Saw this video today. Funny stuff! Games invading real life and getting points for everything

My wife and I, like many, have a Nintendo Wii. I am no expert, but I like to think I am pretty good at some of the games for the Fit etc.  Certainly this is no hard core console – gamers seeking groundbreaking graphics, action,  and online play go the direction of the Xbox and PS3 (btw, I SUCK at Xbox, just ask my friend Ross! Its kind of embarrassing actually…)

Today I saw something that I have to ask my self “Why”. Sure I like the Wii, but even if I was super rich, like Billionaire status, I have to say I would most likely refrain from purchasing the £300,000 Golden Wii.

What is this world coming too!?!?

This is just a brief review, my opinion, of Monopoly City Streets. I know I have missed a bunch of stuff that I wanted to say when I first thought of writing this, but here goes anyways.

When I first heard about Monopoly City Streets I was interested and looked forward to giving it a try. After the first couple days of chaos with the site being down and simply not operational, Hasbro finally got their you know together and the system started to run smoothly – but not without issues.

The issues in the game have brought me to the point where I have completely stopped playing, and have permanently turned my back on the game.

Here are the reasons I stopped playing after such a short while:

Glitches in Game
I had an offer from another player to purchase my best street. When I clicked on the offer I was never given an decline/accept option, the link merely took me to the street. After 7 days (had I kept playing) the user would have automatically got my street as I had no way to decline the offer. All offers are automatically accepted after 7 days if no action is taken.

Bonus Buildings and Hazards.
In the rules it states the bonus buildings protect streets from hazards and bulldozers, however, other players can still bulldoze your bonus buildings, a contradiction to the unclear rules. On my biggest money making street, I had a bonus building, and the next time I logged back in that building had been destroyed and several hazards had been placed on my street.

The only way to remove a hazard is to bulldoze it via luck of the draw and collecting the proper chance card. Getting chance cards is completely random, and I went a few days without any bulldozer cards (and I needed 3 of them). This frustration made me say, screw it, I just wont play any more. After all, why on earth would I spend my time playing a frustrating game, there is no point, I’ll spend my time doing something that doesn’t annoy me.

If the bonus building bulldozer issue is a glitch, then it needs to be fixed, or if this is supposed to be allowed, it should be clarified in the rules. In my opinion, that bonus building should keep the street safe forever, period.

Cheaters
After only a few days, there were people with literally trillions of dollars, yet they owned little to no property – this is simply not possible with out cheating, and unless these holes are filled by Hasbro, I see no point in playing a pointless game.

Here are a few of my suggestions

• My wife had an idea that I kinda of agree with – rather than getting rent income automatically from the bank each day, why not have rent taken from competitors. Every day each player could randomly be sent to a random street (either globally, or locally) and required to pay rent on that street to the competitor. This would make the game a bit more like actual monopoly.
• Make those bonus buildings immune to bulldozers
• Stop the cheaters – not sure how, but find a way, they ruin the game
• Change the “offer” system so that it actually works, when the “decline” option does not show itself, it is incredibly frustrating
• Add a “search for user” option within the leader board, rather than just the top 10.

So that in a nutshell is why I am no longer playing Monopoly City Streets. Some of you may think I am just a baby, and should suck it up – games need hazards etc. Sure, that’s true – to a point, but when it comes as far as to become frustrating, why bother? Life is too short – games are supposed to be enjoyable -  a way to escape and think about something other than the grind of every day life – when the game starts to frustrate me more than everyday life does, its just time out of my life that I could be spending out on the golf course, kayaking, or simply spending quality time with my family. As Eric Cartman would say, “Screw you game, I’m going home”.

So there may be a few readers out there who can actually solve a Rubik’s cube. I for one am not one of them.

As a kid growing up I always had one, and the only way I knew how to solve it was to disassemble it and put it back together the right way – not exactly a challenge.

I have recently seen some videos online that show how to solve the cube with fancy algorithms etc, but I must say, even after watching a couple of them I still don’t get it. I guess I just don’t have the right brain for it – fair enough.

Now there is a new spherical version that is about to be released this summer. I wonder if it will have the staying power and develop the cult following of its predecessor. One things for sure, I will probably at some point own one, and I will also probably never be able to solve it.

So, for all you rock paper scissors fans out there, have you ever wanted to play but had nobody around willing? It can be a rough life when all you want to do is rock paper scissors your time away but have nobody to play with.

Well, now thanks to a few amazing and wonderful people, the game of rock paper scissors has been transformed and is now available in solitare format! Thats right, the game you know and love can now be played all alone! One catch though, the scissors are broken, so long live the lobster!

Go try for your self over at http://www.paperrocklobster.com/

Well, I am not going to go deep into this one, but the NRDC recently released a study noting that they estimated that gamers use up approximately $1 billion worth of energy per year on gaming alone – yes you heard right, $1 billion!

But hold on there just a minute. A report over at cnet says this figure is rather bloated, noting that NRDC estimated that 50% of gamers leave their consoles on 24 hours a day. What? 24 hours a day? Really? Who on earth does that?

I am not much of a gamer, but I do enjoy playing with my Wii now and then, usually for an hour at a time, (that’s my Nintendo Wii for you perverts out there), I can’t imagine it being on 31. (31, you know, 24 + 7 = 31… you don’t watch ‘Two and a Half Men’ do you?).

Regardless, I don’t argue that a ton of power is gobbled up by gamers, but what about all those other power hungry people, like those using electric lawnmowers, they have to account for something – unplug that drain on the grid and burn some fossil fuels already!

When I was a kid I always loved Lego. Usually I would build a little Lego house and a Lego car, then smash the Lego car through the house – hours of fun! Sometimes I would even build things and put them on the tracks of my electric train set and crash the train into them. What is it with boys and destruction? One of my biggest challenges was to use ALL my blocks to build something, but I always seemed to have a couple left over with no purpose.

Well, some guys over in the Netherlands have used their childhood toys to create a working digital safe. You can take a look at their website if you like, but its not in English, so if you’re like me, it won’t help much.

Their safe is complete with an electronic display and motion sensor alarm. Using five double digit codes to open it, the 305 billion possible combinations make it incredibly difficult to hack.

It may be secure enough to keep your Lego safe from your little brother, but I’m sure a swift kick, or a few hits from a hammer would crack this safe. Regardless, it is still very cool, and far beyond anything I have ever built with my Lego.

Take a look at the Lego Safe in the following YouTube Video:

A few weeks ago I posted about a Hidato puzzle from Discover Magazine and how I had found an extra solution not noted in the magazine, making 5 total solutions not the originally noted 4. (See my original Hidato post here, along with the reader comments)

Shortly after my post I had a comment posted by “matt” noting an extra spot where the 16 could fall, with the solution. (The location being the third spot in the top row)

Wow, a 6th solution to the original problem.

Then, just the other day, “JM” left a comment noting 5 more solutions all placing the 16 in that third spot. So, at least at this point, there are a total of 6 possible locations for the #16, with at least 6 total solutions placing the 16 in that third spot.

For such a new blog, I am surprised I have had so many comments posted on this topic – I love it! Keep them coming!

If you have any other possible answers to this puzzle, please send them over! I am curious to see if there are any other solutions. I can’t find any, but I am far from a puzzle expert.

I was reading the November 2008 issue of Discover Magazine. I really enjoy this magazine and find it quite interesting, even though many of the concepts they discuss are far beyond my level of education.

Discover has a section titled “Mind Games” where thy list various puzzles etc. This month they focused on the relatively new number puzzle “Hidato”. The idea is to connect all the given numbers with consecutive numbers. Numbers must be adjacent to each other connecting either vertically, diagonally, or horizontally.

One of their puzzles provided this example, and asked how many possible locations are there for the missing #16.

Hidato Puzzle - Click to Enlarge

The very first location I discovered, did not appear in their solutions. They state there are four different possible squares where the #16 can be placed. Ahh, they were wrong. There are at least 5! Here is their answer:

Hidato Puzzle Answers - Click to Enlarge

Here is my 5th solution they didn’t think of!

Hidato Extra Solution

Doesn’t this make me feel smart! (I am not posting this to say “in your face discover” – I actually love the magazine and have a subscription. I just thought, hey, this is something I can write about )

I always wanted to try my hand at the stock market, but simply did not have anywhere near enough cash to actually try it – not disposable cash anyways. The other day I saw a commercial advertising a free stock contest at stockstar.ca, so I figured, why not!

Their top prize is $25,000 and goes to the person who makes the most “fantasy dollars” between Sept 1 2008 and Jan 30 2009. I didn’t think I had a chance to win, but had to give it a try – after only a week I am giving up – cant seem to make a dime, and don’t have the time to invest to try and make it work. To date my stocks have turned my starting $100,000 into $95,987. That gives me a ranking of 3060 out of 10120 – may not be the worst but I guess I better not change careers!

First place is a guy by the name of “risingstar” and has a portfolio value of $648,267 – to do that in only a month I am left to wonder if he is a stock broker by profession.