for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." For me, the funniest thing about this fad is that my mother owned that album and she loved it. So, in honor of my mother and Rick Astley, today's Favorite Friday video is the VH1 Pop-Up Video version of "Never Gonna Give You Up."
Timesheet software
If you run your own business, it's important to track expenses and how you are using your time. There's a free timesheet software out there called, duh, Timesheet. Here's a link for you to read some Timesheet success stories. I think this would be a great way to track your projects. Much easier than just keeping an Excel file or writing it on a dry erase board. Though I haven't personally tried it out. Give it a go then tell me what you think! Maybe I'll start using it for my own projects!
Game review: Doggie Dash
Yet another game from the makers of Diner Dash. This time around it's Doggie Dash. You play one of two new business owners, Walter or Scarlett. The two have joined forces to open a pet grooming store. It is your job to make the pets pretty while growing your business. This game plays a lot like Paradise Pet Salon. You start out with two bath stations, two cutting stations and two ribbon stations. Since you already have all the tools you need for the business, you simply need to upgrade them each level. Yes, you can even upgrade the employees so they will move faster. In some of the higher levels, you can purchase items to keep the pets/customers happy while they wait their turn.
I found the beginning levels very easy to play. A little too easy, really. I was able to get gold stars on every level, which is nice but a little tedious after awhile. I want to be able to really work to get the gold star. However, this is off-set by the next store level being rather difficult. I'm actually stuck in the game because there are too many pets coming in and none of my stations move fast enough to accommodate them before they get angry. Perhaps I need to start the entire level over again so I can re-upgrade the stations but that's a little ridiculous. You should be able to pass a level no matter which stations you choose to upgrade first.
Looking at it in a general sense, the game is just OK. I think it just needs a few tweaks before it can be a great game. Instead of just being able to upgrade the stations, give the option to add a third station when the customer load gets heavy. Stop having so many cranky pets that require immediate attention before they leave the store. Get rid of the pieces to entertain the customers. The employees don't have time to use them anyway. Or, even better, add an additional employee to help with the overload. The game would be a lot better with just a few of these little changes. Until then, I'll stick with Diner Dash instead.
TV review: Secret Talents of the Stars
I haven't watched a reality TV show in awhile. When I saw the previews for Secret Talents of the Stars, I just knew I had to watch it. The basic premise is that some famous people have some talents that we don't know about. Last night at 10PM was the premiere episode. The first episode featured ice skater Sasha Cohen, country singer Clint Black, actor George Takei and singer Mya. Before I talk about their talents, I really want to question what gets counted as a "talent." It seems that it's just something you can do that you aren't known for. I'm not sure that some of these things count as actual talents but let's continue.
Sasha Cohen starts off the show. Her talent is a contortionist routine. She's very bendy so she gets paired up with professional Chinese contortionists and they do a routine. It's nice but rather boring. Next up is George Takei. He's going to sing some country music. Sadly, he massacres "On The Road Again." Poor George. I wanted him to do good. Clint Black is next with a comedy routine. Every performer gets a mentor to work with. Clint was paired up with Garry Shandling. I was very surprised to see that Clint was actually pretty funny. Granted, he needs to work on his delivery a bit but, c'mon, this is the first time he's performed stand-up in front of a crowd. He did really well considering how difficult that can be. The night ends with Mya's tap dancing talent. She did OK but this wasn't anything particularly amazing.
It is interesting to see stars do something different. However, I'm not sure that being bendy is a talent. The same goes for singing country music badly. (Sorry George, I can't see you singing any country song well.) I think there are 6 more episodes to go and I want to see what other talents get rolled out. I also want to see what will happen in the next round. Will Sasha do the same routine or will she work on getting better? Let's see how long this show can keep my interest.
Investing money
A couple of my friends do the stock market thing. I've thought about looking for a futures broker to discuss any opportunities we might have. However, I keep thinking that we don't have enough money to invest. It's a difficult situation. You hear "experts" saying that you need to invest your money properly and that you should be able to squeeze extra money out of your paycheck but I don't know how that is possible. Not all of us make tons of money. Some of us just scrape by and I know I'm not the only one. This will just be another one of those things that sits on the back burner in my head.
Game review: Magic Farm
On one hand, I had a lot of fun playing Magic Farm. On the other hand, looking back on it, I didn't do a whole lot while I was playing it. Basically, your parents are missing. In order to travel to various towns looking for them, you need to raise some funds. To raise the money to travel, you plant three different types of plants, raise them, harvest their flowers and sell bouquets. While this sounds like a lot of fun, and it is fairly enjoyable, it gets very tedious. It's difficult to raise enough money to move onto the next level because you need to keep spending your money on water and upgrades. In most games, upgrades will help you make money more quickly. That doesn't seem to happen here. It took me the entire 60 minute demo just to get to the second level. I should have been able to get a lot farther than that.
I'm sad that it takes so long to get through one level on the game because it was fun. I liked being able to grow plants and figure out which plants make the best bouquets. However, the game could use some improvements. Maybe make the water or the upgrades less expensive. It's annoying to have all of my money go to keeping the plants alive instead of going to find my parents. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed for the inevitable sequel.
Working towards being a stay-at-home mom!
I'm not sure that I have talked about wanting to be a stay-at-home mom before. My daughter recently turned six and in September she'll be starting first grade. While I don't think I'll be able to be a full-time stay-at-home mom by then, I do need to find some way to be at home before and after school. I think SocialSpark might be able to help me reach that goal. Obviously I need to find some way to make up for whatever wages I lose by staying at home. Even if I take a part-time job, I won't be able to make as much money as I would working full-time. This is where Social Spark comes in. I can make money posting here on The Geek Within while being able to be at home when my daughter needs me. That would definitely be awesome.
Who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky and make enough money to work at home full-time. That would be even better because then I could fix up our house. I know I keep talking about it but we haven't had the time to do it yet. Right now, both my husband and I work long hours and just don't have the energy to work on the house when we get home or on the weekends. We just want to relax. However, if I can be at home all the time, I can get a lot done.
I know, I know. I'm a dreamer. But I will work hard at this. It would be really good for my daughter if I could achieve this goal. Not to mention that we'd save a lot of money on after-school care for her. Here's to being a stay-at-home mom!
